The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-04
BEN HsNDERsoS's LETTER.


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
sensej 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 ballot in
the box for Lorenzo d. Lewelling?
How many populists will persist
against their better sense in inderslng
dishonesty and fostering open robbery!
How MANY OF them viii screw their
conscience about so that they can allow
themselves to say that Ben Henderson.
the chair man OF their last state conven-
ton is liar, and that Alien, 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 viii say that
the Republicans are making hard cam
paIgn; that they are moving Heaven and
earth to elect their ticket; that Allen
| and Henderson are traitors to the cause.
That Is the way many Populists will
reason. They will go TO the polls reason
ing 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 reasoning, and is doing
something dishonorable and dishonest.
For no honest Populist can reason
truly that Henderson and Allen are trail
tors. They are still Populisis. 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
PopuIist party: Both men believe in
that party. They believe that if it lives
up to its promises that it can live. They
not only believe; they know that no patty
on this earth can live with a set of hood
ling imbeciles. and filth begrimmed
thieves, and foul-mouthed rascals 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 man, and the con-
spirators with whom he has surrounded
himself are such men, and they know
that these men, disappearing high heaven
by comparing themselves to Jesus Christ,
befouling womanhood by saying that
majority of the pure girls of Kansas are
going to a life of shame, are bleeding
every artery of the great state; sucking
at every vein like so many vampires,
clutching at every appropriation, grasp
ing and grinding and squeezing the pub
lie purse of every dollar 1t holds.
Allen and Henderson know this. They
do not hint at it. They say so. Hender-
son gives the instances and the facts.
And yet there are PopuliSts who Will
vote for Lewelling. There are Populists
who, in the face of the great fundamen-
bdl OASIS Oh our HdblOudl lie, Inc
ness of religion, the inviolability of home
the adamantine eternal basis of truth
will walk up to the polls with the sun
of their God shining upon them, and the
eyes of their fellow men full upon them,
and openly and unblushingly vote for
Lewelling and the men who stand in his
defense.
There is on this earth an immutable
law. 1t is the law that no man can be
dishonest and not suffer a penalty for
being dishonest. 1t applies not to the
church alone, or to the marriage vows,
or to the business transactions of the
mart. 1t is binding on the man who
casts a printed ballot, and who knows
when he has cast it, that he has given
aid to corruption and abetted dishon-
ty. Let every man, who, in the face of
what Henderson has said, of what Allen
has said, of what Rightmlre has said,
Of what Mrs. Lease has said, of what
Cyrus Corning has said, all PopuliSts,
votes for Lewelling await the conse-
OUencpS