The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-03
A NEWSPAPERS DUTY.
LFrom the Emporia Gazette.1


committee of citizens. When the COM
eide and an attempted murder had
shocked the town. An Indignation
meeting was called and there was ugly
talk of Iynching. The men on the COM
mittee urged legal remedies. The COM
mittee was composed of the mayor of
the town, the president of the Business
Mems association, the secretary of the
commercial club the preachers of the
three best known denominations in
town, and a leading hotel keeper-pret-
ty representative crowd. 1t took the
| case to the state board of registration
and examination with the evidence at
hand and won. The case was appealed
by the defendant to the district court,
where he lost; to the state kupreme
lcourt and there he lost; back to the
board during the tendency of the case
in the higher courts, and there he lost
again; and finally he took the case to
the supreme court of the United States
where he lost again. While it was
pending in the supreme court the pres
idents of the two banks and the editor
of this paper became identified with
the movement.
The committee is now gathering ev-
idence for the county attorney, show
ing that Mr. Meffert has been practic-
ing without a license. What is there
lawless in these proceedings? What is
there that any good citizen would not
do? The only way the law can be en-
forced in any community is for private
citizens to help the officials, or else lay
down and let the violators of the law
have their own way.
There is no disposition to let up in
this Meffert fight. Meffert has had an
absolutely square deal and he will get
a square deal. There is no politics in
the fight against him, and there will
not be. When he tries for reinstate-
ment he will be met by the &rotest of
the citizens without regard to party,
clique or faction. The committee in
charge of the Meffert case has kept
within the law. 1t has not resorted to
blackmail nor intimidation. 1t will not
begin now. What is true of the Mef-
fert case is equally true of the case
against whisky and gambling. This
town is going to be run on business
lines, and that means clean lines. For
nothing pays so much as decency, and
law and order.
There is no personal malice in any of
these fights. The committee in charge
of this cleaning up has no personal feel
ing against Meffert, nor the JOINT keep
ers, nor gamblers, nor that class of
men as men. Some of them have good
qualities of heart, and are kind fathers
and husbands, but as violators of the
law they cannot go unscathed in En-
poria and that is all there is to it.
The fight will be fair; but it will be
to the end. There will be no let up,
but will not hit below the belt, nor
will it hit in the dark: It is better to
lose fairly than to win on a foul. And
when this fight can win fairly, it will
not make the mistake of letting per-
sonal animus creep In. 1t is not the
men, but their business that the town
objects to.
And it is a newspapers duty to take
the lead in such movements for law en-
forcement, and to give local sentiment
for that cause the fullest chance to exc
press itself. A newspaper that does less
does not do it's full duty. No town is
clean when it's newspapers are coward
"; and no town is crooked when its
newspapers take fair honest stand for
law enforcement.