The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-12-05
ArcH1soN AND LEAvENwoRTa.

l
| to give Atchison a whirl in the way OF
an assistant attorney general. The
petition is at the instigatiOn OF Rev.
Richard Wake, president of the State
| Temperance union, which union has
been running the state administration
since the Fourth of July last. The
petition does not come from the citi-
zens of Atchison but from the disin-
terested and intelligent people Of Nor
! tonville, a little town in Jefferson
| county. and from the towns of Mus
| cotah and Effingham, two villages Of
| Atchison county. If the governor
would be consistent and honestly
maintain the policy laid down by
Wakes contingent, and which he or
| fginaIly inaugurated by making of
Wichita a fearful example, he must
promptly put the clamps to Atchison.
1t makes no difference what the peo-
pie of that town may desire. In the
Wichita case eight or nine hundred
petitioners, drummed up very largely
among women and children, out of a
population of twenty-odd thousand,
was all that was necessary TO cause
him to not only override the protest
to override his own pledge. OF course
Atchison and Leavenworth are not so
wicked as Wichita. But that Will be
in their favor in enforcing the whole
moo Sr1ra They
won't feel it like Wichita felt il. WITCH
tia was mercenary, tenaciously hold
ing on for business, and for the reve-
nues, dreading the emptying of a lot
of business houses and begrudging the
departure from her midst large
number of questionable characters
and cash customers, and the loss OF
few dozen families who got their liv-
ing more or less directly from inter
ests Ringing on the traffic. The traf-
fic in Wichita then was a public scan
dial, for the benefit of the general tax
payer 1t is now run by close cor
poration, in a private way. The Incl
dental costs including the courts and
police force are paid by the taxpayers
not by the State Temperance union
whose representatives here now rake
in the revenue. John Z. st John, the
father of Prohibition in Kansas, and
who has made a living ever since by
preaching it, declared the other day
the Morrill, administration TO be the
greatest failure of any of all the past
in the state. This is tough on Nor
rill, and no inconsiderate reflection on
the State Temperance unions suckers
and leeches. But a vigorous enforce
ment of 1.-The law at AtchiSon and
Leavenworth just at this juncture
might mollify and modify the great
apostles harsh judgment. Atchison
in the interest of harmony should re-
frain from ~any unSeemly demonStra-
ton in the event of such a praise
worthy movement, for the good of the
many, where so comparatively few
would be made to suffer. Her good
people in recalling the death-fable OF
the frogs should only remember the
sides both Atchison and Leavenworth
have only to cross the Missouri river
to be free American citizens and the
river is bridged. In any event the
Eagle hopes that the peoples of these
two cities viii not prove so childishly
unreasonable as did Wichita, but in
submitting TO the demand of Mr..
Wakes petitioners, stand by the en-
forcement of the law" like the good
loyal citizens. that we are convinced
they are. Good, unSelfish men like
the Reverends Wake and Woods, who
have no property and yet for a thou
sand or so Il year go about the state
giving all their time and talents in
making people realize that there is
God in Israel, should be sustained and
encoura ged. rather than villified and
martyred, as the once wicked but now
redeemed and purified Wichita did.
These peripatetic prophets of the State
Temperance union know what's best
for us all, and their unselfish labors
should not go unrecognized or unre-
warded.