The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-05

! : TTcIT
! ing all the votes that could be bought
or counting in a vote if circumstances
/ had prevented you from casting big
/ enough one, or grabbing the ballot
/ boxes boldly and stuffing them full
with Wads on WadS of votes at the
last moment, to make sure.
If you didn't get killed or manned
right then and there you were safe
I The morning after election wiped out
| everything. There was no blamed
I post-mortem in grand jury rooms, and
/ if there had been, there wouldn't have
/ been any witnesses, for squealing was
the most unsanitary occupation that
any man could pick for himself in
those days.
The best sign of the changed times
is in the fuss everybody is making
over the little outbreaks of the poor,
secondhand gangs that still exist on
the far east and west sides. To US
old fellows who were in the thick of
it thirty years ago those imitation
thugs lOOl- like klndergartenS-
The gangs Of our times were real
powers. They voted where and how
and as often as they were ordered, and
they were prepared to cast every vote
over the bodies of refOrmers and po-
emen-not that policemen often laid
their bodies in the way, but they did
sometimes, and so did refOrmers, and
then there was a hospital case.
There were refOrmers even in those
days, but they weren't the overbearing
kind. What watching they did at the
polls they did under the shadow of a
policeman's arm, and they would no
more have thought of Venturing away
from his side than a golden-haired
chick would dream of getting away
from the mother hen when there is a
cat around.
It was manners not to pull a reform
er right out from under q policeman
and beat the dust out of him; but
sooner or later in the day he would
have everything that was his delivered
to him (and often from both sideS) as
soon as the cops could get decent
excuse to be somewhere else for
moment. If the cops were slow about
finding the excuse they were general
~ relieved by better and brighter men.
This Was Real Politics.
Most of the time, though, those re-
former watchers would fade away long
before the heat and burden Of the day
were more than half accumulated. It
got on the nerves of even the best man
to see from forty to fifty WhyOs or
Short Tails watching him all day out
of the corners of their thievish eyes
and edging in on him every time he
raised his voice to pipe out a protest
against some good, honest citizen who
had just cast his tenth or fifteenth vote
that day.
Everybody knew the Whyos and the
Short Tails. They were men with rec
Ords and proud of it. Every refOrmer
knew that they never went unarmed,
and as the morning wore on and the
free liquor that was ladled out for
them took effect they We're mighty
in a polling booth with half a hun
dred other repeaters jOstling every
body in sight and the police looking
their eyes out in another direction.
The Whyo and the Short Tail gangs
were the two biggest gangs of the lot,
and they pervaded the east side in the
days when one block in the old Elev-
enth ward could and would and did
outvote a whole district on the west
side They were river thieves and
housebreakers and sneak thieves, but
not really as professionals. They did
it for a mere living. Their true VOca-
ton was to live a lazy life and a merry
one, drink as much beer and liquor as
they could get hold, sleep it out, drink
some more, lick a policeman once in
a While and strut through the streets
like a ruffiing blade of Old France.
taking the wall for no man. admired
by the girls for their wickedness and
prOWess and feared with a very evil
dent and fiattering fear by the sober
and milder citizens.
And they We're cheap. too, cheap as
dirt 1t almost makes us Old-timers
cry when we compare the prices we
have to pay now (when we dare to
pay at AID with the prices of good,
husky gang then. A WhyO or a Short
Ia1l Was Wiling enough 10 steal what
he needed for his simple life We
didn't have to support those chaps in
lodging houses for weeks before reg
istratiOn day. No. indeed They took
what they wanted and all we had to
do was to see they didn't go to jail
for it.
Also, we had to fix it so that they
could indulge in pleasantrieS with the
police when they felt that they needed
a good fight. That went very well, by
the way, till one black Sunday when
the Short Tails killed a policeman in
stead of merely beating him up; and
before we could do any business the
waded through the gang in a style
street just north of where the East
That's no figure of speech. I stood by
my feet.
Pretty near every Short Tail landed
in the old Union Market station house
that day, and if there was a single one
that could have been recognized by his
own mother 1 didn't see him-and I
saw most of them because I was there
/ brought the dead cops body in When
the other cops saw it they gave tongue
like wolves. and We politicians that
nodding actually had to skin out or
We'd been dubbed to death ourselves.
Tt ended the Short Tails and was the
beginning Of the end of the gang bust