The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-01-01
THE ISSUE INEVITABLE.

The Republican party Of Kansas
must now face an issue which can
only prove hemlock and cI-ucifixion to
| the professional politician The last
state convention resolutely ignored pro-
! hibition. There was no other way
| left to hold the party solid. The least
DETECTION from such resolve for silence
meant the loss of the resubmission ele-
ment and defeat of the ticket Morrill,
having abandoned the non-interference
platform which contemplated that his
| administration should let the prohibit
tory law take its chances for enforce
ment with the other laws of the state
and in the absence of signal or pro-
nounced efforts upon the part of the
governor or attorney general, and hay-
ing climbed upon the abandoned plat
form upon which Farmer Smith was
defeated, opened out on Wichita. Gov
ernor Morrill, no doubt was fully per-
suaded by the State Temperance
union that "if Wichita could be held
up as a successful example that there
would be little trouble in enforcing the
law in the other cities of the state.
This bumptious attorney general was
thereupOn turned loose not only to
eliminate that fatal ''if'' but to inaugur-
ate crusade which in proving success
full could only be a reputation of the
platform whereby the Republican
party had relegated Governor Level
ling. The result is known to every
body. One Of the largest communi-
ties of the state was rent and torn
until its every interest, including its
churches, became involved. The cause
of temperance instead of being promot-
ed was injured, there now being forty
three known drinking places in the
nCn-cOmbatiye regime.
SO far this may seem to have been
but Of local significance. But this is
not true. The status of the Republi-
can party and its success for an entire
congressional district was not only in
YOlved by the war here, but the de-
lection spread to the party throughout
the state. The administration having
ignored the party's platform and sided
with a faction the issue is made up past
recall. Governor Morrill, must be Sus-
tanned by a denomination or be re-
pudiated, not only, but the party in
convention must declare for prohibit
ton as its settled purpose or for re-
submission. Had Morrill, abided by
the platform upon which he was elect
ed and conformed the policy of his
administration thereto it might have
been possible for the party, in conven-
ton, TO have again ignored the prohibit
ton plank. But in throwing down the
gauntlet supplied by the Rev. Richard
Wake, in reversing the policy as he
had set it forth in his inaugural, there
is no escaping the issue presented in
the next state convention. If the gov
ernOr'S Gothennberg-Ti llmanite inter- |
view is intended either as retreat or
as compromise it proves a miserable |
failure. Instead of healing the breach |
it but widened and deepened it beyond |
hope of cure or amicable settlement.
So the politician must make up his !
mind to meet the enforced issue in the |
next state convention. 1t is inevitable.
1t must be either prohibition or result
mission. Silence will not avail. There
is the hole, and there you are. The
St Johnites dug the hole and perSuad-
ed the governor to dump his party into
it. That is all there is to it. 1t may
be that many of the rural counties will
send up delegations uninstructed or in
no way committed upon this question,
but no delegation from any one of the
more prominent centerS of population
Of the state will be selected upon any
other issue. And being so selected they
will prove emphatically aggressive. \
straddle will be as impossible as
silence. Gothennberg nor South Caro-
lima compromises will be in it either
as palliativeS or as balmS. but only the
bare square issue, the determining and 4
settling of which must either prove a
or a salvation, neither an
incident or a contingency, but a con-
sequence with 4 DESTINY