Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1910-08-11
AS to the Wagstaff Movement
E. D. Smith Closes the Argu
ment.

of that paper to the effect that he
did not know why he was for Wag-
staff but that he was against Stubs
etc.
AT the close of that article in com
ment on the position of the Hermes
man l stated very plainly the ground
and underlying principal of the
Wagstaff movement. The Globe, in
an unsigned article, either editorial
or otherwise, l have no means of
knowing which, made vicious at
tack personally on myself, then out
of public life and concerned only in
my own business. Later Captain
Painter, my old friend of Sand Greek
burned considerable paper in anoth-
er and more lengthy attack on me.
Both communication were bitter
ly personal, but the first l pay no at
tention to as the filings of person
who has not the courage to sign his
name to an article is not worthy of
an answer. =
Now first, both wrongfully, wheth-
er intentionally or not quote me as
saying that any supporter of Wag-
staff was CRATER and attempting to
rob etc.
The Captain takes that very per-
sonally to himself. Now he is en-
tirely wrong in his construction of
what / wrote. | said that the Wag-
staff movement was an organized
appetite for graft etc. had no idea
that Capt. Painter considered him
self the Wagstaff movement, nor
even the moving cause. If he so
consideres himself, then l must beg
that he remember that l was I'M
aware of his claim in this respect.
The Wagstaff movement was not
and is not movement of the peo-
pie, and is that movement. of which
in this state, Mr.. Stubs is consider
ed by old line politicians as being
the head and front and the leader.
In the movement of which Mr..
Stubs is one prominent exponent,
the beginning was among the voters,
it was opposed by the politicians,
and they had to be relegated to the
rear, as they have in this county in
this and the last primary. 1t is very
hard for those one-time self-appoint-
ed leaders to go away back and sit
down. Eventually they will get
tired of standing and subside.
On the contrary the Wagstaff
movement was incubated by lot of
politicians at the Kansas Day ban
quet. They were the moving cause,
and if the Captain was there, l did
not know it. These same politicians
were, and are The Wagstaff move
ment, instituted and backed by the
special interests, and especially the
brewers and the whisky interests.
That a few voters should for one
cause or another be lead to follow
them is to be, expected, but these
voters were in no sense responsible
for the movement, and are not now
actuated by the causes which
brought the movement into being.
Mostly they were deceived by the
cry of lower taxes or by the claim
of the Wagstaff crowd that they, the
Wagstaff leaders we're and are, the
republican party.
Captain Painter calls my atten-
tson to the we'll known fact of his f.
nancial success, and by implication,
compares 1t with my own failure to
come up to the same standard. ]
rejoice in the business success oil
my friend Painter, and am not in
any way Jealous of him on that &C.
count. l have secured all of this
worlds goods that | honestly could,
and have in addition tried to do,
what good opportunity offered to my
fellows. With his law practice ]
have no knowledge of its extent OIL
profit, but take his word for it anc
am wishing for none of it.
Lastly l am not candidate il
this campaign, nor in any way re-