Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1893-07-27
HERR MOST HAS ANOTHER FIT.

The Beacon editor again shakes his
woolly head and stirs up the white
substance that serves him in lieu of
brain until it rattles like two peas in a
gourd, and evolves another column or
more of his abuse of the DEMOCRAT
editor, all because we declined to pay
much attention to his former long
winded TRADE.
There is a popular theory prevailing,
that when one is so unfortunate as to
be thrown in contact with a lunatic,
the best plan is to humor the luny,
and if our readers will bear with us we
will give him little rope until he nat
urally wears himself out.
To begin with, the DEMOCRAT
stated a few weeks ago that this city
had but FOUR joints, and collect
ed revenue from those four;
while before the city election and the
passage of the ordinance assessing
fines on the joints the city had SEVEN
TEEN joints, and collected not a cent
from any of them; also that the editors
of the Beacon and Register by their
constant kick against fning the joints,
led the general public to believe that
they preferred the seventeen free joints
to the four licensed ones. Every in
telligent citizen of the county knows
the statements then made to be cor
rect.
The Beacon editor, however, was
anXiously waiting for some oppor-
tunity to take up the howl of his
Inconsistency, Caraway, against the
DEMOCRAT as a defender of joint
ists," and rushed recklessly into an
attack upon this paper.
In the past few years Mr.Armstrong
has time and again declared that PRO
hibition is not an issue in Kansas pol
itics," and has declined to discuss the
matter in any form. We did at one
time, draw him out to announce him
self in favor of the prohibition law
which the republican party has forced
upon the people; but at various other
times he has condemned the republican
party for not being sincere in it-for
treachery, abuse and misuse Of it.
Why this change? Why does he feel
called upon to devote two columns for
that question to one column given to
other questions which his party is ad-
vocating?
We will tell you why. The majority
of the leaders in the populist party, the
hangers on, the manipulatoTs, the rev.
enue hunters, haye pledged themselves
to female suffrage and prohibition, and
resolved to outdo the republicans in
championing all the visionary schemes
proposed to catch the support of en-
thusissts to help them ride into power.
This MIR. Armstrong knows, and as he
is naturally a visionary day dreamer,
sort of shoveler of snow in summer
and manipulation of fans in winter, he
is in full sympathy with any crankism
that may bob up, and hopes to lead his
unsuspecting people into those follies.
w hCh lAhS VI lCdUS
him to hold the editor of the DEMO
Graf up as an anarchist" a claw
breaker" etc.. he misjudges the people
of the county, who have known us for
many years before he ingratiated him
self into the condolences of a few of
our people by falsehood and misrep-
resentation, if he believes he can injure
us in that way, or create sympathy for
schemes.
To humor the demented one we will
quote few of his statements made in
last weeks Beacon:
He seems to dwell at length on the
fact that many OF these joints have
| been frozen out, but he is not honest
enough to tell his readers that not one
of these places has been closed out by
the city, but that they have been cap
tured by the county"
Seventeen joints running FREE in
Great Bend before the city election.
Four joints, each fined $40 a month,
since. A populist county attorney for
the past two years and a half. Why
were the seventeen permitted to run
before the city officers acted? This he
has never answered and never can
answer in a manner to prove that the
collection of fines is not the best
method of reducing the number in
Great Bend. as 1t is done in almost
every city and town in the state.
''If Mr.. Cleveland should forget him
in the Z. 0. race, there would be a
badly disappointed sucker left out in
the cold world alone.''
| Doubtless that paragraph was
thought by Mr.. Armstrong to- be a
clincher of an argument against fining
the joints. 1t is but the thought to
| which the wish is father. He is SO
selfishly mercinary, SO mentally cring-
ing and despieably supplicating when
self interests are at stake that he can
but judge others from what he would
himself be prompted to4do. That para
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