The New York herald., 1922-07-23
An Up to Date Kansas Cyclone.

Out in Kansas WILLIAM ALLEN
WHITE, the notoriety shrinking edi-
l tor, has a hot and Governor HENRY
j. ALLEN a clear head. The editor
insists on hanging in the window Of
his newspaper Office yellow placard
declaring his so per cent. sympathy
with the strikers, in defiance of the
State laws against strikes and the
State Industrial Courts rulings in
the matter.
The editor says he Is willing to
go to the stake in defense of free
speech and a, free press. He seems
very much in earnest about the fate
for which he volunteers with fairly
successful publicity results, and he
keeps himself all dressed up in his
Sunday best" while he waits for
the funeral or whatever it should
prove to be.
Governor ALLEN meanwhile ex-
plains with characteristic clarity as
we'll as picturesqueness Of style that
neither the free press nor the free
speech of Editor WHITE or of any
body in Kansas is at the hazard. The
second name OF Kansas, in fact, is
liberty of free speech and free press.
The editor may discuss the strike in
his paper from any angle he wishes.
AS a matter Of fact, he has been
doing it, doing it with deafening
yells, and the Kansas laws and Kan
sas courts have not peeped about 1t.
That's how consistently and per-
fectly free specify Kansas is.
But, the Governor further explains,
when the editor, after sending out the
riotous, incendiary, anarchistic edi-
tions of his newspaper, as he is free
to do, hangs UP yellow placard in
the ground floor window declaring
he splits fifty-fifty in his sympathy
with the strikers, he comes into col
llsion with the laws Of the State and
with the injunction of the Kansas
Industrial Court,
This, not because it is an abuse of
free speech. In Kansas you would
have to go far past the choking point
before you could be guilty Of an
abuse of the right of free speech.
But in hanging up the yellow placard
the editor, as harmless as a dove In
respect Of his journalistic fulmina-
tions SO far as concerns the laws
and courts of Kansas, becomes
guilty of conspiracy with the strike
leaders who are seeking thus to stop
transportation contrary to the laws
of free speech and free press Kansas.
1t is their placard-the placard of
the strike leaders-and when you
hang it up with or for them you join
them in their conspiracy.
If the editor were not so hot in
the head as we'll as under the collar
he might turn the Governors flank
by printing in shrieking headlines
on the front page of his newspaper
his fifty-fifty devotion both to the
railroads and to the strikers. Then
he might stick that exemplar of the
right Of free speech in free press
up on the sidewalk bulletin board
where no man dare tamper with the
circulation freedom of free press
in Kansas.
But the editor doesn't. He gees
on clamoring for the funeral while
the free advertising going is good.
And anyhow, why shouldn't the
Governor Of Kansas, the editor or
the hunt for freedom of publicity
the courts, the lawmakers, the rail
roads and everybody in Kansas alike
come into unanimous accord that the
due of the Kansas strikers is not a
so per cent. but 100 per cent. sym.
pathy from all mankind? For who
is entitled to human sympathy In