The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-05-16
CAPITAL CITY NOTES
(By Chas. II. Trapp.)

Topeka, May 13th.-A visit to Fort
Leavenworth this week shows that
the soldiers are being sent in and out
in large numbers. Every hotel in the
town is filled with the wives of the
men who are preparing to go to the
front. Trains running east are filled
with soldiers. The men themselves
are eager to get across. Persons
coming into the state from the east
report that the war is gripping every
one and that the spirit is spreading
to the west. Men who know say that
everything depends on getting large
masses of men on the front before
the Hun can deliver knockout blow.
Those who have a mind picture of
the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing
will have to take another look and re-
wise it. The old north cell house is
being torn down and the rat holes
that were used for cells are visible
in all their ugliness. The new cell
house is to be built on the lines of a
dormatory. The old pals will be re-
placed by sanitary plumbing. There
are less than 900 prisoners in the in
stitution and over hundred of these
are interned women. At one time
there were over two thousand incar-
cerated. Many counties in Kansas
have no prisoners in the jails and in
some of them the prisoners themselves
take care of the bastiles. At one
time there was not civilian on
guard at the penitentiary. Prisoners
were guarding prisoners. The striped
suit has been discarded and the lock
step is no more. The warden attri-
butes the population decrease to the
absence of booze in the state and pre-
diets that when Missouri goes dry
that the prison will be all but empty.
Instead of scar across the land
scape for fifty miles left by tearing
up of the rails of the Leavenwortk &
Topeka railway, cars will be going
over the road within a week. It was
proposed to dismantle the road and sell
it for junk. Judge John G. Pollock
of the y. S. District Court, offered
the road to the people along the line
at half the figure estimated at its
junk value and they have buoght it
and will operate it themselves, even
though two big railway corporations
have failed to operate it proftably By
saving the road half million bushels
of wheat and many food products
will be hurried to market to whip the
Hun.
A competent authority says that
over half the railroads of the country
are IN the hands of receivers. The
rise in wages and the upheaval of
material and the statu quo of receipts
are held to be responsible. Meantime
equipment is going without replace
ment train service is being curtailed
and the repair shops are full while the
dwindiing of forces is gong on, the
men going to war.
Drilling for oil is gong on in var
Gus parts of the state at feverish
rate. In the northeastern corner four
counties are sending holes into the
earth and each in confident that the
result will be good. Several shallow
veins of coal that under the former
low prices would have been unprofit-
able will be opened for the coming
winter.
Little interest is being shown in
politics. Many. of the state positions
are without candidates, where in for
mer years the lists were full. Meet
ings called for strictly political pur-
poses are poorly attended, the inter
est being conferred in the war bulle-
tins. There be those who think that