USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 61
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
Mrs. Lease was the woman of the hour, but the man of the hour was Jerry Simpson, candidate for Congress in the Big Seventh. Jerry was Lincolnesque, both in physical appearance and in manner of speech. He was born in England, in 1842, and was a sailor on the Great Lakes, rising to the rank of captain. In his days and nights on board the ship he was a thorough student of economie questions, reading Dickens, Scott, Car- lyle, Burns, Hugo, Shelley and Tom Paine, as well as later authors such as Henry George. He enlisted in the Union army, giving as part of his reason : "Hand-cuffs and auction blocks for fellows who work don't heave-to along side of justice."
The Simpsons moved to Kansas in 1878, and after living for a time in Jackson County, Kansas, moved to Barber County, and located near Medieine Lodge, where he remained until ealled from between plow handles to the Crusade of 1890. In giving his reasons for coming to this State, Jerry said: "The magie of a kernel, the witcheraft in the seed; the desire to put something into the ground and see it grow and reproduce its kind. That's why I came to Kansas."
Jerry Simpson eame before the public as the opponent of a very polished and able gentleman, Colonel James R. Hallowell, whom he play- fully dubbed Prince Hal. The Republican press treated Jerry the same as it did Mrs. Lease. Not daring to meet his arguments, it spent its energy making fun of him and telling the people what a catastrophe it would be for the State to be represented by a clown, a elod-hopper and an ignoramns, such as they characterized him. In retaliation Jerry derived what fun he could out of ITallowell's silk stockings. Where- upon Victor Murdock, then a "red-headed" young reporter, wrote the famous "sockless" story, which was taken for truth all over the country.
1152
KANSAS AND KANSANS
He was called "Sockless Jerry," and "Sockless Simpson," and William Allen White later substituted Socrates, and he came to be known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the "Sockless Socrates of Kansas." His characterization of his opponent as Prince Hal struck the responsive chord, and the enthusiasm of his followers was shown in parades miles and miles in length. Finally the Republicans thought to put a stop to Jerry by arranging a series of joint debates with Hallowell. But Prince Hal was so badly snowed under at the first meeting that he never filled the rest of the dates, and Simpson had a clear field.
While the burden of Mrs. Lease's song was finance, that of Jerry Simpson was land. He was a single-taxer. He thought that if the people could own their land unincumbered they could get along. He assailed the railroads with a plentiful array of data, openly accusing the Santa Fe of dominating state policies, and converting to the uses of its unscrupulous stock-holders the fruits of the honest industry of its patrons and reducing them to penury. He called the attention of the farmers to the fact that they had raised 270,000,000 bushels of corn in 1889, sold it at 13 to 14 cents per bushel, that the grain gamblers of Chicago had secured control of 240,000,000 of it which they sold at 45 cents per bushel, thus cheating the farmer out of $60,000,000, and said: "If the Government had protected the farmer as it protects the gamblers, this could not have happened. If the farmers had got this $60,000,000, they could have devoted $30,000,000 to the payment of mortgages and used the other $30,000,000 for home comforts and farm improvements."
Simpson declared that all the property in Kansas would not sell for the debt and unpaid interest, that the majority of the men in Congress were attorneys for some corporation, and that less than ten men held the destinies of the nation in their grasp. "We must own the railroads," said Simpson, "or enough of them to do the necessary carrying. It is idle talk to say that we have not the authority. The government is the people and we are the people. Must the railroads have all the rights?" And again : "Man must have access to the land or he is a slave. The man who owns the earth, owns the people, for they must buy the privi- lege of living on his earth."
Mrs. Anna L. Diggs was connected with Dr. S. MeLallin in the publi- cation of the Advocate, which was the official organ of the Alliance. She went into the campaign of 1890, and like Mrs. Lease won national fame. She had a good speaking voice and was able to handle the Populist arguments and the immense crowds. Mrs. Diggs was a small woman, said to have weighed but 93 pounds. She was born in London, Ontario. in 1853, and was married to A. S. Diggs, in 1873. Their family con- sisted of two daughters and one son, and they lived at Lawrence. About the year 1877, Mrs. Diggs made her debut into public life in a temperance crusade in Lawrence, called for by the fact that University students were being ruined by liquor. In 1880 we hear of her as a silk- worm enthusiast. She wrote a book on the subject. In 1881, she addressed the Free Religious Association in Boston on the "Liberalism
1153
KANSAS AND KANSANS
of the West." In the campaign of 1890 she was chosen by her party to reply to the platform utterances of John J. Ingalls, and in so doing she contributed more than any other one person to his downfall. Mrs. Diggs stayed with the Populist party, and in 1898, 1899 and 1900 was one of the leaders in Kansas politics. Her idea of fusion was that the Democrats should adopt Populist principles.
Colonel Sam N. Wood was one of the Populists who had always been a third party man in principle. Mr. Wood was born near Mount Gilead, Ohio, December 30, 1825, and from the time he was nineteen years old he took an active part in the polities of that state, being a Free-Soiler. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and came to Kansas in June of that year to help make this a free State. He was prominent in public life until his murder, which occurred in June, 1891. He was heralded as a martyr to the cause of the people, and he undoubtedly was. He was a shrewd politician and it was said that at one time when he was in the Legislature and an important bill was up in which he was interested, he devised a plan to get the opposition out of the way while a vote was taken. He arranged to have a party enter Representative hall at the critical moment yelling "Dog fight ! Dog fight! Dog fight!" The plan worked. . A grand rush was made out of the room and down the stairs, the friends of the bill remaining behind. When the opposition returned disappointed at seeing no dog fight, the bill had been passed.
When the vote was counted in November, it was found that the Populists had elected five Congressmen and a majority of the lower branch of the Legislature. As an index to the feeling at that time, an incident is told of a man who had worked so hard for the Populist cause that he took siek on election day and had to go home. Upon hearing the results of the voting he rang a sixty pound dinner bell for one solid hour yelling: "Glory! Glory! Glory!" The next day pasted a picture of John J. Ingalls on each side of a wagon box loaded with hogs and came into town waving his hat and shouting for the People's party.
The defeat of Ingalls was a great satisfaction to all Populists. He had said that anything was fair in polities, and that politics was a game which called for underhanded methods, and for lying and deceit. He was completely snowed under and never came back. Ingalls was an intelligent, clear-seeing politieian and outlines the conditions exactly as they were in 1878. He knew what had come, but he had aligned himself with the grafters and either could not break loose or did not' care to.
Ex-Governor Crawford bewailed the results of the election and said the one-percenters were in the saddle. But the one-percenters had been in the saddle sinee 1863, borrowing at one percent and loaning at eight, ten and twelve, and the people had decided to ride awhile.
The only state officer elected was Ives for Attorney-General, who was on both People's and Democratic tickets. John Willits polled 106,943 votes for Governor, against Humphrey's 115,124, showing that the Republicans had had a run for their money. Felt, the Republican Vol. II-36
1154
KANSAS AND KANSANS
candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, polled 120,062 votes, and Shinn, the Populist, polled 115,553. There were 91 Populists in the lower branch of the Legislature, 8 Democrats and 26 Republicans. The Senate, of course, was Republican, the members holding over from the last election. Jerry Simpson went to Washington and surprised the whole country with his ability as a speaker and debater and was a credit to the State, putting to shame the popular idea in the East that "we do not want any more states till we have civilized Kansas."
The Republicans had made every possible effort to defeat the will of the people. The Daily Capital printed 100,000 extra copies during the campaign which were sent free to voters. The paper was filled with falsehood and vilification. The railroads hauled thousands of voters in on free passes, bringing them to Kansas and taking them back home without charge.
XI
CAMPAIGN OF 1891
The activities of the People's Party, both state and national, in 1891 were more educational than otherwise. An effort was made, not so much to elect candidates, there being only local elections, as to sow the seed of National revolution. Mrs. Lease, Mrs. Diggs, Jerry Simpson, Judge Peffer, John Willits and other leaders spent very little time in this State. They were going North, South, East and West preparing for the campaign of 1892, when they hoped to elect a President. They might have done it had they succeeded in breaking the solidarity of the South. That was the rock on which all the reform movements have been wrecked nationally.
The People's Party of Kansas established a lecture bureau and kept thirty to forty speakers busy the entire summer and fall. One of the best of these was Rev. James Buchanan, of Indianapolis, Indiana. In a speech at Frankfort, in Marshall County, he said that 7% interest accumulates wealth four times as fast as labor can produce it. It is not hard to reason from this the validity of the opening premise of this article that it was interest that was at the bottom of the trouble. The Kansas interest of 10% was accumulating in a hundred years more than three times as much as 7% would.
The leading feature of the campaign was the speeches made by Sen- ator Phimb for the Republicans. Plumb belonged in the reform ranks, but was elected by the Republicans and so stayed with his party. He is quoted as saying in a speech on the money question on the floor of the Senate on January 7. 1891 :
Mr. President, with me, while these considerations are of a kind which induces me to favor free coinage of silver, if there were seriously made here a proposition to ent loose from both gold and silver, so far at least as our domestic currency is concerned, giving the people a currency which should be useful at home and not exportable, and whose
1155
KANSAS AND KANSANS
value should be fixed by its volume, I should unhesitatingly embrace it, and I should favor that if I believed it would be supported by the sound and permanent public opinion of the people of the United States. It cannot be at present, as I believe.
This explains why he did not embrace reform in the Populist Party, and he was right as subsequent events proved, although he might have speeded the day by going in with the losing cause. Plumb was a won- derful speaker and thinker and he made all kinds of horse play of Otis, Peffer, Davis and other Populists in their absence, and they had torn him to pieces for believing a thing and working against it. It is said that the efforts of this campaign contributed to Plumb's untimely death, which occurred in December of that year.
The Populists also lost a valuable man in 1891, when Col. S. N. Wood, of Stevens County, was murdered at Hugoton, June 23, 1891. One of the last political speeches he made was at Herington, April 29, 1891. It was a tremendous effort, covering the complete history of the Legislature which had just adjourned and an explanation of and argument in favor of every Populist principle. In regard to the government loaning money to the farmers to assist them he said :
We must study this mortgaged debt hanging over the country. It is sweeping away the entire property of the people. It is a worse calamity than the Johnstown flood or the overflow of the Mississippi. The Government loaned the Union Paeifie sixty millions to aid in build- ing that road. The Government for thirty years has been loaning the national banks hundreds of millions at one per cent interest. This was all unconstitutional. Whenever there is a will there will be found a way to help the mortgage ridden people. With the present financial policy it will never be paid. If the Government should assume this debt as it comes due, at one per cent, it would be $140,000,000 a year paid the Government; in thirty years, $4,200.000,000. The people would save $720,000,000 a year; in thirty years, $22,600.000,000. This money kept at home among the people would stimulate every industry; every idle man and woman would go to work, and civilization could take a step in advance. Of course the people must not be allowed to make new debts or new obligations. We must abolish debt, with all the laws for the collection of debts in the future. Mortgages on homes at least should be void. Abolish usury or interest. With this selfishness would be of the past. Crime, insanity and vice, induced by poverty would disappear.
The Republicans followed the road of the Populists in 1891 to the extent of organizing seeret soeieties to advance the interests of the party. These two orders were the Republican League and the Knights of Reci- procity. The latter deceived the reform element for a long time, did spy duty and secured much valuable information at the reform assem- blies from private conversations. The reform ticket did not score heavy in the fall election, and all accounts of the county tickets are omitted in the reform papers.
1156
KANSAS AND KANSANS
XIE
LEGISLATION OF 1891
Shortly after the election of 1890 an effort was made to form a National People's Party, but the project was postponed until after the Legislature of 1891 should finish its work, as every leader wished to give full attention to assisting the Populist House to redeem as many of the party pledges as possible. For the first time in the history of the State, one branch of the Legislature was in control of an element opposed to the Republicans. And while the Third Party had only two members in the Senate, the overwhelming majority in the House gave them the choice of who should succeed Ingalls in the United States Senate. The mantle fell upon Judge W. A. Peffer, editor of The Kansas Farmer, one of the leading figures of the Reform Press Association, and a Populist writer and speaker. E. H. Snow was elected State Printer.
In the matter of legislation, the House was greatly handicapped. The State officers and the daily press were bitterly opposed to them, and the Senate had its plans laid to defeat all reform measures. There were hired Hessians to divide and disrupt the Populists by every imaginable scheme. The most the House accomplished was to put itself on record.
At the close of the session a manifesto was issued, signed by the Hon. P. P. Elder, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and by the chairmen of the following committees: Wm. Rodger, Ways and Means; J. S. Doolittle, Judiciary ; David Shull, Legislative Apportionment; A. M. Campbell, Railroads; A. A. Newman, Municipal Corporations; C. R. Cleveland, Engrossed Bills; M. A. Cobun, Federal Relations; W. Doty, Banks and Banking; Levi Dumbauld, Elections; A. H. Lupfer, Education : John Bryden, Livestock. In this article the following bills are mentioned as having originated in the House and been passed by the Senate :
1. Aet to abolish supervisorship in joint tenancy.
2. An appropriation of $3,500 to Prof. Snow of the University of Kansas to carry on experiments in the destruction of chinch bugs.
3. Apportioning the State of Kansas into Senatorial and Repre- sentative districts.
4. Requiring money coming into the hands of County Treasurers in some counties to be deposited in banks.
5. For the continuanee and maintenance of forestry stations.
6. Constituting eight hours a day's work for all workingmen employed by the State. County, City or Township.
7. To regulate warehouses, the inspection, grading, weighing, and handling of grain.
s. Relating to the sale of real estate for delinquent taxes in such connties as shall adopt the provisions of this act.
9. Prohibiting alien ownership of land in Kansas.
10. Joint resolution recommending the calling of a convention to revise, amend or change the constitution of the State of Kansas.
.
1157
KANSAS AND KANSANS
11. Prohibiting combinations to prevent competition among persons engaged in buying or selling livestock.
12. A measure to prevent "wild cat" banking in Kansas.
But by far the most important of the Populist measures were not even considered by the Senate. Among these was the railroad freight schedule bill. Among other things it prohibited charging more money for a short haul than for a long haul, and would have reduced freight charges in Kansas 30 per cent. A bill was also passed in the House reducing pas- senger rates to two and one-half cents per mile, and prohibiting free passes. The lobby in the House against the railroad measures included every railroad attorney in the State, as well as the heads of railroads. They were allowed to come before the committee and explain their side of the case.
Another bill provided for a penalty of forfeiture of both interest and principal if a money loaner was found charging above the legal rate of ten per cent. The Senate said this would drive capital out of the State and vetoed it. A measure was instituted to relieve the farmers by allow- ing them two years to redeem their homes after foreclosure and to pro- hibit the mortgagor from obtaining a personal judgment in addition to the property. The Senate amended it to death and passed it. The House on receiving it back, struck out the amendments and returned it to the Senate, where they refused to receive it. A bill setting aside a sale on account of an inadequate price suffered a similar fate, as did a bill com- pelling the original mortgage to be brought into court, instead of a copy of the instrument, in case of foreclosure. A bill to make silver dollars and half dollars legal tender for all debts in the State and make the gold contracts null and void was not even considered in the Senate, as it would . "drive capital out of the State."
Other legislation advanced by the House and defeated by the Senate was as follows:
An assessment bill providing for the unearthing of property hidden from the assessor, by means of search warrants.
Australian ballot bill.
The World's Fair appropriation bill. The defeat of this bill was blamed upon the Populists, but as a matter of fact they passed it, but the Senate wanted more than their share of the five Commissioners, and the measure was finally defeated.
Prescribing penalties for accepting bribes, and an act to abolish the corrupt use of money and corrupt acts at eleetions.
Prohibiting railroad companies from using armed detectives in strikes.
Reducing interest on unpaid taxes from 24% to 10%, and providing for an easier redemption by the owner.
To protect Counties, Cities and Townships from illegal or fraudulent acts of their officers.
To prohibit subscription of stock or voting bonds for railroads.
Providing for the weekly payment of wages in lawful money of the United States.
1158
KANSAS AND KANSANS
An act relating to insurance to compel the payment of policies or the rebuilding of destroyed property.
Changing the fees and salaries of County officers. Also a bill to make the office of State Printer an elective one on a salary of $3,000.
Hog inspector, and prohibiting the sale of dead hogs.
Limiting the power of Counties, Townships and Cities to create indebtedness.
Prohibiting private banks from doing business in any other than the individual names of the proprietors.
To prohibit Counties, Townships and Cities from voting aid except for buildings, bridges and school honses.
Conferring upon women the right to vote and hold office.
To prevent lotteries.
To amend the eode of civil procedure, and reduce the work of the Supreme Court.
A bill allowing $60,000 for the relief of the destitute farmers of Western Kansas.
To punish drunkenness in public office by forfeiture of office.
Regulating the discharge of corporation employees and to prevent blacklisting of railroad men.
Uniform system of school books throughout the State by State pub- lication if possible.
The total savings in appropriations was over a million dollars, as compared with previous legislatures, and could have been much more had the Populists been in control of both houses. Impeachment pro- ceedings were instituted against Judge Theodosius Botkin of the thirty- second judicial distriet, on charge of drunkenness and fraud. He was saved by the Senate, and later S. N. Wood, who was clerk of the Populist Judiciary committee, was killed at his court house by a hired assassin who was immediately set at liberty and never punished for the crime, Other investigations ineluded the State-house appropriations which had totaled $2,500,000, without the State-house being finished. The Coffey- ville dynamite incident mentioned in connection with the Videttes was also investigated and the blame for the bomb located upon prominent Republicans. It was said that the Populist House of 1891 was the first to eliminate the large foree of unnecessary employees. The Senate with 40 members had 118 employees, and the House with 125 members had only 82.
While the Populists made every legitimate effort to cut down expenditures, and attempted without success to eliminate some of the appointive offices which had been created as sinecures, no money was saved at the expense of the State institutions, as they made liberal appropriations for education. and favored the proper care of all insane or otherwise helpless persons at the expense of the State, many of whom were at that time either uneared for or given inadequate attention by private means or by the counties. Taking it all together, the Populists had a record in the Journal of the House of Representatives on which to base their next campaign.
1159
KANSAS AND KANSANS
XIII
FORMING THIE NATIONAL PARTY
The initial steps in forming the National People's Party were taken in Winfield, Kansas, the home of the Alliance and the birthplace of the party, soon after the election of 1890. The Vincent Brothers, editors of The Non-Conformist, aided by C. A. Powers, of Indiana, and General J. H. Rice, of Kansas, drew up a call for a meeting of all industrial organizations of the country to form a National Party of the People. Among the organizations especially invited were: The Independent Party, the People's Party, the Union Labor Party, Federal and Confed- erate soldiers organizations. Farmers' Alliance, Citizens' Alliance, Knights of Labor, Colored Farmers' Alliance. The text of the call was as follows :
Whereas in Unity there is strength, therefore it is desirable that there should be a union of all the variously named organizations that stand on common ground to this end. Each state to send one delegate from each Congressional district and two from the State at large, and each district organization to send not less than three delegates and each county not less than one to be chosen according to the customs of each representative organization in the month of January, 1891. Also that the editor of each newspaper is hereby invited as a delegate, that has advocated the principals of the St. Louis agreement and supported the Alliance candidates in 1890, the delegates to meet in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 23, 1891, at 2 P. M., for the purpose of forming a National Party based upon the fundamental ideas of finance, trans- portation, labor, and land, and in furtherance of the work already begun by those organizations and preparatory for a united struggle for country and home in the great political conflict now pending, that they must deeide who in this country is sovereign, the citizens or the dollar.
The call was taken to the meeting of the National Alliance at Ocala, Florida, December 2, 1890. Most of the Kansas leaders were there, Jerry Simpson among the rest, on his way to Congress. The Kansas delegation made an effort to have the call adopted by the Alliance, but although the national president, R. L. Polk, made a speech strongly favoring political action, the Southerners would have none of it. The Kansas people contented themselves with securing individual signers, and about fifty of the most prominent names in the reform movement of the country were on the scroll when the meeting closed. Upon returning to Kansas the promoters of the National Party put their meeting off until the 19th of May.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.