Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1908-03-25
BRISTOW ON LONG

earnest. The following recent
press dispatch from Topeka, to the
Kansas City Star, is worth re.pub
fishing:
81. L. Bristow, candidate for
United States senator, was in To-
peka today. He started a line of
questions for Senator Long to an
swer. Senator Long, in his speech
before the Republican convention
last week, spent much time telling
the Republicans what influence he
Long had in Washington with the
President and senators, and Mr..
Bristow wants to know why he
does not use this influence to help
Kansas people. Mr.. Bristow says:
" 4 see that the friends of Sena-
tor Long are saying that he has
been the backbone CT the Roosevelt
administration; that he discovered
Taft; that he induced the President
to accept Taft as his logical sue
cessor, and then proceeded to bring
the whole country to his way of
thinking.
These assertions by the sena-
tors friends, in connection with his
own speech at the state convention,
wherein he showed what tremen-
dous influence he had with his col
leagues in the Senate, indicate that
Mr.. Long is a man of overwhelm-
ing influence in the nation. 1t is
unfortunate that the senator has
not used this great power and pres
tige to do few important things
for the people of Kansas. He has
been in Congress about fourteen
years. In all that time Kansas
wheat growers have been paying
the transportation, companies for
hauling their wheat to Kansas City
whether it was taken there or not.
For years the rate on wheat
from Wellington, Wichita, Great
Bend, Hutchinson, Mcpherson, Sa-
lima and all other towns in the
wheat growing belt to Galveston
has been the rate from Kansas City
to Galveston, plus the local rate
from these points to Kansas City.
Wheat shipped from any of these
towns to Galveston is never haul
ed to Kansas City, but goes direct
to Galveston from the point of
shipment. Yet the people have
been compelled to pay for hauling
that wheat to Kansas City.
IF Kansas wheat growers had
been given the Kansas City-Gal-
weston rate, which from every point
of justice and equity they ought to
have had, the price of wheat would
have been from 7 to 10 cents a
bushel higher since the deep water
harbor was established at Calves
ton. Since Senator Long first en-
tered Congress the wheat growers
of Kansas have paid millions of
dollars to the transportation COM
panies for service that was never
rendered and for which the rail
roads gave them absolutely nothing
in return. In the fourteen years of
Senator Longs service he has never
made the slightest effort to remedy
this evil and relieve the farmers of
Kansas from paying this unjust
tribute to the railroads. He not
only has failed to relieve the peo-
pie from this injustice, but has vot-
ed against measures that sought to
bring them relief.
" The senator says he is the in
vincible champion of Roosevelt,
yet he has opposed the measures in
Congress which the President wants
enacted. The President in his mes.
sages and public speeches has many
times declared in favor of limiting
the amounts of stocks and bonds
that railroads and public service
corporations may issue, but Senator
Long has invariably voted against
measures that sought to place such
restrictions. The President also
declared in favor Of giving the in.
terstate commerce commission au
thority and means to ascertain tht
actual value of railways. Yet Sen
ator Long has voted against ever,
proposition Of this kind that hai
been before the Senate.
The senator, in his speeche
and interviews, seems to be yer,
much for the President, but yer,
much against him when it come
to supporting in the Senate tn
things which the President stand
for. 1t is one thing to praise Pres
ident Roosevelt for political pur
poses and another thing to supper
his measures in Congress in an Ell
fective way
The republican members of til