The Topeka state journal., 1913-04-02

There is no closed season on political
asplrants in Mexico. 1t is legal to shoot
| them at seven seconds notice. Mexico
| is decayed example of Monroe's idea
OF government, but the Mexican sys-
tenn OF eliminating candidates beats a
primary election
The favorite squeak of the para
grapher deals with the downtrodden
nuU, VINO returns to his humble cot
tage after day of toll, and meets the
messenger boy who brings thence the
latest in spring hats for friend wife,
Nothing is said of the toiler who comes
nome and catches friend wife, with
l5-cents worth of trimmings and
thread, making a modern creation out
OF year-before-last's lid. Mayhap the
non-squeaking wife doesn't have to
make over" her lids; mayhap friend
husband could square it with the
dealer for all that friend wife contracts
on said hat-but he does not retire
from the idea that friend wife is one
IN two dozen or more wives who are
fit to vote because they understand the
laws of taxation.
When newspaper man violates the
laws of release it occasions more
talk than cyclone or flood-within
newspaper offices. A high percentage
OF newspaper men have a sense of
honor that couldn't be broken with a
sledge hammer. 1t is a known fact,
among newspap per men, but not among
readers, that presidents messages.
messages to congress, messages from
the governor of every state to the leg
1slature of every state-all these pri-
vate communications are entrusted to
newspaper men hours before they are
delivered with the simple agreement;
released when this is delivered to the
recipient"
Within the past so hours, this pre-
historic agreement has been violated.
Readers-if they care to, may take
day off and figure out what is coming
to the newspaper man who violated
that agreement. The man who will
violate one agreement will violate
dozen.
The writer of this colyum has read
a presidents message nearly 7S hours
before it was printed in our paper. FL
nanciers in the United States might
have reaped a million dollars from the
wording of that message-but they
didn't have chance Men who were
working for $40 week or a little more,
preserved the text of that message un-
til they got word over the Associated
Press wires: Release message
signed by the president of the asso-
citation.
The president who tried that got by
with it; there was no flaw in the cheap
newspaper organization. Men who
were liable to go home at night or
the case might be, and
find their trunks on the sidewalk in
front of their lodging houses-squeaked
not because the landlady wanted room
rent. They stood pat and slept on the
office desk But they said nothing of
the presidents message that would
turn over millions of dollars in the
United States. 4sf
The martyred Mckinley held up one
message and it came to the public
from stenographic, reports when it was
read by the reading clerk in the United
States senate. He had been nagged
and abused by the leading newspapers
of the United States. 1t was during a
financial crisis, and he knew that over
a dozen highly -salaried Wall street
spies We're in Washington. It was not
idea to bump the public, but
to give the public the first chance at
his policy that prompted him to with
hold that message from the marts of