The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-03-25
WHAT DID 1T.

| Ten-Cent Corn, Not Dishonest Republican
Officials. Is What Caused Alliance sue
cesses at the Last General Election In
| Kansas.
In an editorial article discussing re-
publican politics in Kansas the Kan
sas City Star contains the following
somewhat remarkable utterance:
| Heretofore a man has had to be but
a republican and a party worker to
make him eligible. In consequence,
VIGOROUSLY dishonest men have fire.
quently got into Office, especially into
the legislature, to disgrace the party
and scandalize the state by their Doodle
| practices Some of these men are cam
didates as usual this year, but if the
counsels of the men who understand
the necessities of the party are needed,
these shysters will apply in vain. 1t
was this abuse of the patience and con
fidence of the people that destroyed
the boosted $4,000 majority and reduced
the party to its present condition of dis
tress and need"
| 1t is not true that ''notoriously dis
honest men have frequently got into
Office" in Kansas To say so is to libel
the state and the character of its peo-
| pie. Occasionally dishonest man has
obtained Office, as has happened in ev-
cry other state; but the elevation of
such men to official position is of I'M
usual occurrence here, and cannot by
any means be regarded as common
| thing. The public men of Kansas have
uniformly been equal in integrity and
general character to those of any other
state in the union.
The Star has for the past sixteen
months been telling its readers that
the reverses suffered by the republican
party in Kansas were due to a burning
desire of the people for tariff reform. J."
How does this declaration. that the de-
struction of the so, 5000 majority was
the result of electing dishonest men to
Office, harmonic with these past as
surances?
The truth is-and the editor of the
Star very we'll knows it-that the re-
| publican party's losses in Kansas were
not due to either of these alleged
causes. The tariff question cut abso-
lutely no figure in the farmers move
nored. Nor were the farmers dissatis-
fed with the republican officials of the
state; neither state officials nor state
issues were discussed by the alliance,
in the lodge rooms or upon the stump
There was no complaint that the pub
lie affairs of the state had not been
honestly administered-it was national
matters about which the farmers were
concerned; they condemned John Sher-
man and the ''plutocrats"-not Gov.
Humphrey and his associates.
The true cause of the alliance move
ment in Kansas was the cheapness of
farm products and the Indebtedness of
the farmers. After several successive
years of crop failures the farmers
found themselves in possession of an
enormous crop, and imagined that
their troubles were over. But by the
time the grain was harvested prices
had gone down until they would not
repay the labor of making and gather
ing the crop The producers grew
sick, respondent and desperate. In
the meantime large quantities of ''re-
form" literature, semi-socialistic char
acter, had been diligently circulated
throughout the state, and from it the
farmers gathered new and in large
measure false views of the relations of
society and social life. From these
ideas and the depressed condition of
things sprang the third party move
ment which so nearly wiped out re-
publican supremacy in Kansas.
The destruction OF the $4,000 major
ity, therefore, was caused not by the
deviation of dishonest men to Office,
out by ten-cent corn and the introduce
ton of new and seductive financial doc
trines.-Emporia Republican.