The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-08-14
A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY.

column OF cdtcSOficdI qucSioio
through the Topeka Capital TO the
editor of the Eagle. While it may be
a waste of time to answer fool ac-
cording to his folly" we would deny no
one, not even an idiot the opportunity
to die happy. SO as he asks We
answer:
And by what law or rule does the Eagle
claim that he represents the ma jority' IN
this case?
BY the law of facts and the rule OF
truth. A majority of the legal voters
of Kansas never voted for prohibition
The records show it The Eagle claims,
however. only to represent the major
ity of Wichita. but an overwhelming
majority.
Would he have Us understand that the
INA jority'' in Wichita is a majority Of
the state?
That question has the tintinnabula-
ton of an insane asylum, still We an
swer, certainly not.
Is Wichita larger than the state Of Kan
sas?
Not in population, area or wealth,
but in brains, liberality, enterprise,
Christianity and the like, yes!
And is Kansas included in Wichita?
Not all of il. Wichita does not in
clude Topeka's whisky drug stores,
which returned upwards of eighty
thousand certificates of liquor pack
ages sold last year, nor Topeka's hypo-
critics, nor the fools who are permit
ted to ask such questions through the
columns of the Capital.
Is city ordinance Tin cities where they
have themO superior to the laws of the
state?
We have heard Of nobody down this
way putting up any such claim. The
city of Wichita only claims such rights
under the state as the state claims I'M
der the federal government.
Then why should the Eagle wax warm
and indulge in large talk about the right
of minority" to protest."
Because when the minority can do
nothing else it can talk and protest
against its wrongs-that is the only
thing left for it to do, but it is generally
even tlsit.
What parallel is there between the two
cases cited. viz, between the struggle of
the early settlers of Kansas in the cause
of human freedom, against southern
oligarchy, and this protest of a Wichita
oligarchy against the supreme law of the
state?
The same parallel as existed in Mar
tin Luthers protest, or that has existed
in all cases wherein rebellions became
revolutions; it is case of human
rights and human conscience. The
federal constitution declares that the
right of protest (petitionl shall never
be denied, but the dominant rulers Of
this state have Systematically denied
such right not only but have and con-
tinue to denounce others rs rebels for
what they are thus guilty of them
selves. However there is no Oligarchy
in Wichita.
Are we to understand that Wichita is
'solid' for rebelling against the constitu-
tional and statutory provision of the
state of Kansas against the liquor traf-
fc?
There is not the least danger Of your
understanding anything that does not
suit you. AS TO the problem of how
best to control the liquor traffic, Wich-
tia is in no more rebellion against the
state than is the state in rebellion
against the United States, which great
er authority permits in Kansas just
what Kansas prohibits.
Even if majority of the citizens of
Wichita, or the whole city, should PRO
test" against obeying the laws of the
state should ii therefore, be permitted to
secede, and set up little kingdom OF its
own?
The people of Wichita have no dis
position to secede, no disposition to de-
fly the laws of the state. The spirit of
the prohibition law is for temperance.
Wichita, in that spirit, would lessen
and curtail the traffic; Topeka, caring
nothing for the spirit" but everything
for the letter of the law, goes hog
drunk, reports eighty thousand drug
store sades of whisky in a single year,
sends to Kansas City by every train
for more, maintains dozen drinking
clubs, hauls up her own policemen for
being drunk while on duty, and then
sets up and bowls prohibition from
morning till night, from one years end
to another.
If the city OF Wichita should inaugurate
a rebellion against the government and
laws of the state of Kansas. does the
Eagle, for one moment, suppose that it
would be allowed to do SO with impunity !?
No one other than an escaped lunatic
or Topeka hypocrite would seriously
ask any such fool question.
If there is no anarchy in Wichita"-
which imputation the Eagle SO holly re-
sents-why did a great audience of 1000
people so applaud Representative Eek
stein when he denounced the prohibition
law of the state? And why did the same
audience Unanimously" adopt the re-
marks OF Colonel Bird, WHO proposed to
relegate all such questions to moral
suasion," calling it "a quasi-religious
question:"
Why? Why in the interest OF de-
ceRcy and good government: for the
same reason that Massachusetts kicked
the hypocritical law overheard, for the
same reason that the Republican party
of Iowa repudiated the INV and repeal
ed il. for the reason that four thousand.
four hundred, or four people have the
right TO get peacefully together and
protest against any law which they
deem to be a fraud or 4 failure or
against any law that even works 4
hardship. either TO the individual. 10
the community or to the people of the
state at large.
THE SIGNS OF THE TINES.
President Cleyeland's "object les