Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-15
Kansas Legislation and New York.

FROM the New York Sun
Ihe announcement is made at Topeka
Aas., that more than one-half the members
OF the Populist legislature are pledged to
vote for bill requiring life and fire in
surance companies doing business in the
state TO invest in Kansas securities or real
estate the greater part of the premiums
collected. The evil done to the state by
lhe operations of these companies was one
OF the themes upon which Populist orators
We're eloquent in the last campaign. 1t was
shown that the yearly premiums received
oy the companies from Kansas people
amounted to over s,5OO,OOO, and it was
trlumphantly asked if there could be a
palmer instance of the eXactions of foreign
capital.
We should say that. instead of the pro-
posed law, the Populist legislature of Kan
saS should pass an act reading something
like this:
Section 1. No foreign corporation shall
40 business in Kansas, or loan money to
citizens of this state.
Sec. 2. No person in Kansas shall do
business with any foreign corporation or
borrow money from it.
Sec. s. This act shan take effect i'm
mediately"
The advantage of such an act as this Is
definite; but in the event of the passage
OF any such measure, the money now in
vested IN Kansas by non-residents will
obviously be withdrawn as rapidly as is
consistent with business prudence. 1t will
pe nkeiy, in fact, not to stand upon the
oruer or Its going but to go at once, fear
lul OF a general act of debt reputation
The thoughtful and conservative citizens
OF the state will themselves go out of busi-
ness and either leave the state or place
thelr funds away from it. The remainder
and majority of the people will be left to
loiioW their mad way to its bitter end. The
maj catastrophe will arrive in due course
OIL tme, and then in the abandoned farms,
the tumoled-down and depopulated cities
and the general beggary and ruin of KAN
saS' there may come some perception to its
people of their ignorance and fanaticism
Happily all this has for us merely an
academic interest. Yet we cannot disguise
our concern that the Tammany society of
New York at a recent meeting should have
adopted as declaration of its policy reso-
Iutons which were as full of Populism and
anarchy and breathed as fierce an ami
mostly toward the thrifty and the prosper
GUS as If they had been written by PETER
or Mary Elizabeth Lease. 1t has been ex-
planned that these resolutions are insincere
that tney are merely playing politics"
and that if Tammany was in power instead
of out of it, we would see no such waving
of firebrands. But it is carrying the joke
too far when, after frantic assault upon
the gas companies, We have a denuncia.y
ton of all corporations merely because they
are such. The ballots cast for Bryan in
this city in the last campaign are declared
to be evidence of loyalty to Democratic
principles. and combinations of capital are
denounced because they promote economy
of production, always at the expense of
the toiler"
1t has been apparent for some time that
unless there is a radical change in the
the only candidate at the
mayoralty election which Tammany hall
can logically support is Mr.. Henry George.
But even George would snirk the job on
such platform and turn it over to John
Most or Justus Schwab.
In the meantime our newly made Popu-
lists are talking about running things to
suit themselves in our own legislature and
hey have trotted out as worthy of ap-
1roval all the ''old stagers" among the
strike bills, whose infamy is carried upon
he rolls of the Third house at Albany from
year to year. They seem to be sublimely
unaware of the fact that there is a Re
publican majority of about six to one in the
legislature and that one Frank S. Black is
governor.