The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-05-27

| an and child population. Oklahoma has
a population of half a million persons;
twenty dollars for each person amounts
TO ten millions of dollars per year the
| people OF Oklahoma contribute 10 the ma
| tional government In eighteen months
! you will have returned your fifteen mill
ION dollar gift and you viii be laser your
doctor bill for hoarseness and the cost
| Of powder burned in celebrating: yet free
homes are q grand thing and we must
| celebrate, but while celebrating let Us
THINK
The New8irk Herald, which is taking
care OF Bob Neff's congressional boom.
is milder in its utterances this week. but
still feels the necessity of giving Petit
grew and Eddy credit for the passage Of
the bill. Editorially the Herald says:
The Wichita Eagle says that the Man
chester Journal and the Newkirk Herald
are the only papers in Oklahoma that re-
fuse to give Dennis Flynn credit for pass
ing the free homes bill. Whether the
Eagle has become so bitterly partisan
that it can only look at matter through
smoked Republican goggles. or whether
the Manchester Journal and the Newkirk
Herald are the only two Oklahoma pa
pers its editor reads, we are not prepared
10 say, but suffice to say, the Eagle is
off its base and exhibits a remarkable
carelessness in juggling with facts.
THE free homes bill had twelve sena-
tors and twenty-five congressman work
ing constantly for It. In the senate il
had Pettigrew. Nelson. Davis and Kyle
pushing it. In the lower house il had
Congressman Eddy. who introduced the
BILL and all the congressman from the
Dakotas, Minnesota and Colorado work
ing for it, because their constituents were
directly interested in it. The Republican
press OF Oklahoma, for selfish political
reasons. have persistently kept these facts
concealed from the public A special cor
respondent has been constantly employed
at Washington to furnish the Oklahoma
press with boom articles for Flynn. never
once giving out the idea that others were
working Just as hard for the measure as
Flynn. All these are well known facts,
of which the editor of the Eagle cannot
be ignorant, and facts with which every
newspaper man in Oklahoma is famil-
iar.
This year the Republicans are in bad
box for political thunder. The prosperity
racket won't work in the face Of cheap
wheat on one hand and trust prices on the
other. They cannot defend imperialism,
the Porto Rican outrage; the Cuban scan
dals, the -Pauncefote treaty, and the |
ship subsidy scheme. They know they
dare not enter into a discussion Of the |
issues, hence they must have something |
with which to side-track all these cues |
tons and work uD an enthusiasm over |
Hence they gobble onto the free homes |
bill and claim credit and glory, with the |
expectation of lodging all issues and fool |
ng Democrats and Pooulists into voting |
The Republican ticket.
The Herald is in favor Of giving Flynn |
credit for all he has done in the matter,
provided that as q people we have not |
iegenerated TO that low degree that it
las become necessary to pay an official |
$1,000 in salary and then get down on
'ur bellies and make an idol out of him
or simply helping TO do what he prom
sed to. do if the people would elect him
We don't blame the Republicans for
working the racket for all there is in It.
That's politics. 1t has been the policy
# the Republican party to fool the people
III the time. 1t is now trying to fool the
Democrats and Po3ulists. The Herald
Doesn't propose being caught by any such
lap-trap, and intends that its readers
hall fully understand all the facts in the
natter"