The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1923-09-28

sas City electrical supply salesman
He did business with the state de-
partments here and in 1918 moved
here and opened an Office as consult
ing engineer. He became city COM
missioner and in 1919 was elected
mayor. He was known as a union
labor man and, always has been as
ISOLATED with the radical wing of the
democratic party.
In his reign as mayor he saw the
rise of the Khan to political power
One of the largest limitations ever
conducted took place while he was
mayor. He took no stand on the
matter. There was a strike in the
packingtown and a Negro strike
breaker was lynched. The city police
did little to stop the mob. The town
was wide open for a while, but Wal
ton fired his chief of police and per-
sonally led raiding squads into sa-
looms and dives until he had cleaned
the town.
Had Eye for Spectacular
He used to march with his police to
the Christian church to attend SER
vices. He always had an eye for the
spectacular and in politics was quick
to seize on the current nostrum that
appealed to the imagination of the
crowd.
In 1922, while he still was mayor,
he was made the nominee of the re-
construction league of the state for
governor. This organization, led by
the Oklahoma Leader, a radical pub
LEGATION, had sensed in Walton a
winning political figure after his city
success against the conservative dem
ocrats. The league was formed on
the line of the Nonpartisan league of
North Dakota, capitalizing the dis
content of the farmer and the
union labor sentiment. Their tactics
were to bore into the old party. The
Shawnee convention of this or
ganization in 1921 Endorsed Wal
ton on a radical platform. He went
into the campaign and although he
lost in the capital and had most of
the big state papers against him he
won in the state by the biggest ma
jority that any governor ever re-
ceived.
Staged Famous Barbecue
He jumped into the limelight with
his famous Inauguration barbecue,
where all the farmers We're invited to
come in their overalls. He turned
out the militia and gave the state
three days of the widest kind of a
picnic. He was the idol of the plain
people, their governor and friend. He
was going to turn the agricultural
and mechanical college back to them,
take out the classics from college
courses and get back to dirt and
grease. He was going to clean out
the bank thieves from the state, re-
form the budget and get down to
economics to relieve the farmer from
tax burdens.
Today, despite failure to do any of
these things, he still can draw great
crowds on new issue. Though he
has broken away from the recon-
struction league and led them into
the camp of the enemy, he is re-
building a powerful state machine.
On the Ku Klux Khan issue he is
planning to become politically i'm
pregnable, become senator, or vice
presidential candidate.
Call Walton Traitor
The dream of the little group of
idealists whose work contributed SO
largely to Walton's election soon
were found hopeless. Today they cal
Walton a traitor. They found that
Walton was not true radical but a
shallow thinker and a political op-
portunist who had used them and
dropped them. The true, unselfish
radicals will never 60 back to his ban
ner, although they hate the Ku Klux
Kla as much or more than he does
He has put them and many other
groups of good Oklahoma citizens In
an Ineffective and perplexing situa-
ton. If they oppose him they are
accused of being <"Klan." He has
muddled the waters and forced the