The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-06-15
The Governors Charge Against
the Town Deeply Resented.
Hints Are Dropped About PEG.
pIe Sin Glass Houses"
SOME. HISTORY is RECALLED
Governor HOch Once Criticised
City at Kaw's Mouth.
What 1t Did to Him Afterwards
Was a Plenty.

Governor Capper's plunge into the
election affairs of Kansas City, Kan
sas, and his apparent failure, to date,
to produce evidence of criminal prac-
tice, is becoming a matter of much
concern in state political circles. In
cidents growing out of the Wyandotte
county probe have a clear line of
precedent in state political affairs and
the politicians who know the tempera-
ment of Wyandotte voters are await
ing ultimate results with keen interest.
: Right at the start of the Kansas
City Investigation, the governor told
the reporters that he had evidence
which would make Terre Haute look
like a Sunday school town as COM
pared to Kansas City" He also in
dicated quite clearly that if sleeping
facilities at Lansing or Leavenworth
prisons were crowded, it might be
good thing to increase the number OF
all steel parlor bed rooms IN prepare
ton for the Kansas City visitors. Up
to this date nothing has developed
which has occasioned the sending of
anyone to prison and no arrests have
been made.
That at least a fair portion of Kan
sas City is resenting the comparison
of the town with the Indiana election
scandal city, has been indicated in the
scorehing interviews from residents
of the town at the mouth of the kaW.
Some ten years ago Governor Hoch
made a statement about Kansas City
that the town never forgot and the
governor sought in vain to explain In
the course of a crusade against the
Kansas City bad places, Governor
Hoch during his first term told the
reporters that a respectable woman
wasn't safe on the streets of Kansas
City after dark.
People in Glass Houses.
In his first campaign, Hoch had
polled S,3S7 votes in Wyandotte coun-
ty as against 1898 cast for David NJ.
Dale. Democrat Before the 1906
election, however, the Kansas City
voters got busy. They circulated that
Hoch interview day and night and
worked without ceasing. In 1906,
Hoeh's vote of S,3S7 dropped to just
7,74S votes in WyandOtte county.
All of which reminded Howard
Payne, city clerk of Kansas City, of
another comparison when he was in
municipal bonds Payne recently read
the Capper publication head lines
about the high cost of running for of
flee in Kansas City.
Even if the figures given in the
hearing had been right. which 1 don't
believe, it hardly became Governor
Capper to complain about the high
cost of making a campaign" said
Payne why 1 can remember only a
few months ago when it was as
serted that Governor Capper, during
his 1912 campaign spent something
like S47,0 900 for the election which he
didn't win OF course no one ever
suggested probe of the governors
campaign expenses and 1 wouldn't do
it. But this spending money in a po-
litica1 campaign is a sort of common
weakness and the governor was hardly
the logical person to throw the first
stone"
Recently Charles s Holbrook. rep
reSentative from Wyandotte county,
and a resident of the district in which
election corruption was charged, de-
Clared that conditions IN Kansas City
were no worse than in North Topeka.
Since the Terre Haute comparison
by Governor Capper. Kansas City has
talked of but one thing. That is the
election probe The high water, the
threat to blow up the Kansas City
Southern bridge or the Bryan resigna-
ton from the presidents cabinet
failed to interest the town. And the
ultimate and final determination of
affairs in Wyandotte county may be
more interesting than immediate pro-
TO- limo