The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-01

| what is known in political parlance as
fusion; What is fusion tS It is a
| principle. 1t is an abandonment of
i convictions for loaves and fishes. 1t
1 is the bartering of a fictitious birth
right for a mess of putrid pottage. 1t
/ is a trade a dicker between men who
| have nothing in common except an
1 uncommon appetite. 1t is conglomer-
| alton of all the odds and ends of poll
ties for personal profit. 1t is faro
/ politics. 1t commands the respect of
1 neither honest Democrat or conscien-
| tious Populist and should be repudi-
ated by both. To all these men, to
| the honest Democrats who have fol-
] lowed the fortunes of their brilliant
| leader, w. J. Bryan, in whose theories
L do not believe but whose courage
| and consistency 1 admire, and who
has been slaughtered in the house of
/ his friends; to the Populists who have
| conscientiously opposed the gold stan
| dard, and consistently denounced the
trusts, now arrayed against President
| Roosevelt and in favor of Mr. Parker:
to all men who believe in courage and
consistency and adherence to honest
beliefs and are opposed to the traffic
in party principles for selfish aggran-
disement, I appeal in the confident
| belief that thousands of them will re-
| Duke the humiliating action of the ST.
Louis convention and the even more
miserable abandonment of principle
| by their leaders in this state.
The Railroad Issue.
With a flourish of trumpets it has
been announced by these fusionists
! that 1.-The issue" in this state is to be
a crusade against railroad rates. Let
me say at the outset, that issues are
not made by candidates with axes to
grind, nor by parties for mere political
effect. Issues inhere in conditions and
can not be manufactured by 1mpe-
cunious parties to enrich themselves.
Our opponents are prolific in issues"
They have a brand new Issue" for
every campaign and seldom stay with
one longer than that. When they run
fall back on some phase of the rail-
road question. They are like the
quack doctor who knew nothing of
materia medica except that he was
an expert in the treatment of fits, and
who always threw his patients into
one of these spasms because, as he
said, he was death on fits" Two
years ago the excellent gentleman
who led the Democratic hosts to over
whelming defeat in this state a
railroad Issue" but innocently be-
lieved till the polls closed that he
would be victorious Ga gentleman
whose personal worth and untimely
death forbid unkind words from me), |
proposed to sweep the state" as my
opponent now proposes to do, on a
proposition to compel the railroads to
pay nearly all the taxes for the sup
port of the state and municipal gov
ernmentS. 1t was an issue" that went |
1t was based on the supposition that |
selfshness and antipathy to the rail- |
roads would sweep the state" as my |
opponent expresses it. But somehow |
or other it didn't sweep. People be- |
gan to investigate, and they found |
that the Republican party had already |
put a pretty heavy burden of taxation |
upon the railroads; that all the goods |
in all the warehouses and stores and |
shops; and all the furniture and fix |
lures in all the buildings; and all the |
implements and vehicles in city, town |
and country; and all the cattle and |
horses and sheep and hogs and help |
full hens, and all other animals and |
fowls; and all the jewelry and other |
personal adornments;- and all the
mortgages; and all the notes; and all |
the money in all the banks and pock- |
cts and holes in the wall-in a word, |
all the personal property of every kind |
and description in the state, only |
pays taxes in Kansas upon a valuation |
of five and a half million dollars more |
than the valuation placed upon the |
railroads by the Republican railroad |
road and personal property of 1921
100000. To be exact, the railroads
pay upon total valuation of $780,
8s0,4SS, while all the personal prop
erty pays upon a valuation of $685.
322,522. To this astounding and al
most unbelievable fact the people
soon added the additional information
that when the fuSiOnfStS had full pos
session of every department of the
state government in 1897 they didn't
have the heart to bear down on the
railroads any heavier than the Repub
licans had done, and so they prac-
tically readopted the Republican as
sessment and let it go at thati So
that tissue died abornin'. But this
year we are to have another railroad
issue. The people are to be thrown
into fits again. The new tissue" makes
the enactment of a law which, accord
ing to the platform, is to ''embody the
state railroad laws" whatever that
may mean. 1t was kind in these els
sue" and platform makers to promise
us only the good features of other
most states than in Kansas; they are
particularly so in many instances in
Texas. and it is reassuring to know
that these bad features are not to be
embodied in our new issue law. My
opponent, who is to champion this
new issue" made a speech at Cheney
on the 27th of May which was printed
in full in the daily papers. Mr.. Dale,
is to make his race on
state issues, and is to ignore national 1
questions-if he can. Well he gave
facts and figures" as he called them,
by the column concerning alleged in
equalities and extortions in rates. t
Many of these facts and figures" I
would not stand analysis, and many
of them leave unfair impressions, as I
juggleries always do, /
but conceding for the sake of the {
the correctness of his h
facts and figures" how G
does he propose to remedy these evils I
should he be elected? Ninety odd per s
cent. of all the railroad traffic of the S
state crosses the state line, going or {
and therefore becomes inter /
state commerce, and can not be regu- {
lated by the state. The governor and =
legislature are helpless in the matter T
Congress alone can afford relief in f
such cases. But little if any complaint r
Is made as to local rates. Indeed, we t
find none cited in Mr.. Dale's elaborate I
array of facts and figures All his t
citations concern freight rates with V
bicb "a would have no moro tn do q