Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1894-09-22
CONGRESSIONAL.
Ben. Henderson's Letter.

Wichita Eagle.
One question is paramount in the
Kansas mind. How many populists are
going to stick by their party after read
ing Ben Henderson's letter? How
many populists, honestly hoping by
their votes to right some of our wrongs,
will so let their prejudices smother their
good sense that they will, with one hand
over their eyes and the other tight
about their nose, walk through the foul
air and oozing filth and drop a ballot in
the box for Lorenzo d. Lewelling?
How many populists will persist
against their better sense in endorsing
dishonesty and fostering open robbery :?
How MANY of them will screw their con-
science about so that they can allow
themselves to say that Ben Henderson,
the chairman of their last state conven-
ton, is a liar, and that Allen. associate
justice on the supreme bench, is liar?
1t is TO be regretted that many popu-
lists will sneak around their conscience
in this very way. They will say that
the republicans are making a hard cam
paign; that they are moving heaven
and earth to elect their ticket; that
cause. That is the way many populists
will reason. They will go to the polls
reasoning that way, and when they
drop the white slip into the ballot box
they will feel guilty and degraded, just
as every honest man does when he
knows that he is guided by false reason
ing, and is doing something dishonor-
able and dishonest.
For no honest populist can reason
truly that Henderson and Allen are
traitors. They are still populists. They
are not disgruntled. Both have been
highly honored by their party. They
are not false to the tenets of populism,
for both declare they still stand by the
principles enunciated in the populist
platform adopted at Omaha.
Then, why do they come out and
roast populist if they are SO faithful to
the populist party? Both men believe
in that party. They believe that if it
lives up to it's promises it can live.
They not only believe. they know that
no party on this earth can live with a
set of boodling imbeciles, and filth be-
grimmed thieves, and foul mouthed ras-
Gals at the head of that party, leading
it into the quagmire of disgrace and
dishonor. That is what they know.
They know, too, that Lewelling is
such a man, and the conspirators with
whom he has surrounded himself are
such men, and they know that these
men, blaspheming high heaven by com
pairing themselves to Jesus Christ, be-
fouling womanhood by saying that g
majority of the pure girls of Kansas are
going to life of shame, are bleeding
every artery of the great state; sucking
at every vein like so many vampires
clutchlng at every appropriation, grasp
ing and grinding and squeezing the
public purse of every dollar it holds.
Allen and Henderson know this. They
do not hint at it. They say so. Hen
derson gives the instances and the facts
And yet there are populists who viii
vote for Lewelling. There are populisti
who, in the face of the great fundament
al basis of our national life, the sacred
ness of religion, the inviolability o
home-the adamantine eternal basis o
truth-will walk up to the polls will
the sun of their God shining upon them
and the eyes of their fellow pen full up
on them, and openly and unblushingl..
vote for Lewelling and the men VIII
stand in his defense.
There is on this earth an immutabl
law 1t is the law that no man can b
dishonest and not suffer penalty 70
being dishonest. 1t applies not to tn
church alone, or to the marriage vows
or to the business transactions of tn
mart 1t is binding on the man VIII
casts printed ballot, and who know
when he has cast it. that he has give
aid to corruption and abetted dishonesty
Let every man, who, in the face of wha
Henderson has said, of what Allen ha
said, of what Rightmire has said, {
what Cyrus Corning has said, all popr
lists. votes for Lewelling await the cor
sequences.