Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1898-12-03
The Passing of the Pops.
Concordia Empire.

OOhCOTuid
Yes they are done for. They have
been tried and now they are found
wanting a job they will never get
again. 1t was a funny course they
ran-the whole thing would have been
funny had there not been so much
seriousness mingled with it. 1t re-
minds the reader of history of the
Crusades to recapture the Holy land
from the heather Moslems. One can
not help but admire the zeal of those
hundreds of thousands who left their
holmes on what they regarded a
righteous mission, however much he
must stand in amaZement at the
childish ignorance they displayed in
regard to the work they expected to
do. So in this Kansas crusade to re-
capture our land from the Ickelheim-
ers, the octopus and the great red
dragon who had taken possession and
were roofing upall our potato patches,
crusades preached by a Peter the
hermit from Texas, another from
Georgia and a few other places, all of
whose names and localities are now
forgotten by everybody, the great
move began. Heavens! How akin to
a nightmare is the feeling the mere
suggestion of it recalls! Night after
night, never less than three nights
week, the average alliance man at
tended secret meetings in his own
school houses and his neighboring
school houses, where the curtains
were drawn and the doors locked, and
listened to the wild raving of the
evil-born-they imagined themselves
heaven-Sent-how till, on his way
home he was SO frightened that he
trembled at the rustic of a leaf and
imagined that Corporate Greed had
him by the throat strangling him,
and the octopus was winding him up
in its Shiny tentacleS and rushing
with him headlong to the jumping off
place, when it was simply some sly,
smooth, crafty fox with lamb skin
covering pulling his leg for donations
to ''Our cause" ''our newspaper"
''our publications. - ''our cooperative
store,'' our this and that and every
fool quack idea that the ingenuity of
the Evil One could hatch. o those
days when man was arrayed against
man, neighbor against neighbor and
suspicion reigned. But the zeal of
men was enlisted as no man in Kan
sas ever saw it before. The devotees
of populism believed with all their |
hearts in the justice of their cause |
and in the ability of their half baked |
leaders. The months passed. They |
gained the ascendency. Their lead |
erS said the Kansas laws were bad. all |
bad, but when the legislature tried to |
remedy them and failed the excuse /
was given that the senate was against |
them, and the supreme court was
against them. At last they won
every rything-governor, supreme court,
appellate courts, senate, house and
the entire machinery And then not
a single law was repealed and not a
pledge to their party redeemed. The
excuse given by their speakers during
the last campaign was that none of
the laws proposed were constitutional.
But why didn't they enact some laws
that were constitutional? Why didn't
they get up such laws if their were
evils to be corrected? Well it is all
over. The claims were quackery and
t was Quacks that made them. The
farmers who went into the
move stayed with it until it was thor
,ughly tested and proved unworthy.
Now they are turning from it. When
is insincerity as pop party was
shown by its entering on the last
with all its old principles