The Topeka state journal., 1911-09-30
Greensburg Papers Would Have
J. w. Davis in Race.
ANOTHER IN CONTEST
w. ID. Harry of KinsIey Enters
the Arena.
This Makes Three Who Are
Already Out for Place.


for congress from the Seventh district
and three or four more will likely en-
ter the contest It is almost settled
and certain that a primary election
will be held and the people will pick
the winner by the time honored custom
of a majority vote.
OF all the candidates announced or
| mentioned for the place nearly all are
old timers in the political game and
well known over the state for dozen
years or more except r. l.. Hopkins,
the young lieutenant governor, who
lives at Garden City
The Greensburg papers present the
name of J. w. Davis of Kiowa county
| as a candidate for the congressional
nomination in the Seventh district.
] Davis represented Kiowa in the last
/ two sessions of the legislature with
| distinguished credit to his section of
| the state There is not a man in the
| Seventh district better equipped to
| serve his country in Washington than
| this same Davis. who is an orator and
fighter of the first flight Davis has
not yet announced his candidacy, but
| if he gets in the race he will have to
be reckoned with by all the others.
A third candidate for the Republican
congressional nomination from the
| Seventh district has announced his
, candidacy in the person of w. D. Harry
of Kinsley, a we'll known business man
of Edwards county. The Harry an
nouncement is as follows:
Under our present system it is the
privilege of any man to offer his SER
vices for any office from that of pres1-
dent of the United States down to that
of road Overseer-
tirely a different matter and one that
each candidate must decide for himself,
yet the very effort is honorable let the
result be what it may.
Having never held or sought an
elective office of any kind it may now
look presumptuous to offer myself as u
candidate for the position left vacant
by the death of Edmond H Madison
I have friends all over the Seventh
district from Morton to Mcpherson and
to not one of them will this announce
ment be less than a surprise
1T is not necessary al this time to
define my position as Republican.
Among my friends who know me there
is no doubt about my opinions.
In the larger acquaintance 1 hope to
make there will be none.''
In Topeka it is the opinion of the
progressive leaders that Hopkins has
the best chance to win in any COM
pany, but this does not mean that he
will win. An effort will probably be
made to keep factiOnalism out of the
contest. It is a Seventh district fight,
anu the D1S S6NSHtu Is d hdISdS us
trict, where the people vote their own
sweet sentiments and make their own
choice of their own men. But the
other districts are interested and have
a right to guess on the winner.
This young man Hopkins has had
q career as remarkable as it has been
brief in Kansas politics 1t was in
January, 1903, less than three years
bag in Garden City and came to To-
peka to serve his first term as repre-
sentative from Finney county in That
session of the legislature. The Gar
den City man wore glasses and a seri-
Gus expression and looked more like
q Harvard graduate than he did a
short grass statesman Hopkins an
nOunced that he was a candidate for
sounded funny to the reporter and
indicated that the young man from
Finney had plenty of nerve.
He got his assistant speaker job, too,
and his forest bill passed He was
Jonathan on the spot all through that
1909 session and won home with the
wise ones. j. n. Dolley, speaker of |
the house that session, gave Hopkins |
a kid glove, gold leaf, silk lined, dia- |
mond plated recommendation as a !
great young man in his obscurity, and |
the house of representatives gave him 1
a diamond plated scarf pin as SOU
venir of their admiration and respect |
Then the reporters began to write /
stories about Hopkins for lieutenant
governor. While the statesmen and the
press were selecting Attorney General
Jackson or William Allen White for
the place. Hopkins was nominated
lieutenant governor by $1,000 over his
Republican opponent, and carried the
Seventh district in that election by
several thousand fat votes over Creech,
1 man well known over the state for
many years.
1t was as lieutenant governor and
president of the senate at the 1911
session that Hopkins brought home the
political bacon and stacked it up four
iers deep in his smoke house.
The regular senators took his COM
nittee appointments away from him
md rubbed salt in the places where
he horns used to be. But did the
-Cung man from the west with the in
locent looking face and the wise head
make any OutcTy or do anything fool
sh in the PREMISES Not so you would
iotiee it. He smiled at his misfor-
unes and bound up his wounds and
hen proceeded to make those old line
enators ashamed of themselves.
He treated them courteously and (
airIy all the time and was master of
he situation all the time he sat in the
residing officers place. He knew
,arliame entary law and used his gavel
n a manner not to make ashamed the
nan who invented lieutenant govern
RS for presiding officers. is
Hopkins carried away a 4O-jewel Mt }
Aetna watch with gold hands and a
nother-of-p pearl case as a message and
token of how the men who had tried }
o dehorn him felt about the job.
Hopkins was talked of for govern or {
ast winter, but declined to enter the
ace after Arthur Capper announced
is candidacy.
Hopkins is a progressive of the
nh f1S RI I