Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-05-28
NO. 2.


sire to make complaint. Every man convicted
of crime and sentenced by court during my
administration will have to go behind the bars
whether he be friend or foe. (Applause.)
81 believe in government of law, and have
not, nor will not, set aside the judgments of the
courts by granting pardons in advance of the
sentence or issuing conditional pardons. If I
think sentence is too severe for the crime
committed, l may reduce it, as the law contem-
plates, but have no sympathy with the class
of people who desire to have their views carried
into effect regardless of what the laws may be,
and have found when have looked UP citi-
of that kind, that he was generally law
breaker himself.
VIOLATORS OF THE LAW URGE FORCE.
cat a meeting recently held in this city some
letters were read from two eminent railroad at
torneys who were not able to be present. One
of them favored mob law and anarcfism in
place of public courts and legal machinery for
the enforcement OF the law. If any man in the
state of Kansas shall resist legal process of
any court in the state, will see that he is prop
erly dealt with, but l do not think that the
governors office was intended to supersede the
courts and am unable to understand why this
gentleman should take the view he does of this
matter when he seems to be violator of the
law himself
81 do not know of certainty the reason why
Mr. Williams or Mr.. Gleed could not attend this
meeting, but am told raat it was because they
were called to Chicago to attend the meeting of
the freight rate association to devise means of
evading the Sherman antitrust law, and it
seems that these gentlemen were successful, be-
cause l read in yesterdays newspapers that a
new agreement of the Western lines to main
tain schedule freight rates after June has been
reached in violation of the law. Now, in the
face of the Sherman antitrust law and the de-
cision of the supreme court of the United
States constituting that law so as to make It a
felony for railroad companies and their agents
to engage in this kind of meeting, they have no
more right, legally or morally, to go to meet
ing of this sort than the counterfeiters of the
country would have to hold a meeting to evade
the law. They are all feons alike under the
law cheers i and l hope that the gentlemen
who anxious to promote the enforcement
of the p-ohibitory law will find also some way
to take action in regard to law-breakers of high
degree.
TAKES A PARTING SHOT.
| believe it is my duty to do what can to
enforce the laws against corporations as we'll as
to enforce the prohibitory law, and Ihave start
ed in to do what can in that direction and
do not propose to be diverted from my purpose
by any howl that can be raised about the pro-
hibitory law by men who put forward by
the corporations to do the screaming. If these
gentlemen desire better enforcement of the
prohibitory law than is now being had, let them
quit playing to the galleries and come down to
business, and they will find that have less sa
loon money and less corporation money in nv
pockets than they have i'll theirs cheers7, and
that will make every man convicted and SEN
fenced in court serve a just and reasonable SEN
tence behind the bars, even though the saloons
and corporations both stand behind him"
THERE are rumors ahoat that few political
fxers in the Populist and Democratic ca,nps
are already at work getting up slate for the
next state campaign. If this be true, let them
beware, for they are reckoning without their
hosts. The rank and file of the Populist partv
in Kansas were never more aroused than now
and they mean that right shall triumph over
wrong. If therefore, judgment has already
begun at "the house of God" with the people.
the political ungodly and sinners will not an
pear in nomination in the coming campaign
Ft Scott Lantern.