The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-29
Kansas Standpatters Enthuse
Over Jay e. House Story.
Saturday Evening Post Yarn
Tells of Pee-Puls 'YictOry."
ALL BUILT AROUND MNSANS
House Exposes Is Years of
Politics in the Home State.
Secrets of Progressive Game
Are Given to the Public.

Not one Of those 76.OO loyal, faith
full fighting Kansas standpat Repub-
icans who voted for William Howard
Taft in 1912 ID Jay E. Houses story
in the current Saturday Evening Post
that didn't want to offer up three
cheers for the cause. For in his story
'Whv 1 am a Standpatter," House told
of the uprisings the crusades and the
whirns and foibles of false prophets
and unwise leadership of the pee-pul
during the last Is years. 1t is a story
truly Kansan and built around and of
Kansas folks.
There isn't man or woman in the
state who has been looking at the po-
IiticaI movies in Kansas in recent
years who didn't recognize all the
charaeters-from Dudley Petcarin Ell
lis 10 Cal Cuyler. In that story of Is
years of observation of politics and
association with the men who. shift
the scenes, the former Topekan spilled
of saving tho government for the peo-
pie.
Movement Started in 1904.
Away back in 1904 the progressive
movement started in Kansas, House
declares. That was when the Repub
lican state convention at Wichita<de
feated Governor Levi u. Markley for
denomination and chose Ed Cook.
Only of course Markley was Willis ].
Bailey and Ed Cook was E. w. Hoch.
1t was the first uprising for the peo-
pie and in their own name which took
effective root in the state, House AYERS.
But the folks who came to save the
people stayed on long time
House recoupts the near defeat of
Hoch in 1906 when the crusaders
themselves fell out. Then he takes
up the case of Evan B. Huey-who
was really Senator Chester 1. Long
and his defeat for denomination to
the senate by Joseph L. Bristow. Only
Bristow appears in the story as George
L. Joslin.
White as ''Ellis.v
That was a memorable crusade in
behalf of the people in Kansas. 1t was
in that campaign that William Allen
White-introduced to the readers as
Dudley Petcarin EIlis-coined the ex-
preston which beat Long for renomi-
nation and gave the 1908 primaries to
the boss busters. He no longer speaks
our language" White said of Long.
And in the same campaign blossom
knew as Victor Murdoch. 1t was Muir
dock who had started the fight on the
Cannon rule in Washington. And in
the sad case of Murdoch as an insur-
rectionist in his own party. a Bull
Mooser andIater a Democrat without
d
Wilson administration, House brings
pride to the standpatters. They never
last more than five or six years"
House says of the reformers. He adds
that the real standpatters endure for
life. He clinches his argument in the
case of Cal Cuyler.
Cal Cuyler isn't Cal Cuyler at all in
Kansas. He is Dave Mulvane, hated
by the old reform wing, loved by the
regulars of his party. His offense
is that he is a standpatter who believes
in organization and who devotes much
time to the task of providing one in
both state and nation" House wrote.
He has been sadly neglectful of re-
form work and his test of proposed
legislation is whether it will help the
party"
peoples Platform"
To the great joy of the old crowd
House recalled the party council of
1910. That was the year when the
insurgents were to speak the voice of
the people in their platform. House
interviewed William Allen White a few
days before the council and was told
of the planks which the people"
would write and the persons who
would serve on the resolutions commit
Htee When the committee was named
and White was chairman-he reach
ed in his inside coat pocket and pro-
duced the peoples platform"
In the story there is an enormous
wallop at the primary, a reference to
the George B. Snow vote against Gov
ernor Allen in the primaries and men
ton of the fact that Snow couldn't
nave received a vote in a party con-
vention. There is also discussion of
the Kansas experiments with the will
of the people when it drafted the nom
partisan judiciary act. Some of the
near fatalities of that primary of 1914
are recalled by House in clinching his
argument that the day of reward and
glory has at last come to the stand
| patter. In his para graphs of the men
! in the reform movement are many
( kindly words for the characters of the
men themselves, but a singing sar-
casm for the false issues which they
developed and their plays on the
| ignorance, emotion and passion of the
average voter who knows nothing of
the inside plays of the game.
| House closes with the admission
that he found real delight in writing
his story. There can be no question
about it. He was one of the three or
four Topeka newspaper men who spent
/ any considerable time at headquarters
of the Republican league in 1912 and
/ helped George A. Clark and Col John
). Dean open the mail. When returns
came in election night and it was
established that Stubs and Jackson
and others of the Bull Moose crowd
were beaten, House was one of the
] happiest men in the state. He was one
OF the $4,000 Kansans who went to the
fditeh in the zero hour for the regular
| wing of the party. And now a stand
patter is a respected citizen.