The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-02-12
WANTS A PRIMARY LAW.
People of Kansas Demand a First
Glass Bill, Says W. A. White.

Emporia. Kan. Feb. 12.-Under the
heading Look Ahead" w. A. White
says editorially in the Gazette Monday
afternoon:
1.-The trouble with a man who runs
a machine. either political or other
wise, is that the tendency always is for
him to become a part of the machine,
all iron, steel and brass, and to forget
that there is a world of reason and
emotions beyond the mechanism he is
working. The men running the pO-
itical machine of Kansas. creased with
railroad money. are in grave danger
of becoming so much a part of the
machine that like the Bourbons of
France, they will learn nothing and
can forget nothing. The recent cleo
ton in Kansas contained solemn
warning The people of Kansas show
ed plainly that they are independent
voters, and that they will vote against
railroad domination wherever it oc-
ours. s'That election also showed that
the Republicans of Kansas are indie
pendent, and that they can't be fooled.
The people of Kansas are in favor
of doing away with the trading sys-
tenn of politics that is inevitable when
caucuses and conventions are held to
nominate candidates. The people de-
sire primary law which will do away
with nominating conventions entirely
and give every Republican and every
Democrat in Kansas one vote and no
more in the nomination of every can
dfdate for every office in his party.
from township trustee to United States
senator. The people know that when
nominations are made in conventions
they are made as the results of trades
and that in trading the machine poll
ticianS, with railroad money and rail-
road favors at their command, can
trade the people out of their rights
and give the advantage on every ticket
to the railroads. The convention sys-
tenn. whether the delegates are in
structed or not, puts bar across the
path of government by the people and
makes government by the professional
politicians possible. Kansas is In the
hands of the railroads. not because
the people are not honest, nor because
they are careless. but because the
railroads have paid traders. at the
state capital and at many county seats,
whose business 1t is to see that party
nominees for important offices are
traded away by the people for favors
to the politicians.
1.-The people of Kansas know this.
They know who the traders are They
know that under the convention sys-
tenn the real rulers of Kansas are not
the proper government of socalled
constitutional government of Kansas;
the people know that the real rulers
of Kansas are the political traders,
Dave Mulvane, Tom Kelly, Mort AL
baugh and the professional politicians.
The people can't be fooled by a fake
primary bill that gives the politicians
a chance to trade the people in con-
vention- out of their political rights and
the astounding thing is that the ma
chine men who grow owl-eyed in hor-
ror at the danger to the Repup1can
party do not see that the passage of
a fake primary law seals the doom of
the party in Kansas two years from
now.
THE people may be patient; they
have been patient in the past but
when it comes to insulting them by
- al v-0Y1
bill and calling it a primary law. the
Kansas people will do to the railroad
ridden legislature and the railroad rid
den orga nization what they did to Ed
Hoch last year, but they won't stop
at warning, they will apply the CAD.
I'VE have banished the mobiles ana
the barons in this country We nave
wiped out caste, but until we establish
shall have exactly the same voice in
the nomination of his party's candi- |
dates that every other man has the
rule CT special privilege in. this state
and aim in life of those pioneers of
the main line of the fght-known in
Kansas as the Square Dealers, known
in New Jersey as the New Idea men,
known in Wisconsin as the Half
Breeds known in Washington as that
animal at the end of the avenue
"And in view of last years election |
returns. it is pretty evident that the
rank and file of Kansas Republicans |
know the situation and can't be fool |
ed. and as Bryan looms big on the |
horizon it behooves the bosses at To- |
peka to heed the people this year
rather than to abuse tn EN- next year. /
For the Republican party in this state
belongs to the people and not to the |
politicians. And the people may give |
1t dose of purgative for its own
too tight to the hierarchy of lower |
broadway.