Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-01-12
JOHN ]. INGALLS,.
Says Republicans Are Attracted
to Cy Leland
Like Flies to Feeulence, Like BuZzards
to CarriOn, or Esquimaux to an De.
casiOnaI WaIrus.

/ 3
following written statement of his
views with reference to the Kansas
political situation:
THAT intelligent and sagacious
leadership was indispensable to sue
cess, and the most discouraging symp-
tom was the malignant attacks in some
of the newspapers upon the great and
good man, Cy Leland, whose wisdom
and courage had done so much to
maintain our ascendancy in the west
since Lincoin's time"
He added: ''If there has been in the
last quarter of a century any crisis in
our party's history when the discour-
aged and faltering masses have not
instrinctively turned to the experience
of Cy Leland for counsel, and to his
genius for inspiration, 1 do not re-
call it. How often, when the battle
seemed lost, have we not all heard Cy
Leland's trumpet tones calling on
round the flag of equal right, protec-
ton and sound money.
I'm all our party platforms Cy Le-
lands facile and graphic pen has
formulated the issues of desperate
campaigns in pregnant sentences that
have been the prelude of victory.
Consider, too, the admirable career
of this venerable leader as county
commissioner of Doniphan, where he
has kept the party solid for 20 years
and marshal1ed its delegation in every
state and district convention, with no
suspicion of trade and dicker, nor any
accusation that he was in politics for
what he could get out of it.
That this disinterested patriot who
aspired to cabinet portfolio as sec
retary of the interior or of agriculture,
to which by his talent and service he
was justly entitled, voluntarily ac-
cepted the inferior position of pension
agent, when everybody wanted Tom
Anderson for that place, is conclusive
proof that he did not enrich himself
by stealing the money contributed to
the campaign fund of the state, as has
been SO base1y insinuated.
"These calumnious on Cy Leland
weaken the defences of public virtue.
What encouragement remains for am
bilious young men to devote them
selves to the public service if the ex-
a1ted character and honorable fame of
Cy Leland are no armor against the
weapons of envy and personal de-
faction?
"Those who impute sordid and selfish
purposes to our revered leader, who
1mpugn his motives and sneer at his
qualities, forget that in 1892 the Re-
publican convention at Hutchinson
with much enthusiasm demanded his
retirement from the national commit
tee. But he knew what the party
needed better than it knew itself, and
by an act of incompatible self sacri-
tice, he saved it from the consequences
of its own error. He continued on the
committee and out of the chaos of the
revolution of 1891 he created an or
ganization that in 1896 turned over
every department of the state govern
ment to Populism and gave the
ELECTORAL vote to Bryan.
mo ordinary, cheap yellow dog poll
tician could have done this. 1t re-
quired genius of the highest order:
Such prodigy must be born and not
made.
"It was the same skill and foresight,
the same gift of management that de
creed the defeat of Morri1l's nomina-
ton last year, selected Peters as the
candidate for governor and gave Nor
rill every vote in the conventions; that
tried to beat Broderick with Bailey in
the First district and gave Broderick
a walkover; that endeavored to throw
Judge Wells at Wyandotte nd gave
him an easy victory; that opposed the
nomination of Tom Ryan as assistant
secretary of the interior, and secured
his unanimous confirmation.
s'It is these deep and subtle meth
DDS, these brilliant tactics and start
ling triumphs which gain their ends
by seeming to oppose them, that have
established Cy Le1aud's claim to SUI
premacy, given him the prestige he
justly enjoys, and excited the inn.
placab1e hatred of those he has passed
in the race for glory, and who vent
their Intellectual spleen and chagrir
by calling him boss and dictator.
even Joe Hudson has so far yielded
to this irrational c1amor as to join the
Isense1ess and disintegrating cry
lagainst 'bossism' in Kansas politics
ignoring the fact that by the exhibi
ton of his gigantic resources, and tn,
inspirating of his innumerable vic
tories, Cy Leland has attracted to him
self an immovable phaianx made nj
of the moral and intellectual forces o
the state.
Assembled around him is gal1an
band of young, generous and loft,
spirits, like George Find1ay, Lit Crum
: Frank Brown, Mort A1baugh, jim
Simpson and their associates, animal
led by the patriotic passion whicl