The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-19
Kansas Bug"Cause Of Country's
Poor Business?
This Is Opinion of Official Iron
Trade Review.
DISEASE WIDESPREAD
1t Makes Farmers Control Rail-
way Matters.
Other Items of General Interest
in Traffic World.

The railroad world is hunting around
Tor the cause of the present hull in bust
ness. Lack of business is closing doWr
the railroad shops and cutting big
slices from the railroad revenues.
the Iron Trade Review of Cleveland
o. comes out with the statement that
1t is the fault of Kansas The kan
sas Bug" is the reason they set forth
Not ahat Kansas has the kansas
Bug, but that the entire country is
infected.
Here is the Reviews explanation:
What's the matter with business?
That's easy
A few days ago an eminent gentle
man from Kansas, talking to a New
York newspaper man with reference. 10
the business situation, said
I have seen Kansas prefer a Leedy
for governor.
I have seen Kansas prefer a lot o.
hair and whiskers (the name I have
torgotten) over the immortal ingalls,
4 have seen Kansas cast her cleo
toral vote for Bryan over the mar
tyred Mckinley.
7 have seen Kansas almost defy
Mrs Lease and shout herself hoarse
for Jim Weaver and the Rag Baby.
4 see Kansas, alleged Republican
Kansas, this year tanning the dying
embers of Bryanism-the guaranty If
bank deposits-while Republican Amer
lea is striving to guarantee the citizens
in having something to deposit.
4 have seen Kansas follow every
idiOticis.n which has come to the sur
face in my generation. I have seen
Kansas drunk before. This year over
her Bristows and Murdocks she is
mau1lin.'
The whole trouble with our great
country at this very moment is that
the larger portion of the talking part
of our American citizenship is affect
ed with the kansas Bug
And what is the Kansas Bug?
1t IS a disease that makes a man,
who never had a share of stock in q
railroad or who never worked for one,
think he knows all about the govern
mental control and regulation of our
great transportation systems. 1t makes
men, who are not lawyers who never
read court decision, studied a legal
case or Investigated our courts and the
work they do-declare that they are
dishonest and favor the few as against
the many 1t makes men who never
owned a share of stock in a bank or
had a bank deposit become frantic over
financial problems and makes them
want to mob somebody.
Men who never saw a ton of iron
ore, a blast furnace, or a mill-whO
never bought or sold a ton of steel
insist that something has got to be
done and done quickly lit matters not
WHAT to the Steel Corporation and
other corpora tiOns-simply because
they are big.
1t makes a farmer want to lynch
anyone who suggests reducing the tar
iff on radishes, butter and eggs, While
he is equally ready to throw a fit and
howl in derision at a president who
suggests that We go slow and reduce
the tariff on the things the aforesaid
farmer doesn't raise.
1t makes out of lot of otherwise
reasonable and honest men-hOrdes OF
stark staring, raving lunatics when It
comes to the discussion of questions of
governmental and political economy
about much of which they know only
what they have read in the hysterical
and sensational press.
That's the Kansas Bus
The whole country has it.
1t beats grasshoppers, yellow fever,
black plague, and the seven years itch
while It lasts.
And we have it. or it has us.
And our public speakers and national
leaders. some of them pretty high up,
are largely responsible.
1t gives them prominence and at
tracts attention to be against some
thing-to be defending the dear pee
per- against all sorts of bogies.
Sometimes the less they know about
a given subject, the chances are, the
more they talk about it.
But we will come out of 1t all right
We always have thus far
It is lust a way we have and in
this case it has been brought about by
too much prosperity.
only this time we have had 1t worse
than ever before
There is nothing to do but wait.
Wait until the people find out
Matt.
Ard vote.