The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-10-27
HIS FIRST Time
Veteran Editor, John Gilmore,
Makes a Straight Talk.
Supported Entire Republican
Ticket for % Years.
CAN NOT Do so NOW
Makes a Comprehensive Review
of Kelly's Record.
Made Mistake Once of Voting for
Sam Lappin.

sas editors who take the pains to per-
sonally investigate the charges against
L. L. Kelly are invariably the ones who
are most outspoken in opposition to his
election, simply because they are con-
ylnced beyond doubt that Kelly is Of
/ tcially dishonest.
For the first time in 28 years John
S. Gilmore, the veteran editor of the
! Wilson County Citizen, is opposing a
Republican nominee, but he is vigor-
ously fighting Kelly because Kelly is
ScorruDt.
When Kelly issued his explanation
some time ago Mr.. Gilmore published it
in order to give Kelly full justice Tn
his last issue he publishes an editorial
Kelly should be defeated. He says:
'On the eve of the Republican state
convention at Wichita those opposed to
the nomination of Thomas T. Kelly for
state treasurer caused to be circulated
charges of dishonesty and swindling
against him while county clerk of
Miami county from 1890 to 1884. These
charges failed to defeat his nomination,
MI Kelly and his supporters emphatic
ally denying their truth and giving as
surance that their utter falsity would
be satisfactorily proven to the Republic
cans of Kansas. The Miami county Re-
publican convention had been held
about ten weeks before the investiga-
ton and findings of the commissioners
of that county had been completed and
published, and Mr.. Kelly carried the
county with practical unanimity and
was permitted to name his personal
friends as delegates not only to the
Wichita convention but to the congress
Slon3l convention, that he might employ
the full power of Miami county in pro-
motion of his candidacy for treasurer
So while the charges were unfavorable,
the presence of a solid home delegation
supporting him; statements from his
friends that the charges were untrue
and entirely the result of a malicious
factional fight in Miami county; that
they had been sprung just before the
convention to unfairly beat him, and
that they would positively be explained
and show Mr.. Kelly's record to be clear
and his actions upright-aIf these arSu-
mentS had the effect of more than Off
setting the charges of dishonesty; they
created sympathy for him, as one wick
edly assailed and infamously wronged
by enemies who would stoop to any
thing. Then Mr.. Kelly was nominated.
THE state convention over, exDecta-
ton was on tiDtoe for a formal denial
of the deliberate findings of the board OF
commissioners of Miami county, supper t.
ed by specific refutation and clarifying
facts. But nothing appeared. A month
passed, and still silence reigned.F An
other month followed, and the solemn
stiffness was unbrOken. Kelly and his
friends were relying upon the Miami
county storm subsiding and having no
effect in the state. AS the third month
advanced Republican papers in Kansas
mot run by editors of the white rabbit
kind who had abased themselves before
or pandered to the Farmers Alliance
and later whooped it up from the start
for free silver) began demanding that
Mr.. Kelly give some explanation of the
indictment which made him out a thief.
Not Republican paper in the state was
defending him. A clamor for a state
ment from Kelly was threatened. Three
months after he bad been nominated for
state treasurer and after the Repub
licans of his own county (who had been
so unanimously for him prior to the
Of on i6r1o
!. ferred to- in county convention by d
vote of 1SO to 29 denounced his dishon
esty and demanded that he be removed
from the ticket, he appeared in three
column printed response. This state
ment did not attempt to explain the
points affecting his integrity as county
clerk or refute the correctness of any
!, of the specific items involving the rails
= ing and duplicating by him of county
, warrants. Instead the statement was an
elaborate recital of the political condi-
, tiOnS in Miami county as they applied
to local interests and individhals-in-
genious in method, plausible in reason
+ ing and remarkably conciliatory in tone.
1t practically assumed that his part in
, the political dfSSensiOnS of Miami county
constituted the issue in his candidacy
, instead of the question whether the Re
publicans of the 104 other counties of
Kansas should have on their ticket as a
! nominee for the important office of state
. treasurer man who could not clear
himself of the charges of drawing public
, money by resort to artful but criminal
meaGz.
Mr. Kelly in his statement Gt was
not an explanatory insinuated that the
county records had been taken out of
the court house and doctored to make d
case against him. Everyone of ordinary
information knows that records cannot
be changed without showing 1t. Would
, anyone suppose for mor2ent that Mr..
! ! Kelly would fail to prove such tamDer-
! ing with the records if they had been
! altered in the slightest? Besides, the
l commissioners say none of the records
!. the raised and duplicated warrants are
! all in the handwriting of ThOs. T. Kelly.
And on top of all this evidence in off
set of the three months delayed in
sinuation of doctored records, Mr.. Kelly
was present with the commissioners
and county attorney when every vouch-
er, warrant and other record was be-
] fore them after their examination, and
he did not question their verify nor
allege that a letter or figure had been
D cha nged.
c Mr. Kelly in his discussion of the DO
d litical situation in Miami county dwelt
n on the fact that two men who were
$ leading the fight on him had signed his
. bond as assistant state treasurer That
d bond was former one and signed be-
+ fore the development of proof of his
Il crookedness as county clerk. Those men
are not on his present bond He could
9 as fitly have shown. after the Miami
V county Republican convention condemn
i ed him by a vote of $50 to 29 on August
: 16 after the disclosures against him
T. that a convention of the same party in
= that county had endorsed him five
months before such disclosures
Again, he refers to the fact that he
had been receiver of a National bank
= without being charged with nlisapprc-
! rriation of frIpdS-0r words to that eff