The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-05-29
THE EAGLES REPUBLICANIsM.

Major Joe Hudson's greeback flop
was picked into the Eagles face last
week. by contemporary, as a fearful
example of political apostacy. We
said nothing in reply, but several other
contemporaries were not slow in show
ing that Major Joe had never suffered
to any alarming extent in fame. in in
fiuence or in pocket on that score. In
fact no newspaper editor in the state
has received so much party considera-
ton.
But Joe Hudson's greenback flop is
in no sense 4 parellel case with the
Eagles advocacy of silver. Hudson
in order to run for congress left the
Republican party and identified himself
with the Greenbackers- He climbed
onto the Greenback platform, was NOM
mated for congress as a Greenback
partisan, and defended the Organiza-
ton as a political party on the stump.
The Republican party subsequently was
compelled to formally take him back
and in out of the wet.
The Eagle is just as sound Re
publican paper as can be found be-
tween the Atlantic and Pacific. The
thing which distinctly marks the diff
ference between the Eagle and great
majority Of the party papers and or
CANS of the country will be found in
the simple fact that the Eagle trains
with the people, the organs with the
politicians and political leaders The
majority of not only the Eagles read
erS, but the majority Of the Republi-
cans of Kansas are with the Eagle in
its convictions as to silver. The Eagle
was no less d Republican paper than
the Capital because we advocated Re
submission, in which advocacy we
pointed out to the Prohibitionists, over
and over again, that in ReSubmiSSiOn
would be found the only hope for Pro
hibition in the state,-that while Pro
hibition would probably be reaftirmed
at that time, it would not be later on;
and, then a large per cent Of the party
was demanding ReSubmiSSion. The
which the politician would
not see then is plain enough now, We
gave as the time five years in which
the Rebellion would prove a Revolu-
ton. 1t has been only three years.
And so as to the Mckinley bill. A
great majority Of the Republican
papers stood by the Mckinley bill as
The Eagle protested, but
stood by the amended act as it became |
q law; still it was not in its finality Il
just measure to the agricultural west.
AS for silver, the Eagle may again |
be at outs with the politician, with the
office holder, and with the party leader, |
but it is at one with the body of the |
party, and in the end it is
the body that wags the tail. The con- !
viction somehow obtains that it is the
leaders who formulate policies and |
statesmen who lay down great political |
principles. Nothing is farther from
the truth. Statesmen and leaders
simply accept and elucidate what the
people have determined beforehand.
All this leads to the reflection or
rather question, whether the party or
gan idea, after all is not q mistaken
0ne in conception and in practice,
it would not be more to the
welfare of the people and Of the party
itself if all political papers were indie
pendent party papers; advocates Of
principles rather than Of nominees. 1t
s not true, not IN one case in hun
lred, that party patronage influences
papers. 1t is simply partisanship.
Party patronage is fair plum when
hanging beyond reach, but q juiceless
hing Of hardly earned ashes and cheap
ak when once In possession. There
s little or no profit In official printing
md less in party printing. The poll
,lcian who secures the salaried office
gets the fruit and the organ is left only
The crust and the cheap word Of COM
The Eagle is a Republican paper, its
editor Republican since before the
party had an organization, he having
travelled thousand miles overland,
Drawing all the perilS of frontier life TO
EAST his first vote against the Lecomp-
on constitution, and for freedom, even
before he had reached the legal age. but
hat the Eagle will ever prove the party
organ rather than a Republican party
PAPER depends.