The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-01-18

able, but I'll tell you of real incident
in my own experience which shows the
actual condition OF this portion of the
state as effectually as any more fanci-
full tale.
Not many weeks ago I was on board
a train and engaged my seatmate in
conversation. He confessed to the fact
that he was one of the four or five
hundred residents in a county wnlc4
had once contained 5000 inhabitants L
asked why he refused to leave such a
Collaboration desert.
Z" I did leave it once he said, and
sure as sunshine out here. But couldn't
stand it. I missed the excitement and
had to so back
He was Enthusiastically serious in this
statement, and 1 exclaimed:
. Excitement Why, man, what do
you mean? What excitement can there
be in living where there isn't piece of
vegetation higher than sunf1ower and
where human beings are as scarce as
summer Showers?
= Well, you see, it's like this he re-
piled. You put in a crop, and from the
moment the seeds in the ground until
the last day of harvest it's a gamble
whether or not you get a full crop or
barely enough to feed mule. The SuS-
tanned excitement amounts to what you
would get out of four months poker
game in which you had staked every
thing. oh, there's plenty of excite
nlent about it, and I've become so ac-
custOmed to that feature of 1t that L m
lost without it,.
This farmer was a Greek letter fra
ternity man. and, ludicrous as it may
seem. he unquesuonably spoke with
the utmost seriousness"
Regarding the character OF the peo-
pie whom Mr.. White has so brilliantly
delineated in 1.-The Real Issue" which
was written and announced before his
famous editorial saw the light, he
said:
The typical Kansan is essentially
French in his disposition, TO the extent
that he is a creature of emotion This
accounts for the fact that we have
the political demagOgue always with
US. History shows him to have been
more reliable than the drouth in the
p2rched west one-fourth. First came
the Republican demagogue, who drew
the picture of the old soldier. This was
the conjuring rod which held the voters
in line for many years When this
bloody shirt picture began to lose Its
color and the Prohibitionist invented
the drunkards wife in tattered shawl,
and it drove the state dry. 1t worked
where cold New England logic wouldn't
have made vote or ruff1ed a whisker.
Last in this series of emotional chro-
mos came the Alliance color piece of
The Down Trodden and the Oppressed
The demagogue only had to apply this
brand to the sympathetic finder and
its smoke spread over the state like the
pan of a prairie fire under a brisk
breeze.
This is history-but it all goes to
show that we are a home loving peo-
pie. That pathetic appeal to the home
is the ore which catches US every time
There are more things in the farm homes
| of Kansas than in those of any other
state. Go into any three farm houses
there and you will find a cabinet organ
! in two of them. In not a few of them
you will encounter private not and cold
water systems supplied from a wind
mill tank, and in all of them pictures
| world without end. To be sure the
| tAngelus' has driven out Washington
| Crossing the Delaware Wide Awake
/ and Fast Asleep Simply to Thy Cross
( 1 Cling and Breaking Home Ties into
| the kitchen and the hired mans room,
/ but the pictorial art of two generations
| of newspaper premiums is there.
THE wind mill and the hired man are
! the two greatest factors in Kansas life.
The Populist farmer hasn't succeeded
| in voting the former, but the latter is
! cion. He doesn't know that he's being
coerced, and the proprietary farmer
isn't aware that he's in the coercion
business. The latter thinks he's only
/ arguing. But the hired man of the
Populist farmer who is rash enough
! to declare for the Republican ticket
! may count upon burned pancakes for
! brea kfasst. u hours of argument in the
! field and a bed without sheets at night
and he either quits his job or turns
1 Populist.
But he has his reward To the far
mer's boy he is a bigger man than the
owner of a dozen sos. He has been
! to Kansas City with car loads of stock
| and can tell of experiences which the
| father has never known or does not
| and friend to the farmer boy, a hero
! who has had adventures in the big out
side world. the source of wisdom, ro-
! nance and poetry"