The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-06-12
BEGENTLE WITHGLA
Wicked Kansas Postmaster Who
Told the Postmaster General
TO GO TO THE BAD PLACE.
The Chicago Tribune Makes a Warm
and Eloquent Plea fer tho Offender.


and Eloquent Plea fer tho Offender.
The Chicago Tribune contained one
day this week a long editorial on the
case of Postmaster Glass of Liverpool,
Kas.. who has been removed for telling
the postmaster general to Ego to h"
The tribulations of the administration
at Washington follow each other rap
idly, the Tribune says. First came
Admiral Meade, who criticised Mr. Cleve-
land most disparingly. Like the Queen
in the Looking Glass it was "off with his
head" Then came C. B. Morton, fourth
auditor of the treasury, who one evil day
called the president "that old Hessian in
the White House," hearing of which the
"Old Hessian" drew his snickersnee and
Morton's head rolled into the basket.
The latest offender is Mr.. Glass, who
was postmaster at Liverpool, Kan, de-
scribed as zone of the leading old-time
Democrats of western Kansas" His in
subordination was most conspicuous and
contumacious and yet when one reads
the story he must have a sneaking sort
of sympathy with Glass and recognize a
hOmely pathos in his audacious actions.
Recently the postoffice department sent
him blank to be filed out, showing the
arrival and departure of mails at Liver
pool
Glass filed it out, but the department
sent it back, because it was not filed out
as it should have been. Glass paid no
further attention to the matter. Soon a
peremptory mandate came from the
postmaster general, to which Glass
promptly made reply on a postal card.
saying: "If you don't like my reply you
can go to hell" Thereupon Mr. Glass
head at once went into the basket
Looking at Mr.. Glass contumacy from
a superficial point of view one would say
he deserved severe rebuke. But are
there not mitigating circumstances? Mr..
Glass lives in the arid section of Kansas,
and it is we'll known that aridity has
tendency to dry up and crack the skin,
to injure the eyes, and to superinduce
physical conditions which influence the
temper and make one irritable to the
last degree of tension so that it ia difficult
to hold on to ones self. And this is not
all. PandOra's box was harmless as COM
pared with the dry region of western
Kansas. AriditY is only one of its char
acteristics. 1t has tornadoes one year,
sand storms the next year, grasshoppers
the next year, and then drought and
famine by way of change. After waiting
four or five years for rain it usu-
ally comes as it did in the region of
Mount Ararat and everything is a foot or
two under water Having recovered from
this then ensue again the regular cycles
of tornadoes, blistering heat, sand
storms, and grasshoppers, ending in
famine aud drought again. The effect
of all this is disastrous to proper speech,
disintegrating as to temper, and destruc-
tive of all the moral influences If
Grover Cleveland himself were to live
year in that arid region he would swear
like pirate and cheerfnlly consign any
one who bothered him to SheoL Such a
region naturally produces two kinds of
the human crop. If they are not cranks
they are blasphemers, and usually "lead-
ing old time Democrats of western Kan
sas," are the worst blasphemers of that
lot Mr.. Glass, therefore, ID entitled
to some show of excuse. More
over as there is no good reasan
arid region or why any mail should leave
it, it may have been extremely difficult
for Mr. Glass TO set down in black and
white just what time mails arrive and
depart from Liverpool. 1t may be that
they do not depart or arrive at all. It
may be that mail slips in now and then
in a season between the tornadoes and
the grasshoppers, or it may dry up and
blow away on those arid treeless, sun
smitten plains The department should
deal gently with Glass. 1t is burden
enough to have to live in such a place
without the additional burden of having
to solve the problem when mails arrive
which never arrive, or when mails de-
part, when probably the only mail that
has left Liverpool for months past is the
postal card inviting the postmaster gen
eral to go to hell.