The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-10-17
POLITICAL GOSSIP.
Gov. Stubbs Has Strong Hold on
the Farmers.
His Strength in Rural Dis
tricts Is Conceded.
THEY LIKE A FIGHTER
And Stubs Measures Up to
Their Standard.
THEY LIKE A FIGHTER
Always the Same No Matter
What the Conditions.

Whenever Stubs is in the thick of
political battle, and that is where he is
APT to be found most of the time, the
men who figure the dope on that kind
of thing always say, well, he is sure
to. carry the country districts but his
enemies will hold him in the towns"
They always say that. They always
figure Stubbs to carry the corn anu
wheat fields, the alfalfa patches, the
country crossroads, the hamlets and
all places and precincts whatsoever
where the farmers thrive and are
plentiful.
Take a trip with Stubs through the
west counties. or those of the south
west and it is easy to find the founda-
ton for all the talk about his farmer
strength. With a Stubs meeting
scheduled for the afternoon the court
house square is ringed about with We
hicles and horses like the brindle fringe
on the old fashioned Christmas card.
The streets are crowded with farmers
and their families. The audience IS
composed of three parts farmers to one
part town people, and if it is a night
meeting the farmers will average up
half and half. and after the meeting
they will ride home satisfied and
happy.
The converts from the Democracy to
the faith of Stubs are most of them
farmers. The men who cheer the
loudest at the meeting and look the
longest on the streets at the governor
are farmers.
The farmer vote of the state COM
prise the backbone of the Stubs
strength in the past at primary and
general election. The farmers have
stood unwaveringly by the governor in
al his battles and they swear by his
doctrines and practices. Stubs can
pharaphase the prophet and say, I
shall look unto the farmlands for
stanch as Gideons band and as numer-
Gus as the stems in a wheat field.
Stubs Strong in Country.
Yet. after all. it is strange thai
Stubs should be stronger in the coun-
trv than in the towns. The governor
is a reformer of the real twentieth CEN
tury brand. He hammers the corpora
tons from Alpha to Omega and never
let's them rest at all. The trusts are
the governors especial prey. He looks
ahead and conjures up new laws TO
curb them. If the Kansas farmer was
lean and hungry as he was in the Pop
ulist days his allegiance to Stubs
might be understood. But the farmers
are prosperous all over the state. They
have had fair to good crops for many
years and received high prices for all
their products. They are making
IL.
they rally so eagerly and unfalteringiy
to the Stubs standard?
And the town man, he who is caught
between the neither millstones of the
high price of farm products and the
high price of manufactured products.
why should he be luke warm towards
the refOrmer who is fighting combina-
tions in restraint of trade? The town
man on a salary is the goat these DAYS
His salary may be ten per cent higher
fn he Arr+
thing else he comes in contact with
is forty to one hundred per cent high
er. He ought to look upon a reformer
of the Stubs calibre as another John
the Baptist holding up a hope of great
things to come after him. But the
election returns from the towns and
cities generally show an even break
between Stubs and his opponents and
the country precincts roll in and
Stubs moves on up higher. It is
true that the governor polled a larger
vote in the populous counties in the
last primary than ever before. In so
doing he upset all the calculations OF
the wise ones. But again during the
present campaign it is the town man
who is cold to the Stubs cause while
the farmers have already enlisted as
one man and are clamoring to get to
the polls and swamp the Stubs OPP
ponent. Later the town man may
climb into the band wagon
Why is the Kansas farmer for
Stubs? The question is hard tc
answer from material standpoint
but easy from that of moral conviction
and constitutional tendencies. The
Kansas farmer is a type: a product OF
the soil and climate and history OF
his state. In the beginning he put in
his time fighting the Missouri slave
drivers and the grasshoppers and the
climate. These enemies having passed
on he turned his attention from the
sword to the newspapers. The Pop
ulist uprising found him ready Agar
he turned back to the newspapers
Prosperity smiled and he added to hi!
subscription list. He saw the wore
Stubs often in print. 1t seemed t.
attract him. Stubs was fighting the
machine. That sounded good TIL,