The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-19
McCray Calls Campaign One of
Education.
Says Voters Are Hearing Facts
From Hodges.
ON STUMP EVERY DAY
Democratic Candidate for Gov
ernOr Working Hard.
Criticism of Stubs Declared to
Be Pertinent.

Inc pending campaign in Kansas Is
! going to be one of education, writes
| D. o. McCray in the st. Louis Repub-
| lie. The voters are hearing some facts
from Senator George H. Hodges, Dem
ocratic candidate for governor, which
| will have the effect of dispelling the
illusion that Governor Stubs and his
insurgent followers in the last three
sessions of the legislature were respon-
| sible for all the square deal and pro-
gressive legislation written into the
statutes of this state.
! Senator Hodges is on the stump ev-
| cry day, reading the record to the vot-
| ers and showing them that but for the
support from progressive Democrats in
the two houses, hardly one of the meas
ures for which Governor Stubs is TAX
ing all the credit, would have become
| law. He is competent to discuss this
record, having been member of the
state senate during the last seven years,
and supported all these good laws, d
number of which he initiated and push
| ed to passage, receiving a nugatory
support from the governor, who was a
member of the house of Representative
| Senator Hodges will be the first can
didate for governor on any ticket in
Kansas to visit and speak to the peo
| pie of every county. This state is 400
miles long and 200 wide, and with its
| los counties the task is a trying one.
Already he has spoken in about 60
counties, in many of which he has ad-
dressed two or more meetings. During
July Senator Hodges and Lot Ravens
craft, candidate for lieutenant COVER
nor, visited 40 counties in the western
half of the state. Two days after the
August primary, Senator Hodges was
| in the field making two or three meet
ings each day in a county. The state
committee has billed him for every day
until November z, and this strenuous
| campaign will permit him to spend only
two Sundays at his home in Olathe
prior to the election.
Senator Hodges speech is vote-get-
ter. He is surprised every day with the
number of Republicans who have never
heretofore voted split ticket who tell
him they intend to vote for him in No
vember. The presentation he is max
ing of the records of the legislature to
show how largely the people of Kan
sas are indebted to the Democrats for
the square deal laws for which the in
surgent Republicans are claiming all
the credit, is one that is making deep
more for the public good than he does
for party victory.
Senator Hodges prepared the pres
ent antipass law and pushed it through
committee of the whole, his vote
alone saved it from defeat. After he
had gotten through the upper house
an act reducing freight rates on grain
and grain products in Kansas IS per
cent, which is saving the farmers of
this state more than 100000 each
year, it was stalled in the house, and
the member who was blocking its
passage was A. c. Mitchell of Doug
las county, Governor Stubs trusted
leader, and insurgent candidate for
congress in the Second district. Mitch
oil ~ 106
stitutional, but after Hodges cited him
United States supreme court decisions
where similar legislation has been sus-
tanned, he yielded and permitted the
bill to pass.
The criticism of Governor Stubs
and his administration made by SEN
ator Hodges in his speeches is per-
tinent and pointed. The worst offense,
from Democratic standpoint, was the
governors statement reported from
three different localities in the state
where he had spoken that he thought
a dishonest Republican was almost as
bad a Democrat. Governor Stubs
is also criticised by Hodges for in
creaSing the number of state employees
after he had promised to reduce them;
for getting a contingent fund of $20,-
600 when his predecessors had found
$4,000 more than enough, and for de-
voting nine-tenths of his time and
energies to politics and only 10 per
cent to the business of the state.
In his speeches Senator Hodges
touches another matter which is quite
humiliating to Governor Stubs and
his insurgent followers. At the session
of the legislature of 1909, 7. F. Nor
rison, Democratic member of the
house and now candidate for attor-
ney general, introduced in that body
an act providing for the election of
United States senators in Kansas by
the Oregon plan of statewide vote
for each candidate and the pledging
of the members of the legislature to
vote for each candidate receiving the
highest vote, without regard to poll
teal utilization. This act never saw
the light of day. 1t was defeated by
the entire Republican vote of the
house.
Not one of the Republican square
dealers, the insurgents or the Stubs
men were to be found supporting this