The Topeka state journal., 1900-12-27
IN HOTEL CORRIDORS.

/ appreciate
ness was done in the western counties
during the boom days. said a gentle
man at the Copeland. Il lived in Stew
ems county and in Scott county while
the wild rush to get land was on, and
/ lived there some time afterward when
every man was trying to make living
by going into politics because the land
would not raise enough to support them
and the money brought in by the settlers
had all been spent. The thing that
caught the western Kansan more than
anything else was the fact that he could
vote bonds and sell them. 1t seemed
such an easy way of making, money that
no western county overlooked the op-
portunity. and mighty few eastern coun-
ties avoided the evil. But everybody IN
the west understands about the bonds.
What intended telling you was an IN
stance in the bond issuing business
which I have never heard eQualeds al
though about all the fool bond issues
have been written about until they are
tiresome. The issue that / speak of was
made for the purpose of starting sugar
factory, the sugar to be made OF sugar
beets- After the bonds were issued II
was impossible to sell thep1s Tor the
eastern buyers were getting scared
about the western bonds, so the county
officials decided to trade the bonds for
windmills, which were to be put up all
over the county to pump water to be
used in irrigating- 1t was the hight1eSt
scheme ever proposed, but anything
seemed feasible to a western Kansas
man in those days, and the deal went
through. The windmill men backed out
of their bargain, and that was the only
reason the county is not dotted with
windmills. The bonds are not worth the
paper they are printed upon, for they
We're repudiated or annulled or some
thing of that kind. 1 have in my pos
session the original contract between
the windmill company and the county
commissioners agreeing to trade the
bonds for wfndmills but I have not seen
one of the bonds for some time A man
who was anxious to see one of the bonds
called with myself upon one OF the men
who had been a county commissioner,
and asked him to show US one of the
bonds. He looked at US in an injured
way, and then holding up his coat that
we might see the patches on his trous-
ers said: DO look like a bondholder?'
That was all we got out of him in re-
gard to the bonds I suppose some one
knows where the bonds are, but they
would be mighty hard to find, for busi-
ness was done in a very slack way in
the western counties in those days, and
1t would be difficult to find them"
ct got my head bumped in very
beautiful manner when was reporting |
on a paper in southern Kansas" said |
a newspaper man. 1t was scoop that |
cost me a great many cigars, and it is |
still thrown up to me when l. go to the |
town. had a very good friend who was |
principal of one of the schools and was l
also quite prominent in society circles, |
as society circles go in small towns. He |
was engaged to a young lady, but that |
was known only to the intimate friends |
and the people the intimate friends told. |
The marriage was expected and looked /
forward to by all the town gossips, and |
goodness knows the town was blessed |
with its share of them. There was an |
other little daily published in the town. |
It was a morning sheet, while the paper |
I worked on was supposed to come out /
in the afternoon If missed a personal |
and the morning paper got it, every one /
in the town knew 1 had been scooped, |
and I was told about it at least a dozen |
times during the day. The teacher had |
cOnfided in me that he was to be mar 4
ried and had asked me to engage the |
wedding ring for him, as he did not /
want the jeweler to give the thing away
as he would be sure to do if he pur-
chased the ring personally. bit at the
bait ike f1Sh and told hlm that L
would get the ring when he wanted it.
He was to tell me the afternoon be
fore the evening of the wedding. I /
thought 1t was a snap, as ne could not
possibly get married without first tell
ing me, and I would have it in the
paper in the afternoon. One afternoon
about twenty minutes before press time
I was called up at the telephone. and
a woman's voice asked me If we had in
the paper that the professor would be
married that evening. answered that
we did not have it because the marriage
I
female at the other end of the line as
sured me that she knew they would be
and that if I did not have it
in would be laughed at in the morn
ing for losing the item. / thought / had
a cinch on the business, and gave her
the laugh. Well, that night the teacher
did get married, and I had lost a great
piece Of news for that town. He had
simply put up a job on me, the we'd
ding ring business being bluff. He
was not afraid of the jeweler but he
was afraid of me, and he took about
the only possible way to keep me from
publishing the fact that the marriage
would take place when it did. His OBJ
ject was to avoid the crowd that would
surely congregate to throw rice and old
shoes. They got off the train that
night without more than a dozen people
knowing about it. If l had got the item
in there would have been at least a
hundred, and 1 would have headed the
crowd. The next day it cost me at least
two boxes of cigars which is a terrible
strain on a ten dollar salary"
This is the city where the chief of
police came from who was robbed when