The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-08-15
ABOUT SOME KANSAS EDITORS.

A
| sion. Any attempted explanation is
| misrepresented, distorted and hurled
back into his teeth. and usually in the
spirit of cOntemptOuS insult.
There is not a Republican editor in
the state of Kansas, not a public
speaker or political leader but knows
that the Eagle has from the first stood
for bimetallism, pure and simple, as
| enjoyed by the country previous to its
demonstration, and that our demand
for its rehabilitation meant simply that
the value of silver and Of every species
Of property should be restored 10 an
equitable ratio with gold; that sixteen
ounces Of silver, that a days labor,
that buShel Of wheat, that an acre
Of ground, that any value, whatever,
should command as much Of gold as
formerly; and, that by the restoration
of silver all these conditions would be
reinstated. Yet there is hardly a Re
publican editor, a, public speaker or
a political leader in the state but what
has continuously and persistently, not
to say maliciously, misrepresented us
by saying that the Eagle was favoring
a silver standard and advocating re-
pudiatiOn, through a dishonest dollar.
On this question of silver, simply
and only because We have evinced the
courage of a substantial and potential
conviction, at variance with the ac-
cepted dictumS Of self-constituted
party mentors, we have been not only
persistently misrepresented but con-
tinuously maligned.
There is not an editor Of a single
prominent and influential paper in the
state but that understands clearly and
definitely the problem involving the
distractions growing out of the QueS
ton of the attempted enforcement of
the prohibitory enactment in the city
Of Wichita; that does not understand
the differences OF the difficulty en-
countered because Of this city'S make
up, and its distant location and en-
yironment; that does not know that the
average citizen here averages the cit
1zen Of any other and Of every other
municipality in the state for sobriety,
morality, loyalty to the state, and all
that; that was Wichita but town of
five Or eight thousand people, COM
handing only a local trade, with only
the ambitions and expectations Of the
average county-seat, that the enforce
ment Of sumptuary laws against i'm
morality and RIGHTEOUSNESS would be
just as surely and rigidly enforced here
as by any one Of the fifty or hundred
county-SeatS and other towns of the
state; that being a city of patroling
police and of transient patronage and
OF outside custom, there must be more
or less of the vices here prevalent in
every such center, and so on and SO
forth. Yet it is fact that these same
prominent editors, almost without ex-
ception criticize til editor of the Eagle
for failing to play the role Of a hypo-
critic, as they employ mealy-mouthed
cant, wet down with crocodile tears,
which are mincingly shufiied hither-
ward for our special mental degluti-
ton, the while denouncing Wichita's
peaceful meetings of protest, as howl
ing mobs, and the body Of our people as
law defers and Anarchists, against
whom the strong arm CT the state
should be brought to bear.
While this is not true of all of the
editors Of the state. the humiliating
admission must be made that a ma
tority Of them adhere to the assuetude
of the cuckoo and the precept of policy.
In essaying the role of the organ they
become the tool, in assuming to patron
lie and claiming to lead, direct and
control they are in fact but ill-requited
servitors. party pensioners and polii-
cal parasites, forgetting that their
readers are as intelligent as them
selves. that their patrons are people
and that while they may fool all of
their readers a part of the time, and
part Of them all the time that they cam
not fool all Of them all the time.
The Republican party Of Kansas Is
today just where it was in the Click
and Lewelling campaigns, respective
ly, in the minority. Had the Repub-
hcan editors of Kansas evinced the
courage of their individual convictions
rather than followed the lead of party
puppets, not only would the defeats al
luded TO have been avoided but there
would be no question at this time Of
success next fall The holding that
the buyer is an innocent man aud the
seller Of the article bought a criminal.
the eternally reiterated declaration
that the drinker must be held blame
less while he who furnishes it to him
at his own solicitation must be sub-
jected to extreme penalties. that the
seller of the match is guilty but The
incendiary who strikes ii innocent
may masquerade for time as good
party politics. but common sense and
the sense of common justice will sooner
or later not only discover its inherent
hypocrisy but punish the promulCators
of the policy
The Eagle has no expectation of 81 !
lencing the hundred or more of its in
sincere editorial critics of the Repuh-
lican organs of this state but We would
have them realize that we are not OBJ
livious of their motives nor inSensible
10 the unfairneSS which writes Us
down an advocate of Reputation.
bacchanalian devotee of liquor. and a
believer of the saloon in politics.
wASHINGTON'S SERENITY.