The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-09-27
TOOK SNAP JUDGMENT
Howard and Wilson Rushed
the Gerrymander Scheme.
SEALOCK DID NOT KNOW
That 1t Was to Come Up
Tammany Is Pleased.

What IS considered the very best evil
dence that the gerrymander rushed
through by Commissioners Howard and
Wilson came about as the result of a
private deal unknown outside of a few
local managers, is the fact that the
question of setting the First ward out of
the First district was sprung at the
board meeting very suddenly and without
excuse. Mr.. Sealock said yesterday that
ne had understood the question had been
settled last summer and was not TO he
considered any further. It was not talk
ed OF in the board meeting before it was
sprung for action. Sam Amidon Joined
the meeting and he took with him the
typewriter resolution with blank places
Tor Mr.. Towards and Mr. Wilson's name
as the mover and "seconder.' resDec-
lively, as published in the Eagle. Mr.
Sealock, whom no one can accuse Of be-
ing political trickster in any sense, OBJ
Jected to its passage, simply because he
considered it unjust and illegal Mr.
Seaiock, as well as everybody else, is
dumbofunded to think that Howard and
Wilson would act together so readily on
this question when they had been at
swords points on every question before
the board since it's organization. The
desperate situation in which Ballentine
was placed, could not alone have been
OF sufficient importance to get Wilson to
go over to Howard, even at the solicita-
ton Of Dale and Amidon. There is a
DEAL a gigantic manipulation in which
Wilson is to be favored" said disfran-
chised voter of the First ward yester-
day, land the voters who have been dis
franchised will be without stamina or
pride II they fail to speak out against it
when the time comes"
A voter in the First ward said yester-
day: 81 consider the action of the COM
mtssioners simply outrageous. A right
to vote for commissioner is the best
right a taxpayer can have. The commits
sioners are the representatives of the
people in the matter of taxes and costs
of running a county, and the various
affairs pertaining directly to the owners
of property. We ought to be allowed to
speak in the matter Of their election, but
1t seems that we are again DISTINGUISHED
and no telling when we will get to vote
on a commissioner. After the election
the board may want to put us back in
the First district or somewhere else
where we cannot cast our vote. I am a
Democrat. but if it takes such dirty poll
tics as was enacted at the board meeting
TO run campaigns with I will not bother
myself in going to the polls at ALL"
Another nberal-minded Democrat, who
does not have much use for the Demo-
Pop ticket anyway, said: "If 1 cannot
vote for commissioner I won't vote for
anyone else. I would as soon be dis
dranchised all over as in spots"
Harry Stewart of Tammany fame,
seemed to be very well pleased with the
action Of the commissioners. This could
not be If politics" were not at the bot
tom OF the deal, and politics favorable to
Tammany. Mr.. Stewart is supposed to
be managing Dale's campaign, and it is
therefore supposed that the gerrymander
enacted by the commissioners has Mr..
Dale's approval In fact it has been con-
sidered by some that the whole scheme
had it's fountain head at the district
judges bench and was carried thence to
Amidoh and then to the commissioners,
so that in case the legality of the action
of the commissioners were ever called
into question Mr.. Amidon as county at
torney representing the commissioners.
would have Dale's support at law. This
is probably the reason Amidon was so
persistent in advising the commissioners
against the opinion of the attorney gen.
eral. He even repudiated the opinion of
Judge Webb, who is acknowledged to be
the best lawyer in the Populist party Of
Kansas
Not considering any of the shameful
politics of the gerrymander, the action of
the commissioners is considered to be
nothing more or less than a brazen af-
front to the intelligence and rights of