The Advocate and news., 1898-05-18
MIR. CLEMENs is LOOKING BACKWARD.
BY MRs. ANNIE L. DIaGs.

repeal OF the Metropolitan police law.
He asks the question, Who demand the
repeal of this law?' Mr.. Clemens must
have been absent from Topeka during the
last session of the Legislature or he
would have known that ii was the strong
and almost universal desire of the Popu-
list Representatives from the various
parts Of the State to repeal a law which
had been futile to compass the ends for
which it was enacted, and which had
become the most fruitful source of dis
cord In the POpulist party. 1t had not
been forgotten that the chief cause of
the defeat of Governor Lewelling for a
second term was the scandals which
grew out of the alleged corruption in
connection with the Metropolitan police.
1t was partly to protect the administra-
ton Of Governor Leedy from a similar
fate that so many earnest temperance
Populsts strOve to bring about the re-
peal of law the chief distinguishing
result OF which had been to protect law
breakers and to collect revenue from the
liquor traffic.
Mr.. Clemens would not have seen, dur
ing the session Of the Legislature, a
single liquor dealer or person financially
interested in the traffic lobbying for the
repeal Of the law. Experience has taught
these gentry that 1t is far easier to ma
nipulate police who owe their position
to a Governor remote from and inacces-
sible to the people Of the several lOcali-
ties, than to control for their laW-eVad-
ing purposes force of men put in place
by and directly responsible to the citi-
Zens, the cOunoilmen and the Mayor of a
city. 1t stands to reason that the liquor
dealers find their task Of multiplying the
law far lighter when they have but the
one central person, the chief executive,
to coerce than if they were to attempt to
attend to the several Mayors and cOun-
ellis Of cities, which last, passing annually
under the verdict of the municipal voters,
may be made to feel the force of public
sentiment. Those who are demanding
the repeal Of the law are very willing to
pass in review before Mr. Clemens and
endure comparison with such as are Op-
posed.
Mr.. Clemens says, "POpulists should
not only refuse to repeal that law, but
they should fight to the last ditch to
prevent its repeal" Just why should
POpulists desert their principle of di-
rect legislation and direct administration
Of law and fight to the last ditch for a
measure which removes the citizens of
locality from the conduct of their own
business? The essence and soul Of true
POpulism are pledged to hearing and
needing the popular will
Mr.. Clemens, scOrning logic on this
topic, employs sentiment cOlOred, as he
admits, by his personal injuries at the
hands of brutal police" Does Mr.,
Clemens really mean to say that 1T was
his fierce conflict with a brutal police ad-
ministratiOn which won for him the title
of "anarchist?" Is it not more nearly
real history to say that in the days of
those brutal police" Mr.. Clemens was an
anarchist" and won for himself that title
by braYely advocating those doctrines in
which he believed? Why does Mr.. Glenn
ems not take into account the change
in public sentiment and the growth of
general intelligence since those days of
which he complains when men were per-
secuted by the police, and by nearly ev-
erybOdy else, for advanced political Opin-
ions. viii Mr.. Clemens undertake to
say that the police were any more Sc
we're upon him at that time than were
non officials? Did not the brutal police
know full well that the community
backed them and applauded their fierce
ness against himself and other progress
sive thinkers? AS a matter Of fact, 1t is
not the substitution of Metropolitan po-
lice for local police which has wrought
the change since the long gone years
whose offences Mr.. Clemens so feelingly
and resentfully remembers. A Metro
pclitan police acting under partisan
Governor at that time would have been
no more lenient with Mr.. Clemens than
were the local police, The entire cOmmu-
nity of Topeka, as well as the entire
country has moved to A broader conn