The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-02-18


er it be a new front to a business
house, or a new building on the Ave-
nue.; especially should a director of
the Chamber-of Commerce think and
act along these lines. because he is a
representative of Nhe members. who
want these things done, who wish to
see the. city grow and wax fat; it is for
the members of the Chamber of Com
merce to encourage labor and capital
to pull together. to do the same thing
for l1en who work with their brains,
and men who work with their hands.
or both: if the Chamber of Commerce
may not see fit to aid an enterprise if
it has any worth. its members, and
especially a director, should not sneer
at and throw obstacles in the way of
such enterprise.
Does our Chamber of Commerce ad-
here to these sane, simple principles?
1t does not. Quite the contrary.
Entirely too many of it's members
and at least one director for the en-
tire time in which they have held
been sowing seeds of dissension, and
there has been a harvest. The harvest
is not yet fully garnered. 1t is not
such a harvest as we would advertise
in our circulars telling the stranger
why is Topeka, what she is and what
she will be.
The worst of these actions upon the
part of members who were given the
privileges of the club and the stand
ivo Iof tx-if ic hat OF
disseminated by word of mouth and
by public prints are fallacious, detri-
mental and unworthy. They are not
meant to be constructive. commercial
ly or otherwise. Why should the
Chamber of Commerce harbor such
elements? Why should they admit
them to membership; having admitted
them, why should they not, having
discovered them. purge the club and
put them out?
The editor of this paper, who is also
the owner, and in order that there
may be no doubt of the responsibility
of this article, whose name is signed
at the end, has stood the abuse and
falsehoods of such members of the
Chamber of Commerce, and the Com
week for from three to six years: He
has held his peace and avoided con-
troversy. One cannot carry on d con-
troversy with certain two-legged ami
mails of bad odor. For years he has
heard that this poison was scattered
over the town in barber shops, in the
Chamber of Commerce, on the Cham
Der of Commerce bulletin boards and
heard of the distribution of papers
controlled by these members within
the rooms of the Chamber and other
wise to its members.
He has stood these things for years
and now he is tired of them. If he
were a swearing man, which he is not
he would say he is damned tired of it
This word is not used in a profane
| sense, it is merely for emphasis, copy
. ing an expression that. the writer has
heard used in the Chamber of Com
merce by no less an honored and digni-
fled member than the Reverend E. j
Kulp, Doctor of Divinity and Pastor OF
the First Methodist church of this
city 1t is sometimes difficult to ex-
press oneself and use the language OF
polite and ladylike circles. Doctor
Kulp has found himself in this pre-
dicanent; SO has the writer.
Doctor Kulp and I quote from the
same scripture. Not infrequently but
rarely, very rarely, it is hoped, do we
always use the same emphatic tho ex-
ceptional language.
These papers. alleged organs of la
Dor, spreading propaganda and poison
are not read by the writer; he does
| not see them. Occasionally the color
is Haunted IN the barber shop or the
| lurid streamers of one of the paper.
| flaps from the bulletin board Of the
Chamber of Commerce, week after
week. as they nave time after time.
Sometimes a marked copy, presum
| ably vicious, is sent to the writer, bu
it goes into the waste basket unread
But friends. do. however, tell us abou
| articles of this kind. They seem tt
| think we ought to know, but VIII!
should we know? We sought no con
| troversy and kept out of controversial:
previous to the libel suit fostered b,
| these same members of the Topeka
Chamber of Commerce and alleged
representatives of Union Labor il
| that body, one of whom was a direc
| tor in that organiza ton and is still {
| director. Is it world without end
| Good friends are continually TALKING
to US about this poison. Fortunatel,
/ the writer is immune in the main, blu
the people who do read these papers
4 of course, are unfortunately poisoned
| Here are the editors, publishers
printers or conductors of these paper
seeking destruction where they Shout,
| take part in constructions:
One of them is named Trapp. H
bis member and director of the Cham
Der of Commerce and he it is VIII
| tried to prevent the erection of tn
present State Journal building, which
| is no discredit to the city and which
fortunately was built despite the OBJ
stacle. He is the same man who ha
printed these papers which hav
sought to prejudice the minds of tn
good laboring men of this city, par
ticularly the union laboring men an,
women, Notwithstanding the fact tina
he himself when he first began abus
ing respectable citizens trying to bull
up Topeka was running a non-unioi
office: only in recent years has he re
! formed.
Trapp was made vice president o
the Chamber of Commerce. partl
thru the efforts of Carroll Merriam
the present president. He was ap
pointed by President George McIn
H.