Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1891-08-20
Call in the Slanderers.

state are finding out that w. A. PETER,
Jerry Simpson, Mrs. Lease and other
political blatherskites have inflicted
such financial damage upon this state
as will require years to overcome, The
effect that their vile slanderers are
having upon the credit of Kansas is
fairly stated in the following extract
from the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Tele-
gram:
For the good of the state, Kansas
ought to muZzle PETER and that at
once. His calamity howl is running
the reputation of that state as deslr-
able abode. He is actually making the
people believe, and many outside OF
Kansas, that that state is about the
worst place on earth; that the inhabi-
tants are in a most pitiful condition;
that the state is plagued with floods,
droughts, grasshOppers and hot winds
and that the farmers can not possibly
make a living. 1t will be nothing
strange if people take him at his WORD
and give Kansas very wide berth.
Gen. J. H. Rice, one of the leaders
of the peoples party, has at last awak-
ened to see the irreparable damage
occasioned by this incessant calamity
hoWl'' and in column letter pub.
Iished in the Sunday Kansas City
Journal be violently refutes the sland-
erers and he says of the statement that
''the state of Kansas was bankrupt ana
her people ruined;" that it is, "Dot
only a monstrOus, slanderOus falsehood
but was an uncslled for and mean,
devilish libel upon the people of a
whole state, which if uttered against
an individual would consign him to the
four walls of prison, and which ought
to consign these defamers to infamy. !"
In addressing one of these calamity
hOwlers Mr.. Rice says: 1.-THE, total
Indebtedness of the state is less than
81 ,OOO, 600 and the people of Kansas
are neither bankrupt nor ruined, and
cannot become so only from the
frowns of providence, that will blight
our crops, or the folly of political harlots
like yourself who would utterly destroy
our credit for a political argument to
bolster party "Our people do owe
about $50, coo, 900. They will pay one
half of this in the next year."
At a recent meeting of the Elk
county alliance the preamble. to the
resolutions adopted opened thus:
Whereas the loan companies and the
banks have refused to loan any more
money in Kansas" The cry of
breakers ahead" was never more
important and significant than this
arraignment of his party leaders by
Gen. Rice, and this declaration of the
Elk county alliance. The Kansas
farmer cannot borrow money because
these INSCRIPTIONS political charlatans
have destroyed the'credit of the Kan
sas farmers. Loan companies aud
banks have heard with proper alarm
the declarations of PETER and Simpson
setting forth the bankruptcy of the
people and their inability as well as
indispositiun to pay their debts. They
have listened with interest to their
rawlings against banks, capital and cor
porations. They have heard with
alarm the rantings of alliance judges
of district courts proclaiming that no
mortgages should be foreclosed while
they occupied the judicial bench, and
they have decided that it is discreet TO
take no further risks in Kansas. Not
withstanding the state everywhere
grOans under its crops; drouth has
been unheard of; fruits were never
so abundant and prices of farm pro
ducts are advancing daily, yet there is
greater financial stringency than ever
before. This is simply because capital
has become alarmed at the malicious
and outrageous falsehoods uttered
against our state by these political
accidents.
This is no partisan affair. ''Loan
companies and banks" are not political
institutions. On the contrary they
are nOn-paItisan to the last degree.
But the stable ones are also conserva-
tive in high degree. Neither is the
statement of our unfortunate condition
as TO credit partisan statement, it is
the declaration of an alliance conven-
ton publicly expressed. 1t is deplor-
able condition brought about by one
singleyear Of calamity bowling" The
agricultural interests of Kansas de-
mand that these political demagogues
be called in at once and gagged.
Straight Democracy in the South.
Covaral la,di..