The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-09-07

Il readers IS rank injustice 10 lHeuloclNcs
and to everybody e Sc, and d moral
libel upon the editor Of tne Eagle.
The Eagle is making no fight fol
whisky, and those who assert any
thing Of the kind not only wilfully mis-
| interprefs our language but knowingly
falsifies the facts, and wrong a com
munity of people second to no other in
| the state in all that goes to make up a
desirable community. OF course WITCH
| tia is not a country town. In having
many Of the advantages and pre-
| requisites Of a city we cannot be a
| country village in other respects. We
can't have and maintain wholesale
houses, big hotels and the other things,
not found in country towns, and at the
| same time dispense with the outside
customers to these things. In barring
out the outside customers, the things
which go TO make up city fall Of
themselves and disappear. The writer
who does not understand that fact is
too big fool to be an editor.
The Eagle is not fighting for whisky.
1t is not upholding or defending the
traffic. 1t never did. Wichita is not
crazy for whisky, nor is it held by its
citizens that whisky is an essential.
Nothing Of the kind But as the traf-
fic goes in every city of Importance,
either illicitly or by license, as there
is no city in the world In which the
liquor traffic is not as surely present
as is its sewers, and as Wichita pos
sesses many of the things which dis
tingnishes q city from a village, be-
cause of the magnitude. character and
importance of its trade, among the
things being the persistent demand for
liquors. it became a question how,
under state law prohibiting it, the
traffic could best be curtailed, in the in
terest Of sobriety, morality and de-
cency. with a minimum Of the crooked
ness and crime which grows out Of it.
That's all.
The Eagle is not fighting for whisky,
but fighting for its own life which is
involved in that of the possibilities for
city. The Eagle could not live twen-
ty-four hours in any one Of the towns
whose editors declare that the Eagle
is fighting for whisky. 1t takes city
to keep up Daily like the Eagle, and
if the fool fanatics and intolerant
bigots who would rather see Wichita
country town sober, than a city with
liquor traffic on the side, succeed in
the war they are making they will In
evitably down both the city and also
its big Daily which represents and de-
tends its interests.
VIII these meanly insinuating edi-
tors, who are continually crying out
that the Eagle is fighting for whisky
please note the fact that all the firms
which have left Wichita because of
this fight, have everyone gone to
whisky city to do business, and that no
individual Of either of the firms is q
liquor dealer or drinker.
The Eagle is not fighting for whisky,
but fighting for Wichita; fighting for
all that Wichita is. for her trade and
her property interests: fighting to
maintain an aScendency and import
ance of which she is being robbed by
men who in the name of religion be-
come the patrons and supporters of
infdels and blasphemers; fighting
against 4 band Of hypocrites who en-
listed the church to go out and away
and join the eHvieus enemies of this
| city in decrying its people and seek
Ing to pull it down into commercial
ruin. even though its church bells
should cease TO sound and half its
great public school buildings be closed
| in absence OF any pupils.
The Eagle is not fighting for whisky.
But there are perpiexing conditions TO
be met, such conditions as do not exist
in the only larger cities Of the state.
and which we must meet and settle or
! inevitably become what our enemies
seek TO make US. a conspicuous monu-
ment of failure. under the shadow of
which ruin the very men who have
been prominent in precipitating a war
in the name of peace. would be COM
PEELED TO sneak away in search of a