The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-03-26
THE KANSAS WAY.

The following interesting article
about the Kansas way of doing things
appears in the March number of the
Boston News Bureau. a daily finan-
cial newspaper, and is written by
Henry w. Jacobs, an inventor of loco
motive appliances and formerly con-
nected with the Santa Fee railway in
Topeka, but now a resident of Chi
cago and one of the active and promi-
nent men in the Union Carbide and
Carbon corporation:
when it come to good, hard
straight thinking, and fearless direct,
positive action, the man of the coun-
try and the small town has always
taken the lead.
His ability to see clearly and to
analyze comprehensively the great
social. political. and economic issues, is
due in part to his close association
with uncounterfeited nature; in part
to the comparative isolation of his life,
which leaves him free to reach con-
undue influence and further to
the fact that his attention is less
occupied with the social diver
sions. which form so great a factor in
the life of the city man, and that he
has, therefore, more time and inclina-
view of the great abstract principles.
Kansas was most active in the
slavery issue. Woman suffrage, pro-
hibition. and other great political
movements had their beginning in
Kansas enthusiasm and Judgment.
"A generation ago, the Common
wealth of Kansas, in spite of the CAL
jimmy and ridicule heaped upon her
by a large part of the remainder of the
country. started the fight against
blue sky methods of financing and
against the. use of the power of ac-
cumulated wealth in politics..
Again, in the present crisis, when
labor, unduly eXhilarated by a feeling
of power engendered by it's success in
coercing national legislative and ex-
eeutive authority, proposes to rule the
land. Kansas takes the lead in point
ing out the futility of minorities, no
matter how well organized attempting
to enforce their will to the prejudice of
the rights and interests of the ma
jority.
while the federal government tenn
porized, and. finally surrendered to the
coal miners, Kansas showed the world
that no set of men are indispensable
to its welfare. and that the pursuit of
selfish interests by the few need not
be permitted to inflict suffering upon
the many.
But the coal strike was only the in
spirit. Just recently, Kansas passed
an act creating an Industrial court
with powers sufficient to prevent in
the future the repetition of such a
farcical tragedy
THE Kansas farmer is a radical in
his love of freedom and equity, and,
what is more important, he has a
backbone of iron untinged by the
slightest shade of yellow. He is just
the species of radical that the world
needs in its present difficulties.
where Kansas leads, It is to be
hoped that other states will follow,
and speedily, so that the industrial
tangle may be Strengthened out be-
fore it has gone so far that a great
business disaster is inevitable, There
is nothing to be hoped for along con-
structive lines from the present fed
eraI administration, so that If the
states do not take action, more than
a year must pass before any measures
can be taken to avert the imminent
industrial calamity.
while Wilson dreams of Utopia
Allen acts for the public veal"