New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-02
Bv Woodman Morrison

wv +; s.s i: =: ::'" ':''''
1t sounds cryptic
Rat Governor Henry j. Allen of
Kansas was not straining for an
episram when he said it. He merely
"a, answering my question as to the
significance of the new Kansas Court
a, Industrial Relations about which
me hears so much these days, and
the merits of which he is to debate
with President Gompers of the
American Federation of Labor.
"But isn't that rather raising the
cercentage?" / ventured to suggest.
I thought 1t was only one-tenth that
WAS supposed to be submerged"
The Governor smiled-he does it
very readily.
"No, I mean nine-tenths. Listen,
and III prove it to you. Ont in
Kansas
The Proud Jayhawker
II you ever have talked with a
genuine Jayhawker you cannot have
failed to notice the JUNCTION with
which he utters that word exam
sss." There must be something
about chat grassy parallelogram
called Kansas" that causes an in
voluntary strain on the first and
second buttons of the waistcoat,
But we have interrupted the Gov
egncr-
"0ut in Kansas some years age
We made an investigation of the
strata comprising the state.
"As the top stratum we found l a
per cent of the population made ur
# the big employers.
''1he bottom stratum, comprising
Sis per cent, was composed of labor
in between was a stratum com
posed of the remaining 90 per cent
THAT 90 per cent is US.
With the passage of the Adam.
son law, labor became contestant
for the honor of the upper stratum
but We. you and I and the rest Of
us in the same walk of life, haven't
moved. We remain the middle
stratum. We are an immense, good.
natured, inarticulate mass. We are
utterly submerged.
THE upper stratum and the
lower stratum whack each other
over our shoulders.
They starve us.
They freeze us.
They subject us to every incon-
venience as to travel and communi-
cation.
And we grin and bear it.
Revolt of the Nine.tenths
Well, our good nature reached
Ns limit last winter out in Kansas
~hen the operators and coal miners
tel out and quit producing coal
Just at the moment when a blizzard
nv the state. Thousands of oul
women and children were in actual
ushger of freezing and starving to
death Then the nine-tenths up
heaved."
What happened?"
Well, in the first place, we took
over the mines and ran them with
'oiunteer labor. Our young men
we're just back from France where
'ney learned lot about picks and
'n0vels while digging trenches. This
knowledge came in handy in the
u'heS' In private life they were
'eachers and doctors and lawyers
ana farm boys, but they got out
"nf'y thousand tons of coal and
A'p1 the state from freezing.
AND while we were digging coal
We were thinking. The burden Of
Our thoughts was that it was a
pretty poor sort of state that
couldn't save its citizens from suffer
ing and death.
"hen the regular miners went
~ asA 70 their jobs and we had got
a "e CRIME off our hands and the coal
luS' out of our ears, I called the
~ ''a'ure and asked them what
were going to do about it."
Inc Child of Plymouth Rock
,. lou have to know Kansas and Its
. ps0ple and its Governor to under.
60 "a what they did about it. Kan
ps D. is the child of Plymouth Rock,
ths e"oer what Whittier said about
s ~'s people who settled there?
'' w Crossed the pralries as of old
70 ,ae'r fathers crossed the sea,