The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-06
CLEMENS INDICATED.
Re Draws a Comparison Between the
Dunsmore House and the Wyan-
dntte Convention.

G. c. Clemens. the POpulist LAWYER
and politician, who was one of the
moving spirits OF the Dunsmore slde
of the legislative war" OF 1893, says
that the point involved in the late Re-
publican contest in WyandOtte was
the same as that in the celebrated
Gum case at Topeka 1t IS very
gratifying to me-" MI Clemens SAID,
that my missionary labOrs are so
soon rewarded by the conversion OF
the most wicked Republican sinners
After all the abuse which for three
years has been heaped upon my de-
voted head, not to speak OF an occa-
sionaI side remark to the effect that !!
was a bold bad anarchist, and all
around bad man, for my advice upon
which the POpulists acted in the or
ganizatiOn of the house of 90; after
two annual banquets of the douglass
house association and sundry sultry
remarks of Chief Justice Horton. it is
extremely gratifying to me TO see
Eugene Ware, Senator Sterne and
divers other distinguished Repub-
Iicans clamOring with q loud clanOr
for the DunsmOre house side of the
only question involved in the leglsIa-
tive war of 1898
The legislature was close. Several
Republican certificates had been issued
under very suspicious circumstances
The Canvassing machinery was in the
hands of the Republicans. The POpu-
lists contested ten seats in good faith,
and in some cases the dispositions were
on file clearly supporting the contests
For the Populists to have permitted
the Republican certificate-hOlders to
vote upon contests involving their own
seats would not only have been sub
hitting to the grossest violation of
natural justice, but would have been
to appoint the wolves judges as to
their right to eat the sheep. So the
PopuIists insisted that the ten men
whose seats were contested should
stand aside until the uncontested mem
bers had decided the contests.
TO prevent contested members from
deciding their own cases was from first
to last the whole purpose of the Pop
Ulists. Against that fair contention
Douglass and his fellow Republicans
appealed to every form of prejudice in
manifesto after manifesto, and, at
last the Republican supreme court up
held the right of the ten Republicans
to vote upon their own cases. A cam
paign was made upon that right IN
1898.
Thus. for all he did at Kansas City
the other day, Cy Leland had the sane
ton of not only Republican speakers
and the Republican press, but the ex-
press decision of the Republican su-
preTne court of Kansas in the Gum
case. The WyandOtte delegates had
been put upon the roll by the commit
tee, precisely as the Republican mem
bers had been put upon the legislative
roll by the state canVasserS; so the pO-
sition of Leland was that of the Doug
lass house, that of his opponents was
that of the DunsmOre house. The
cases are not merely analogous, they
are the same.
'.Vindication seldom comes so soon
to those who have dared to stand for
the people as against a privileged
class. and I have every reason to feel
happy over the WyandOtte affair. It
is particularly gratifying to me that
Judge Hazen now sees the error he
committed in deciding against the 1e-
gality of the DunsnOre house. The
precedent Judge Hazen was first to
stablish enabled Cy Leland to beat
Judge Hazen's candidate for judge of
the court of appeals"