The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-10-12
WHITE ON BURTON.
The Emporia Man Says Senator
Has Full Prerogatiyes.

The politicians who have been won
dering whether Citizen William Allen
White would set himself up as bigger
man than United States Senator Burton
are greatly relieved at the modest,
frank, generous statement made by the
editor of the Emporia Gazette upon his
return from an absence of month and
a half in the east
In this period Mr.. White has had all
sorts of honors, invitations to dine, to
speak and to write, and conferences
thrust upon him by literary and politi-
cal celebrities.
Yet the Home Coming of Bill White
to the good old town of Emporia, the
return to his duties on the paper and
to his services for the welfare of his
neighbors, of their city and of their
social and business interests are doubt
less as sweet and satisfying as any of
the incidents of his eventful six weeks
away from the quiet valley OF the Ne
osho. Mr.. White says:
Senator Burton of Kansas has acted
with good sense and good taste in re
fusing to discuss the failure of B. H
Tracy to be appointed United States
district attorney of Kansas. 1t is lmma-
terial to the issue in hand to go into the
know that the attorney general of the
United States did not see in Tracy a fit
man to appoint Whether or not the
attorney general erred is hardly a mat
ter for Senator Burton to discuss. The
senator knows that he did what he con-
sidered his full duty to his friend Tracy,
and he did it at the risk of irritating
the attorney general with too much pro-
testation. But very likely the attorney
general admires the traits of persistent
though isdirected-courage in Bur-
-fe,fr ii oh
ssssutely untrue that Senator Burton has
lost any standing with President ROose-
welt on account of the Tracy business
The president and senator merely had
a friendly difference of opinion about
candidate for office That was all there
was to it. Burton has the full strength
of all his senatorial prerogatives at the
White House. He is the only Republic
can in Kansas, who can have the slight
est word to say about the patronage of
the state BurtOn'S good taste and good
sense in accepting the presidents dictum
in the Tracy matter as a gentleman
should accept it, will make him stronger
at the White House than ever.
There is nothing Surer than that the
defeat of Tracy, and the appointment of
Dean was not a Leland victory. Cyrus
Leland had nothing to do with the de-
feat of Tracy, nor did any one else who
is recognized as Leland'S friend. The
only person who organized the fight on
Tracy and won the victory-if it may
be called that's r. M Chilcott, editor
OF the WameSO 11neS-
when Chilcott started this fight the
Gazette-not knowing the facts-pro-
tested against it unfair. But appar-
emily the attorney general thought 9TH
erwise. The president was guided
tirely by the opinion of the attorney
general in the Tracy matter, and any
attempt to use personal influence
without facts and docun entary evil
dence-would have discredited whoever
would try it. Roosevelt is not man to
try to put in leading strings. Any Kan
san or any citizen of the United States
may go to President Roosevelt with
public or political business and will get
just so much audience and considera-
ton as his evident statements deserve.
There is no kitchen cabinet in the
White House. And whoever explains
his political defeat by asserting that
there is a back door policy there. makes
it less likely that he will ever retrieve
his lost fortune.
THE Republicans of Kansas can have
but one official head at Washington, and
that head is Senator Burton. 1t is the
duty of all Kansas Republicans to put
their cases in his hands and to trust to
the good sense and good taste Burton
has displayed in not talking of the
Tracy matter, to carry them through
to a successful conclusion in their po-
litica1 a.