Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-27
KANSAS TOPICS.


The appointment of George R. Smelling,
of Anthony, to the place of assistant at
| torney general. evokes from Hon. Dave
| Leahy, the well known Wichita newspaper
man, a tale of the wild and woolly days
| of Southern Kansas which is exceedingly
| entertaining.
Smelling is one of the soundest lawyers
ever knew" says Mr.. Leahy, though
| perhaps | am 4 little prejudiced in his IA
| vor, for he once did me service for which
have pledged my eternal gratitude. He
| rounded me up in a law court one morning
and knocked about ton of conceit out of
my head. 1t is not generally known that 1
was a lawyer at one time, but l was. AS
| Major Whittinghill says. L was vacciaated
| for a lawyer but the virus didn't stick
when Caldwell was a rough town, sec
ond only to Dodge City and Hades, l lived
| there. AT that time there was a killing
| there every day or two, a fight every hour
| or two and drunk every minute or two.
1T was Il great field for a lawyer and 1
| determined to become one. l knew all the
men who killed and got killed, and who
drank and got drunk, and all who hit and
| got hit; l knew the judges and their faults,
the jurors and their failings, the witnesses
and their weasNesses.
I'm fact, l thought I knew everything
that was necessary to know, but the law,
and in those days knowledge of that kind
was simply an unnecessary burden. l saw
Bent Ross, or Alphabet Ross, as he was
generally called, transform himself from Il
cook in a restaurant into a lawyer in two
days. and meet with tremendous success.
| saw Cass Burris graduate from behind
the bar to before the bar and support
twelve children with his income. l didn't
see any reason why I could not succeed,
and L stuck out my shingle.
About that time three tenderfeet law
yers came to town. but they talked a lot
of nonsense about demurrers, replevins, de
facto, ipso facto and such things that the
people didn't understand. Latin didn't go
we'll with judge whose bench was a nail
keg. Those three lawyers went through
process of starvation for several months
until they quit their Latin nonsense and
learned to address an American court in
plain United States
"Those three gentlemen were George r.
Smelling, j. A. Burnett, now judge of the
Cowley-Sumner district, and John l.. Nc
Atee, one of the supreme court judges of
Oklahoma. While these gentlemen monop-
olized the Latin of the great cowboy town
Bent Ross and Cass Burris had all the law
practice until | appeared.
1.-THE next day after 1 stuck out my
shingle [ had FIVE SO cases. 1t was a
SOOu udS. ItelTs bEO"li anu Dch W uetiei,
who were afterward lynched at Medicine
Lodge for robbing a bank and killing
few of its officers, were the marshals of the
town, and they were particularly active the
night before rounding up bunch of cow
boys from Andy Snder's ranch.
ION pretense of looking for the papers
in the case l slipped bottle of whisky into
the judges desk. He gave me the warm
hand and said nothing. | acquitted every
mothers son of my guilty ruflians. Just
about this time Bent Ross died from the
indirect effects of his prosperity. In the
course of human events Cass Burris had
occasion to get religion and turn to be
preacher.
His inclination to serve God was hast
ened on by a trivial little circumstance
worth relating Cash Hollister who was
then deputy United States marshal, went
down into the territory to arrest Nellie
Bailey, who was accused of killing sheep
man named Bottomly. During his absence
Burriss served some kind of legal process
on Mrs. Hollister that annoyed her; when
Hollister returned he learned of the affair
and taking the process in one hand and
his six-shooter in the other he struck out
for Burris' office and found him in. Burris
put in the next fifteen minutes eating the
document while Holister held the muZzle
of the revolver to his head. He tried to
conceal the CheWed up document under his
tongue. but H0llister detected him at it,
and. sticking the revolver into his mouth,
he forced the paper quid down his neck.
while Hollister was still gloating over
his act of chivalry, Bob Cross took a shot
at him. struck him in the windpipe and
killed him. Cross finished his fifteen years
sentence and was discharged from the
penitentiary a few weeks ago. These little
events caused an opening for Smelling, who
was appointed city attorney. l was de-
lighted at the anticipated picnic l would
have with him. l had twenty-nine cases in
court one morning.
In the meantime l had got gay and
did not think it was necessary to sub
sidize the judge any longer. On this par
ticular morning he was splitting cotton
and looked at me in vain. l gave him an
icy face. The cases were called, one by
one and Smelling didn't do n thing with
me. When we adjourned at noon Smelling
was helping the Judge to enter up twenty
nine convictions.
He sewed me up in every move l made,
and then and there renounced the law
and turned newspaper man, or, as | used
TO say then, journalist.
Smelling didn't do me half as bad as he
did Harry Bone. of Ashland, who lived
then in Sumner county. He is now repre-
sentative in the legislature from Clark
county, and will soon be assistant United
States district attorney for Kansas He
was then ASSISTANT to County Attorney