The Topeka state journal., 1909-02-06
KANSAS COMMENT
EASILY W0RKED.

EASILY WORKED.
The big New York papers. which
make fun of Kansas papers. are easy
marks, and if the editors ever went
out of their offices and circulated in
the busy haunts of men, they would
be spending their money for lightning
rods, and gold bricks, and seed oats.
The Kansas editor is worked once
in while; somebody gets him in
corner, and makes him print an
OBITUARY two columns long, or man
trades him blind horse or a brass
watch; but he can't be worked
every day, and at all hours of the day
The New York editors have re-
Gently been worked in the most
shameful manner by Oscar Hammer
fancy singers from the old country,
and manages them while they scream
their way through italian operas.
Mr.. Hammerstein, who wears Harrl-
son Parkman whiskers, and wears a
monocle, and chews cloves, needs ad-
vertising in his business; it is some
thing that he has to have; and in
stead of going to the business offices
of the newspapers, he goes to the edf-
torial rooms and tells stories that he
made up in the night when he
couldn't sleep; they are sad stories
of baking singers and broken con-
tracts, and the editors are so inter-
ested that they cut all the real news
columns with Hammerstein and his
whiskers.
This man has had page after page
of free advertising in the biggest
New York papers and he isn't done
working them yet. When the editors
show signs of WEAKNESS, he pulls
reporters nose. and then the re-
porter punches his head, and he gets
few more columns, with illuStra-
tions of his whiskers on the front
page.
And these New York editors think
they are wise old boys, and they
laugh at the awkward curves of
Kansas newspaper men!-Emporia
Gazette.
NEW ORDER IN KANSAS.
''This is the first Populist legislature
in Kansas since 1893,' exclaimed
Kansas politician the other day in dis
cussing the present sessions evident
intention of enacting into laws the
pledges made in the last campaign.
And to make a comparison like that
is about the most damaging reflection
that could be cast upon any legislature
in the opinion of the Kansas profes- |
Sional politicians. AS matter of fact, |
the legislature this year is totally diff
ferent from the ordinary body of its
class in that state. To say that 1T is
like the Populist legislature of 1893 is |
to dignity, unduly, that memorable
sessions place in Kansas history. But |
it is not to be forgotten that the pres |
ent body of lawmakers was selected by |
the first distinctive movement on the |
part of the people to select their own |
representatives since the passing of |
the Populist party in the early '90s.
The spectacle of the state assembly |
at Topeka spending eight hours every |
day in an effort to work out number |
of important laws without factional in |
terests interposing to defeat them, is a |
of the claims of the |
friends of the direct primary measure |
that to take the power of political |
domination out of the hands of the |
professional politicians wouid create a |
more wholesome situation in Kansas |
affairs. With the session only fairly |
under way, the legislature is already |
advanced in it's work far beyond the |
stage that usually marks the closing |
weeks of state legislatures and there |
is in the apparent determination of the I
members to accomplish all that they |
were elected to do, the promise of a |
new order of things in Kansas politics. |
If the present session enacts a pub |
lie utilities law; an anti-lobby meas |
ure; goods roads bill that will compass |
the results demanded to secure mod |
ern highways for the people, the laws |
that will increase the efficiency of the |
state educational institutions and pub /
lie schools, it's membership will be |
able to ''bear up under the charge of !
professional politicians that the legis- |
lature is pulist."-Kansas City |
star.