People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-01-12
GOVERNOR LEwELLING.
Charity In High Places.
Geographic Review.

Geographic Review.
| have seen nothing since the days
OF Lincoln that has filled my heart
with gladness, as did the late notice
OF Gov. Lewelling, Of Kansas, to the
police force of the state, that here
after there shall be no arrests, be-
cause of poverty and want, in the
great state OF Kansas. AS the chief
executive OF the state, he gives notice
that poverty is not a crime, and that
want and distress are not good and
sufficient reasons for arrest and im-
prisonment, declaring also that an
American has a right to walk from
one city to another in search Of en-
ployment and fOed, and that to put
him In chains and compel him to
work on a stone pile, is not the kind
Of charity the Saviour practiced him
self and taught his disciples to prac-
tice. He tells US that in 1865 he him
self walked the streets of Chicago all
night, because he had not money to
pay for a nights lodging. The next
day he got work as a railroad hand
at shoyeling dirt. And now that
this same penniless boy has lived to
become the governor Of the great
state of Kansas, he remembers the
fact that he was once poor harmless
boy without money and without
friends and in strange city without
place to lay his head. And realiz-
ing the fact that in all Of this he was
not a dish. neSt man or boy, he is
able to see and realize that poverty
and want in Others are not neCeSsa-
rily either crimes or the result of
crimes. But, better still, he has
now authority to Use the power vest
ed in him by the laws of the state,
to protect those who are now situated
as he himself was in 1865, by declaring
to the world that poverty and want
are not crimes, and that the poor
homeless sons of toll shall not be
treated as outlaws because Of the fact
they are away from home, and out
of money and yet can get no work by
which to earn their daily bread.
1t maybe that it is because /, too,
have been hungry in a strange land,
and without money to buy bread,
that this notice of Gov. Lewelling
comes home to my heart with sledge-
hammer force, and my writing is hin.
dered by the tears of my eyes. Be
that as it may, | feel that the notice
of Gov. Lewelling, to the people of
Kansas is much like unto the words
Of the Son of Man, as he said that,
II was hungry and We fed me. | was
thirsty and We gave me drink. | was
in prison and We came unto me. |
was sick and We visited me. And
that because We did these things to
the least of all my children We did it
unto me-" See Matt. 18th chap.
| know that there is a prejudice
against "tramps," but the question
is, is the prejudice good and proper
one, or is it evil and only evil?
The law should protect the weak
and feed the hungry. But it should
not make poverty and want crimes:
neither should the fact that man is
stranger be construed to DO a crime
for which person should be put in
prison.
Let those who are clothed with DO
lice power learn to do unto others as
they would be done by, and thus put
themselves in line and sympathy with
the sayings and dOingS Of the Son of
Man, who was himself both a poor man
aid stranger in Il strange land.
And may God give us more such goy-
ernOrs as Lewelling, of Kansas.
Fl. G. HAMILTON.