The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-17

|
duct of the mills in their districts
should be taken off the free list ana
given good-sized duty. Their peck
the men who elected them, saying:
"Get that stuff off the free list or
don't come back They arise in the
caucus and speak madly, begging and
pleading that the good old rates be
put back.
Its my district and my constitu-
ents won't have it, they cry. And then
| the falls. The caucus votes, and
| that particular congressman gets
ready to practice law in 1915.
This is no joke. Stand outside the
caucus and watch the crowd kid the
| mem bers as they emerge, wip1ng the
sweat from their brows.
How did they vote on emulsified
beeswax,'' you ask of a member, a
dyed free trade Democrat
who wants high duties on that pro-
duct because it is made in his district.
They buried me. They buried me.
And after Underwood himself came
up to my district and told 'em never to
fear a thing from a Democratic re-
vision of the tariff. oh, I'm sorry 1
ever went into politics.
Yes, this caucus and this tariff are
going to result in a fearful strain on
the Dem ocracy in certain places Per-
haps it won't in the south, where
Democrats have had lean years mi
with fat ones. But just think of the
Democrat who won out over a Repub-
lican who ran for congress on pro-
lection tariff ticket. Think of what
that man has to face when he goes
home and tries to explain why the
caucus took the tariff off everything
the district produces and opened the
market to the Japanese, the Hungar-
ians, the Spitzbergeners and all the
rest of the world. Think of it.
That's what caucus looks like
fr-< rr-sfT vac arr7h a
wailing place. They lock the doors
downstairs, keep every one out, but
the walls are audible as soon as
Democrat steps out into the corridor.
OF course, a caucus is constructively
secret. However, plenty of it
leaks through in the shape of walls.
There has not been a single joyous
announcement by the men who have
cry time a new dispatch has lit red
hot upon the wire it has been sizzling
with the tears of the man who came
out to tell some newspaper friend how
they did him up on the inside. The
news of the caucus mas cCne out, so
why keep it secret?
why, indeed?" asks Madden of
Illinois, stanch Republican who at
present is tearing things loose in his
own delegation. why, indeed p
echoes Cooper of Wisconsin. who calls
caucus deliberations a species of boss
rule unequaled in any graft ridden
municipality. ''Why, indeed?" shout
the eighteen members of the Progress
sive party Cone of which is Vic Muir
dock), who hold a CONFERENCE.-THE
a caucus-every day.
From the standpoint of the newSpa-
per men there is scarcely any use in
holding a caucus, but it developed in
the open caucus held by the Repub-
licans last Friday night that when the
great body of the press (1S4 in num-
ber) was admitted there is much wor-
~ on the part of the conservative
ones regarding what some unmuzzled
and high pressured person is going to
say. The older ones at Friday nights
little affair were so afraid they would
take some action that they really
looked scared.
However, this Democratic caucus is
going to be a caucus that will resem-
bic the largest, strongest and most
crushing type of steam roller, in the
opinion of some of those who have al
ready been rolled.
Kansas women, having been granted
the right of suffrage, are proceeding
to get into the political game. They
are taking sides in the hundreds of
postmaster fights in the various Kan
sas towns and are signing petitions and
writing letters in behalf of the candi-
date they fa-or. In many cases wom-
en- are candidates for postmaster ap-
pointmentS.
The question of appointing women
as postmasterS is a serious problem
with the Democratic members of the
Kansas delegation Great pressure is
being brought to bear on them from