The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-08-07
DOOMED AND DowNED.


only violate his most solemn pledge but
repudiate his own deliberate action.
Wichita was promised a railway COM
missioner and police commission,
which latter, in controlling the liquor
traffic as far as possible, in driving out
the gambling dens and in closing up
houses Of prostitution, was to be Of
men of such unquestioned standing and
influence as would enable them to pre-
vent the systematic and disgraceful
Matchmaking Of the past by officials.
and stop all boodling by city marshals
and policemen. Through conspiracy
of Governor Iorrill's state board and
their thinly disguised hypocrisy, Wich-
tia was defrauded out of railway
commissioner And later, and now,
the only non-partisan board Of police
commissioners ever serving the city
since the enactment of the law, are
removed, and that too in response to the
demands of an minority contingent Of
extremists, and a gang of self-seekers.
In behalf Of the retiring board we
only desire to add that they are hon.
orable, high-minded gentlemen. as
pure and conscientious as the city
boasts. They had the confidence and
support Of very large majority of the
people of the city, Of the men who
represent eight-tenths of all its taxable
values. No suspicion Of crOOkedness,
no charge of boodling was ever uttered
against them. They eyinced no par
tizanship in the conduct Of the govern
ment of the city, nor permitted any
political activity upon the part Of the
police force, whose chief was Prohi-
bitionist and whose members were of
all parties. At no time in all the his
tory Of the city was such order and
morality maintained. The gambling
houses were broken up for the first
time in twenty-five years, street-walk-
ers disappeared, and there was less
drinking, less drunkenness, less immor-
atty, more orderly Sabbaths than at
any time since the enactment of the
police commission law. Not only that,
but there were less court-costs for the
taxpayer to meet, with revenue addi-
tional enough to pay the city marshal,
the police judge, his clerk, and the
patrolmen. The leaders who have
been principally instrumental in their
removal, for the most part, pay little
or no taxes. Three or four Of them in
their intolerance attempted coercing
the Eagle into publishing their church
notices of Sabbath day services on Sat
urday instead of Sunday morning, fail
ing in which they have never quite for
given US. The refusal was only in the
interest of our readers, but since which
time they have refused to furnish the
notices as everybody has observed. 1t
was little thing but shows the spirit
1t goes without saying that the Eagle
is sorry that such week-kneed govern
orship and the hypocrisy Of policy ad-
visers at Topeka, combined with in
tolerance upon the part of long-haired
leaders and crafty self-seekers in
! Wichita, in defeating the purest and
most honest, most conservative and
ton that the city ever has had, should
be able to consign an already almost
desperate people, their government and
their affairs, into the hands of unin-
fiuential nobodys, of impractical ex-
| tremists and a self-Seeker or two, only
| that few, who for the most part hav-
ing no interest in the city's material
welfare, might crow and blow and
glorify in self-congratulaton.
AS for the inevitable effects on the
business of the city, on its present and
future, the Eagle has heretofore most
| fully set forth and in way that no
one has been found able TO gainsay or
even attempt disproyal. AS for any
thing farther everybody, every OBJ
serving individual of experience knows
what will now follow, and knows that
there will be more drinking, more vio-
lation of law, more drunkenness. dis
traction and expense in the next five
months than in the past FIVE months,
by far.
|
| TOPEKA GALL
Twice. of late, the Topeka Capital
has asserted thar Shawnee county pays
double the state tax paid by any other