The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-07-27
Refuses to Retract Statements
About Legislature.
"GaZette on Sure Ground and
viii Stay There"
HEGIRA FROM KANSAS.
Investigation Would Cause
Stampede of Guilty.
Any Determined Lawyer Could
Prove Crooked Transactions.

A dispatch from Emporia states that
w. A White left Saturday night with
his wife for Thunder Mountain, Idaho,
where they will remain until September
Mrs White is i'll. They will visit Yel-
lowstone park. Before he left Mr..
White said regarding the report that he
saw Joseph Folk in St. Louis in order
to learn more about John A. Lees state
ment that there was boodling in Kan
sas:
Il did see Folk for about ten minutes
before the calling of the Faulkner per-
jury case. We talked Missouri politics
and l told him he stood about the same
show of being governor of Missouri that
John the Baptist would stand of con-
verting the forty thieves. Missouri will
get around to Folk just about in time
to send one of his grandchildren to wit
ness the unveling of his statue. But we
did not discuss anything but local poll
tics and that was purely social
The fist thing White wrote when he
got down to the office Saturday morn
ing was the following editorial on legis-
altive bOodling in Kansas:
The tone of certain editorials in Kan
sas demanding that the Gazette put up
or shut UP is such that one is forced
to the conviction that the first defend
ers of the crooks If there should be
show down would be the writer's OF
these same editorials. In this connec-
ton here is a curious fact, showing the
influence of dishonest politicians over
honest editors. in every instance where
Kansas newspaper has attacked the
editor of the Gazette for requesting a
! Doodle Investigation either the senator
OF one of the representatives from that
county has reputation for shady
deals This is more than passing
Let
made by the Gazette.
The Gazette has knowledge of one
crooked transaction in the legislat ature
Its informant, the man whose client
paid the actual spot cash, is one OF the
best, cleanest men in Kansas For the
Gazette to print the story would do no
good. In suit for libel the clients
would hike out, but they could not
business The way these people were
held up by the Legislature was dupli-
Gated several times, Is the journals of
! the two houses will show.
1t is personally to the editor of this
paper matter of superlative indiffer-
ence whether the boodlers steal the gold
dome off the capitol but on the other
hand big boss boodler has said that
he bought the legislature of Kansas in
1901. Senator Cal Morrow, who was a
member of that legislature and the re-
cent legislature, has said that he saw
evidences of Doodle. The Topeka Cap
4Ldl , 1C6lSldluIC IGPOIlGI lDtliidLeQ the
same thing. Any determined lawyer
can take the record of the two houses
talk with half a dozen honest Iegisla-
tors, find who of the legislators were
suspected of being crooked, and get
from the honest men a list OF the crook
ed bills, see how they hung up at the
end of the calendar and then suddenly
jumped down and were passed. He can
then quickly subpoena the beneiciaries
of these bills, put them in the sweat box,
then put the suspected crooks through
the mangling machine and in six weeks
there Will be a hegira from Kansas that
will be surprising.
The attorney general may do that or
not just as he Dleases. The county at
torney of Shawnee county may do that
or not just as he pleases. The Gazette
| has no desire to calumniate any one
| even on the mere verbal statement of
one of the best lawyers in Kansas. but
/ that statement may be verified before a
grand jury in the simplest possible man
ner, and the crookedness unearthed. For
nearly ten years the present editor of
the Gazette has kept out of libel suits
/ by being careful. He has printed moth
/ ing derogatory to any man that he
could not prove. He has been called
wild and woolly, but you bet your hair
pins that the fellows who have claimed
they were wronged have never reverted
to the courts to get the truth. In this
bribery matter the Gazette is on sure
ground And what is more it will stay
there.