The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-01-27
Daily eagle
NJ. NJ MURDOCH, Editor.
TWO Topeka MEN.

A Topeka man has just been elected
clerk of the supreme court of the
state, and another Topeka man has just
been chosen editor-in-chief of the st.
Louis Globe-Democrat.
Judge John Martin, a Virginia youth,
In 1853 started out for Texas but chang
Ing his mind came to the territory OF
Kansas to aid in making 1t a Pro-slav-
cry state. He settled at Tecumseh, the
then rival of Topeka, where he remain
ed until the territory was admitted into
the Union when he moved up to Topeka
where he has remained ever since in the
practice of law and of politics. In The
subsequent war times Of the sixties,
John Martin, j. NJ. Ruggles, hugh
Walsh, Tom Fenlon and some half doZ-
en- others constituted the Democratic
party of the state. They were all good
enough fellows, popular in social way
with Republican leaders, but neither OF
them had any use for Abe Lincoln and
his war. Martin has always been run
ming for and filling Offices. If we re-
member correctly, he was "a clerk III
the first territorial legislature, which
met near Fort Riley, and although
mossback Jacksonian, living in a lie
publican community and state, making
an open fight against Grant for sending
troops into Louisiana, he has been run
ming for and holding Office pretty much
all the time for forty years. He was in
the legislature, on the bench and can
didate for governor several times, hnal-
Iv. through the dicker Of fusion, land
ing In the United States senate. The
fusion failed last week TO dicker again,
and the man who at one time fioated
himself in tears, in declining a nomina-
tion for governor, was left high and
dry on the bleak political bluff of dis
integrated Democracy. The judges OF
the new Pop supreme court either out
of a degenerate conlmiseration or be-
cause of threatened dissolution of fu-
sion, took him in. and the eN-iegisiator,
ex-iudge, ex-United States senator and
ex-high-cock- "A forum becomes a clerk,
the party of Jefferson and Jackson. in
Kansas, giving place to Leedy-Popism
and ceaSing to be.
Henry King, the other Topeka man
referred to. came 10 Kansas later, came
from the field of battle, where he had
won promotion, to take an editorial po-
sition on the Daily State Record. There
was nothing of the self-assertive In
Henry King. If he had an ambition it
must have been one for modesty. Warm
hearted, appreciative, and the soul OF
centleness, no mob of statesmen or
crowd of political bosses ever in any
degree awed him or broke down the
trocha of his reserve. His good will and
consideration, when commanded at all,
were won by individual merit. For
single term he once held down an Off
cial position. but the place being of per-
sonaI politics he slowed himself away
ia a quiet corner and signed himself
"F. NJ until the commission expired
by limitation. He despised practical
politics and Ioathed the political pro
mater. But above the manly heart
which SO few knew how to reach, he
carried a level head, a brain neither
wanting in the number of its convolu-
tons or the quantity or quality of its
gray matter He could write, write as
no other Kansas editor wrote, write pol
itics, write classics, write modern maya
zine romances, write up-to-date anything
and everything except stuff" He was
'long" on elegance but short on slush.
The vigorously chaste and the pointed
~ graceful do not always prove profit
able on a market where viscidity and
sappiness are in demand. So III re-
Spouse 10 an advantageous offer Dy a
metropolitan journal, Kansas. although
successfully retaining Judge John Mar
tin 10 this day, lost Captain Henry
King, who will prove all that his name
implies as the head Of one Of the great
est news" papers of the west-Of any
where.