The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-11-22

one person in 100000 becomes of vast
ef Importance than the settlement OF
many millions of acres of idle land
Politics Is our great national aInuse-
mert 1t offers the joys of battle with
out blOodshed and we are supposed TO
derive from it all the benefits without
the horrors Of war. human beings need
fighting as they need salt with their
food. But We can have excessive poll
tics we can let our imagination go too
far and inf1ict upon ourselves cOnse-
quences that arise originally in imagi-
nation but which yitiate confidence and
enterprise and create hypochondriac
commemorative.
The world has heard much of the
terrible troubles of Colorado These
terrible troubles have resulted from ex-
cessive political imagination For years
we have lad one continual political
campaign. As soon as one was over
we have had another.
Some of our people imagine that
they are living in bondage, that liberty
is dead and that they are free in name
only, but the truth is that this bondage
is a theory and the death of constitu-
tiona1 lib 9rty is imaginary and there is
no better evidence of it than the para
dox of gentlemen who denounce imagi-
nary tyranny without so much as
thought Of the penalty of libel and
who say they are slaves to oppressors,
though they have unlimited license 10
say and print what they please. No
where on earth is there such complete
and unrestrained license of free speech
ana Tree press as IN 0OlOTdQO. 1uO0SO
the freedom and the license are so
great and unlimited that it has produc-
ed exceSses aof political imagination. An
editor or a politician invents a theory
1t is plausible. It produces crusade.
All those PERSONS who are naturally
disposed to revel in pessimism and
scandal seize upon it and enjoy them
selves. After public dispute and up
roar and after one side is victorious
and another defeated at the polls-it is
nothing. 1t was only a political theory
to excite interest and rally voters to
elect certain candidates to Of1ce. Ihe
sun shines, the rain falls, people work
and make merry and marry and are
given in marriage and the world is the
same. But an entire commonwealth
has been the victim of its Imagination
And this thing can develop into politi-
cal hypochondria.
Colorado has been a political hy
pochondriac state, dosing itself to cure
evils it imagined and groaning over ills
produced by political imagination
Finally Colorado has released this
truth and is well again. 1t never was
really sick. Tt suffered with excessive
ina agination.
"A militia officer said:
- To hell with the constitution. and
forthwith that irresponsible remark be
came a thing of colossal import though as
a matter of fact 1t was a mere irresponsl-
Bile remark of an angry man VINO nad no
more to do with the constitution than a
''This Transmississippi congress repre-
sents the real things / would like to see
a congress like this-barring out all poll
ties as this congress does-in every west
ern state particularly, every year. L
would like to see its deliberations take up
the real things with real interest which
our political legislatures neglect
In Colorado we need a survey of the
state water resources more than anything
else. If the public money were used to
make a survey of this kind so that every
land buyer knew where he could get wa
ter and how much he could get and
what it would cost. it would be of greater
value to Colorado than all the politics in
the history OF the state I
eastern Colorado it would be of more SER
vice to. eivilizatfon and higher morals
than all the political crusades that our
political imaginations can imagine in gen
erations- Suppose We picked out the pest
of the agricultural immigration and set
tied it in eastern Colorado under sys-
TEN of superintendence and with sink
ing fund derived from the profits of the
land and yield of the crops. thereby to
will be greater than all the political ser
vices Of all our politicians since Colorado
was admitted into the union
Muck raking is useful some times But
muck raking that only rakes and never
plants produces the worst of all losses !
loss of time When it is over 1t has only
with the weeds
u have been in Colorado four years:
In that time have had a continued /
and unceasing political campaign But /
only one piece of legislation that is useful
and good has resulted from it-only one
1t has been four years Wasted-fOur years /
in which the energy devoted to political
imagination has only caused the neglect
of measures to settle the unoccupied land
and given the state bad name
thousands of people might have gone |
to Colorado and carved out homes and |
fortunes who were kept away because |
they imagined that it was a dangerous
place in which to invest their money and
their work And they imagined it just /
as our political agttators created such |
fears by their imaginative excesses.
kansas City has grown and prospered /
because it has the smallest political |
ina agination of any city in America Colo
RADIO would have had twice as many peo- /
pie as it now has If IT had not developed /
such an excessive power to imagine evil. |
l hope that all over America the people |
will make a stand against the insidious /
danger of imagination that our great re-
public Is a land of frightful wrongs.
Denver and Colorado are booming now.
They might have doomed long ago ex-
cept for imagined evils. We. of Colo
rado know the mischief Imagination does.
We are now fully recovered and we fee7
it is oar duty to warn the nation at large
against what we have experienced"