Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-01-21
THE CHAMELEON sTATESMAN
OF KANSAS.

doSlSIeu Dy MS voice and vote. in the at
tainment of i'll gotten wealth, reveals
the eighteen per cent. interest ShyIock
OF Kansas, the Indifferent mortgage
forecloser, the inhuman evictor of our
unfortunate and poor, and the general
utility man of the New England ''gold
bugs In new role: i. e., that of a fawn-
ing, cringing sycophant, who while pos
ing eighteen years as a United States
senator, has not during the past thir-
teen years, uttered one syllable against
the calamitous evils of which he now
so bitterly complains; has not introduc-
ed or voted for one public measure seek
ing the amelioration of the poor and
distressed, for whom he now expresses
so much sympathy and love; but has in
this the eleventh hour, and in the face
of utter defeat of reelection, at the
hands of long suffering. patient PEG.
pie, whom he has never tired of cajol-
ing, decelving, flattering and misrepre-
senting, the audacity to tell the Amerl-
can nation that he attributes the pres
ent deplorable condition of our finan-
cial affairs, and the contraction of the
circulating media of the country, to the
decentralization act of 1873; and thanks
God that that bill was enacted before
he became member of the senate.
Where, we would ask, has this bril-
liant electrical light, to whom, during
the last campaign, our republican
friends of Kansas, were wont to point
with pride;" this encyclopedia of all
knowledge, past, present and to come,
hidden his BarthoIdic lamp oflntellect-
uality during all these years from 1878
to 1891; while so many statesmen of
less reputed calibre, experienced no
difficulty in solving the great mystery
that has just dawned upon the colossal
mind of our senior senator?
Where was he last summer when the
causes of financial depression were Just
as apparent as now? Where was he
when Mr.. Plumb, speaking from his
place in the senate chamber, Informed
the vice president, and the world at
large, that the circulating media of this
nation had been so far contracted under
the operation of the demonotary act OF
1873, as to leaye less than $500 per
capita afloat for the transaction of the
legitimate business of the country?
Did we hear then that Ingalls, was Ia
| boring for the amelioration of the poor.
despised farmers and wage-earners of
the country, whose sad, unhappy fate
he now so hypocritlcally deplores; or
rather, were we not Informed through
the public prints, that he was actively
engaged in sending secret messages to
Farmer" Funston, and others of his
plant political henchmen, and syco-
| phantic tOadieS in the lower house, to
change their votes from the column
favorable to the coinage of free silver
to the opposite one against 1T? YesI
this is history, and that the position
occupied by Senator Ingalls, on the then
pending bill for the free coinage of sill
yer.
And in view of these facts, can it be
any longer wondered, why the ideas ad-
vanced by Mr.. ingalls, on the 14th inst,
are regarded by the ''poor laboring
! trash of Kansas, as mere theatrical af-
fectatiOn of virtue which he does not
possess. Nor does the entire history Of
his public career as a senator, furnish
ore practical illustration, that the ideas
contained i'll his waspish attack upon
the financial kings, princes and mobiles
OF this country, are either genuine, or
have any foundation in fact.
On the contrary. he is known and
recognized as an aristocrat, who has al
ways been the willing exponent of those
influences which are best calculated to
create social inequality, and widen the
guilt which separates the rich from the
poor; and unless his dearest friends are
his covert enemies, he has amassed a
fortune during the eighteen years of his
senatorial career, with rapidity that
would have made Midas blush with
| shame, and which conclus-
lively proves that John James Ingalls,
was never subordinated by the senior
senator of Kansas, to the interests of the
people for whom he now has SO much
meteoric commiseration. His great
grief for the poor victims of combined,
concentrated, constituencies, central
lied and Incorporated capital" is of a
very recent birth. Nor would it haye
found expression now, had it not been
that the long threatened deluge of po-
litlcal destruction had actually come to
pass, and that the great chameleon
statesmen of Kansas, seeing nothing
but certain humiliation and political
degradation staring him in the face,
was by force of circumstances compell-
ed to sue for pardon. and to cringingly
ask permission to enter the heretofore
heartily despised arc of our financial
security, as outlined, erected and fitted
out by the 'old hayseeds" and "com-
mon low wage earners' of the country
on the 4th day of November last.
But alas for the deprayity of human
naturel Times are not what they were.
A change has come over the spirit of
our terrestrial dreams; the good old
decalogue has no place in the politics of
Kansas, the Christian plan of salvation
has been reiegated to the old fogies and
mossbacks of 1885; and the political or
carnations in the Sunfower state have
lost all faith in the efficacy OF death
bed repentance, and no longer believe
that the laborers who came into the
vineyard at the eleventh hour, should
receive the same compensation, as these
who have toiled faithfully and borne
the heat and burden OF the day. Such
being the case, we fail to see wherein
the great chameleon will be benefited
by his recent change of front; for since
ne has burned the bridge behind him,
he nnn,,nt ...oII - - -