Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1903-11-25
A HARMONY LEGISLATURE.
Tom McNeaI PourS Load Into the G. O.
P. Machine.

T. A. McNeal, in last weeks Mail
and Breeze, reviews the Kansas legis-
lature of 1903 in very vivid and true
picture from it's birth to it's end.
After few preliminary remarks con-
corning the way it was organized by
coterie of bosses a month before it
met, Mr.. McNeal says:
"Haying decided to organize a har-
mOniOuS legislature and relieve the
members of that body of any troubl e
in the way of thinking for themselves,
or choosing for themselves, the gentle
men who conceived this brilliant plan
decided further that, as harmony was
good thing in legislative body, the
more Of it the better. Thirty or 40 en-
plOyeS were known to contribute an
ample force to do all the work that
needed to be done about the legisla-
ture, but, in order to increase the
amount of beatifc harmony, it was
thought best to employ 200 extra har-
moniouS employees.
The plan, when you come to think it
over, did seem to show rare genius on
the part of it's originatorS.
Instead Of 80 harmonious employees,
here were 23O.
Think Of it: 230 persons, all in per-
feet harmony with the governor, SneeZ-
ing when he SneeZed, smiling when he
SmOle, winking when he wunk.
1.-THE plan was carried out according
subscribe to the harmony idea simply
WASH IT in it for single minute.
"The HolyScriptureS state that after
the Almighty had finished UP the work
of creating the heavens and the earth.
the lands, the emerald seas, the beasts
OF the field and man himself, in six
days, he looked the work over and pro-
nounced it good, but it is probable his
feeling of satisfaction wasn't a cir
cumstance compared with that OF
the men who planned and put into
working order this new style of an alb
solutely harmonious legislature.
"Here was body just to their liking.
Henry Allen said that it was good, the
most perfectly organized legislature
that ever was. Billie Morgan put
upon it the stamp of his approval.
Mort looked upon it and smiled and
said, See what a wonderful genius for
organization we have
eve now have the opportunity to
see how perfectly harmonious Iegis-
lature, managed and operated by the
gentlemen mentioned above, operates
in practice.
sit would now seem that, with all
their genius for organization, there
were some things these gentlemen oy-
erlooked. They failed, it seems, to
take into consideration the capacity
OF the house of representatives and
the corridors leading thereto They
did not stop to figure that it would
be impossible to accommodate all the
harmonious employees and the legisla-
ture in the hall at the same time. If
the employees were admitted in a body
the legislature would be compelled to
move out. AS the members Of the leg
iSlature insisted on sitting in the hall,
it became necessary for great part of
the harmonious army Of employees to
stay outside. Not having any duties
to perform, and there being no easy
seats provided in the corridors for
such multitude, they wondered at
will until pay day arrived, when they
lined up to receive their vouchers and
draw their pay from the treasury. OF
course, under the circumstances, the
nominal speaker of the house did not
get acquainted with a good many mem
berS Of this harmonious aggregation
of grafterS. 1t was his business to
swear in the employees, but the task
was greater than any man should be
expected to perform for the moderate
stipend of S6 per day, therefore it
seems that the nominal speaker fell
into the habit of administering oaths
by proxy. All man had to do to get
draw on the treasury was to come
before somebody and swear that he
was an emplOye. 1t did not seem to
make any particular difference who
administered the oath; anybody would
do. Ii the employe didn't happen to
be in town: ii it WASH It convenient for
him to come to Topeka at all, he Staid
at home and allowed somebody else to
swear for him. One member, Enright
of Wyandotte, acknowledges that he
drew the money for one employe and
kept 10 to pay debt the man owed
him. In other words, he collected his