USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume II > Part 65
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The night was beguiled by speechies and card playing. The Popu- list janitor had turned off the heat, and some discomfort was felt until about 4 A. M. when some gasoline stoves were hoisted through the win- dow, along with some coffee. Candles and lamps were provided in anticipation of the lights being turned off.
Governor Lewelling spent a sleepless night in the Executive office in consultation with his friends on the proper course to take the next morning.
The reporters had made the most of the situation, and the Thurs- day morning's newspapers in all the principal cities in the west eame out with great scare heads proclaiming Kansas to be in a state of civil war with great slaughter momentarily expected. They were not far from right. The S. O. S. calls for help on both sides had been heard by friends all over the State, and armed men were coming by the hun- dreds. Telegrams were being received by the leaders of both parties urging them to hold the fort and tendering promises of reeruits, some of these messages promising as high as a thousand armed men. The Republicans claimed they could muster a force of 40,000 to resist the militia, of which there was but two thousand in the state, and only 250 of which had been called out. The Populists claimed that the Vol. II-38
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Republiean army could not be raised and transported without the help of the railroads, and deelared the struggle to be one between the cor- porations and the representatives of the people.
The militiamen, who had been called from the different localities, arrived and went into camp about the grounds. The Wichita battery had been ordered to "bring the gatling gun" and they brought it. This gatling gun turned out to be one of the best jokes of the entire pro- ceedings. When it was duly installed on the State-house grounds and trained on Representative Hall, it was found to be minus its firing pin. The old soldiers of Wichita were afraid the boys might shoot the gun, and had removed this necessary part of the apparatus. As early as possible on Thursday morning Sheriff Wilkerson established headquar- ters in the Copeland Hotel for recruiting his force of deputies, and before noon had a thousand men under arms. As the Populists were not in the good graces of the railroads and could not secure passes, the Republicans made up the larger part of the influx from the smaller towns, so that the Populist force was confined to the 250 militiamen, many of whom were Republicans and could not be depended upon to obey orders. Colonel Hughes was relieved of his command about nine o'clock, Lieutenant Colonel George Parker of Holton taking his place. Owing to stricter military diseipline it was a harder matter to get food to the besieged than ever, and the expedient of sending the break- fast through the line in mail sacks was resorted to.
In the forenoon two companies of Lawrenee students appeared on the scene, bringing the college yell with them. At eleven o'clock the Governor sent word to the Republicans in the house to disperse within fifteen minutes, or he would disperse them with the militia, but was dissuaded from doing so. Sheriff Wilkerson did not want bloodshed, either, and armed his men with elubs instead of guns, intending to stage a hand to hand fight with the miiltia. If Governor Lewelling did not precipitate hostilities by an official order, Wilkerson intended to attack the militia at one o'eloek.
Through the good offices of ex-Governors Robinson and Osborne, and Colonel Lynde, of Miami, a conference was arranged which con- sumed most of the afternoon, both sides having decided to await the outcome of the conference. Propositions and counter propositions were entertained, but the only deeision that was made was to declare a truce until nine o'eloek the next morning. Night drew on with the State-house grounds looking like a military camp, fires glowing, drums beating and sentries walking to and fro. Outside of the mili- itary guard which enelosed the grounds, had been thrown a cordon of deputy sheriffs. A blizzard which had been coming on sinee the night before now struek with all its fury, and many of the men were insufficiently clad. The reliefs, however, were frequent, otherwise there would have been much suffering. Before morning almost a foot of snow had fallen and the fighting spirit was somewhat subdued by the elements. However, the most serious encounter of the whole war hap- pened at breakfast time Friday morning, when some Republicans, in
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attempting to smuggle food through the lines, clashed with the Popu- list guards, and one of the invaders was seriously hurt.
Conferences which had been going on all night with the Governor were renewed, and a committee of Topeka citizens took part. At noon an agreement had been reached which was acceptable to both sides. It was briefly as follows: Both the militia and the deputy sheriff's were to be relieved of duty and sent home. Each house was to return to its status as prior to the arrest of Rich, except that the Republicans were to have Representative Hall and the Dunsmore House was to hold its meetings elsewhere. No provision in the agreement was to be used in any court proceedings as recognition by either House of the legality of the other.
The Populists who had been holding their meetings in the Stormont building fitted up the south wing of the basement with desks and Speak- er's stand, and went to work. One of the things which engrossed their attention was a proposition to remove the State capital to Kanapolis, Kansas, and get it away from the influence of the railroads. A plan was presented by the promoters of Kanapolis whereby this could be done without eost to the State. The thing has since been looked upon as a joke, but the Populists were in earnest about it at the time, and so was the Kanapolis Town Company.
The only thing that remained now was for the courts to aet. There were two eases and both would have to be passed on the Supreme Court. The Treasury mandamus case was decided by Judge Hazen, February 18, in favor of the Republicans, and was promptly appealed to the Supreme Court. This ease involved the legality of the Duns- more House, while the ease of L. C. Gunn, who had been arrested at the instance of the Douglass House, involved the legality of that House. Gunn had been brought to Topeka, February 16, and applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of habeus corpus. He was released on a $500 bond and his case set for February 21, the day on which the Republicans planned to vaeate the Populist seats.
The trial began Tuesday and continued all week. The attorneys for Gunn were Eugene Hagan, Judge Doster, C. G. Clemens, and Judge Webb. For the Douglass House they were Chester I. Long, T. F. Gar- ver, and W. H. Rossington. Attorney-General Little represented the State. The decision was handed down Saturday morning, February 25. Chief Justice Horton delivered an opinion which was eoneurred in by Justice Johnson, upholding the Douglass House as the legal organization. A very able dissenting opinion was delivered by Justice Allen, the Populist judge.
The Populists met in their hall behind elosed doors to consider what should be their next move. The party leaders, including state officers and senators, were ealled together, and they deliberated over the mat- ter from 1:30 P. M. Saturday, until Monday night. It was decided to submit to the rulings of the court. Accordingly a solemn protest was drawn up condemning the action of the Supreme Court and of the methods of the Republicans in general, reviewing the whole proceed-
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ings from January 10, to date. The next morning the Dunsmore House marched in a body to Representative Ilall and took their seats. The ten Populists who had been seated by the Populist election committee, returned to their homes and the election contest matter, after taking up almost the entire session, was finally settled.
XVIII
DECLINE OF THE PEOPLE'S PARTY
The people and their leaders who had so joyously celebrated the Populist vietory in the fall, and had with such high hopes inaugurated the first People's Administration on earth, were keenly disappointed when the legislature finished its work and adjourned with no Populist legislation to its eredit. The only plank in the whole platform that passed was the resolution to submit the equal suffrage amendment to the people. True enough, the Dunsmore House, with the aid of the Senate, had passed practically everything that the platform called for but with the final decision of the courts in favor of the Douglass House, these measures did not become laws. Why, under these circumstances the election of Senator John Martin and State Printer E. H. Snow was not also illegal, has not been explained.
The Populist Manifesto covering the Lewelling administration and the Legislature of 1893 does not eall attention to a single Populist measure on the statute books, but it contains much interesting matter. For instance, it shows that the bill put in by the Copeland Hotel for sandwiches for the Douglass House was $1,460.20. The State paid the bill. The Populists bought their own sandwiches. Aside from the fact that the State was not supposed to board its law-makers in addi- tion to paying them, the sum mentioned in the bill was sufficient to have boarded the Douglass House all winter at the price being paid for produce at that time. With meat three cents per pound and wheat at 30 cents per bushel, the sandwiches could have been sold two for a nickel, and an enormous profit realized. This would have been 584,080 sandwiches, or 8,718 sandwiches for each of the 67 members of the Republiean House, which would have made 167 apiece per day for the entire session. Considering, however, that these sandwiches were eaten in the three days' siege, making 2,906 for each man every day, it shows that the Republicans had capacity, if not ability. And it is little wonder that people of such enormous physical necessities should have been compelled to become tools of the wealthy corporations in order to live, as it would be quite out of the question for them to raise that much food for themselves, or earn it by ordinary means.
This was merely an example of Republican policy. Everything that the Republicans of that time touched seemed to turn to graft. The Populists on the other hand tried to keep down expenditures, espe- vially those of the unnecessary kind, and to increase the State's ineome
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at the expense of the corporations. The Populist board of Railway Assessors raised the assessed valuation of railroad property in the State by $10,326,491, which was 25% to 28% on all roads. On items of contingent expense the Populists saved a great deal over the expend- itures of the Republicans.
However these things were really very small matters in compari- son with what they had hoped to accomplish, and this together with the election of John Martin instead of a Populist to the United States Sen- ate, took the enthusiasm ont of many of the leaders and the people as well. Mrs. Lease was so bitterly disappointed that she did not again enter the lists except as a disturbing element within the ranks. Benj. H. Clover, Benj. Harrison, Cyrus Corning, Senator Taylor, John F. Willits, Associate Justice Allen, General John G. Otis, Carl Adkins, of The Atchison Graphic, and James Gray, a representative of the miners of the Galena district, came out in the next campaign as anti- administration Populists.
In regard to the economic conditions, the Populist warnings of 1890 and 1892 had not been a wolf cry. Even while they were yet speaking. one of the greatest economic rebellions in the history of the country was going on in the way of great strikes, not confined to any one occu- pation or locality. There were the miners striking in the west, the steel-workers at Pittsburg and Homestead, and the laborers in Ten- nessee resisting convict labor and military force. The election of Grover Cleveland was a protest against the conditions which were bringing on these troubles. It would seem that the workers of the country were very blind indeed to elect to the President's chair the man who had been the first to inaugurate the use of military power in quelling riots. But they wanted a change, and instead of voting for General Weaver, who would have given them a change for the better, they took the attitude that he could not be elected, and voted for Cleveland who promptly gave them a change for the worse.
The country was famishing for lack of a circulating medium, but the legislation of the Cleveland administration tended to further destroy rather than to create a silver circulation. The forces were now rapidly lining up as monomentalists and bi-mentalists. At first the people were not divided according to party on this question. There were plenty of free-silver men in the Republican party and gold men in the Democratic party. Cleveland seems to have been a gold man. Times went from bad to worse until, in the early summer of 1893, the country was in the grip of a panic. Business and bank failures were a daily occurrences, and two million men were out of work and tramp- ing the country. It was at this time that Governor Lewelling issned his famous tramp circular which endeared him to the hearts of all thinking and fair-minded people. These tramps were reviled and per- secuted by the press and public. as though they had chosen their state of misery with malice and forethought, and out of pure depravity. Gov- ernor Lewelling made a plea for the kind treatment of these poor unfortunates without the means of livelihood and with nowhere to lay
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their heads, and called attention to the fact that they were hard-work- ing people, robbed and legislated out of a means of livelihood and denied a right to support themselves and families.
One of the most startling features of this period of financial depres- sion, suffering and revolt, was the Commonweal Army, commonly called Coxey's Army on account of the main branch of it being financed by Jacob Selcher Coxey, of Massillon, Ohio. His assistants was Carl Brown, an idealist and an artist, of Berkeley, California, who came to Chicago to a big labor convention in 1893 and talked with Mr. Coxey ahont such a project. Mr. Coxey took Brown home with him and told him to go ahead with the enterprise and he would finanee it. It is hard to tell just who originated the idea of the workingmen marehing to Washington. R. L. Polk, National President of the Farmers' Alliance, had advocated such a plan before his death.
Mr. Brown began preparations for the march in November, 1893, but it was the next Easter before it really began. In the meantime the idea spread and seventeen different divisions were mustered in different parts of the country and took up the march to Washington. The purpose was to call the attention of Congress to the necessity of providing employment for the relief of 4,000,000 workingmen out of employment, and their families, making a total of 15,000,000 destitute people who had a right to appeal to the Government for a ehanee to live. The main division of the Commonweal Army, headed by Coxey. took with them two bills which they wished passed. They were intro- dueed into the Senate by Hon. W. A. Peffer, of Kansas, and were as follows:
An act to issue treasury notes to the amount of $500,000,000 for the purpose of setting the people to work building good publie high- ways.
The second was a non-interest bearing bond bill, allowing the states, counties, towns and cities to deposit non-interest bearing bonds for any amount, not more than half the assessed valuation, for the eonstrnetion of publie improvements, and to withdraw a like sum in treasury legal tender notes.
The story is well known of how President Cleveland, who had pre- tended to be the workingman's friend, had these men arrested when they got to the Capitol City. A great deal of fun was made of the Commonweal Army by people who could ill afford to discredit such an effort. It was not a crazy man's scheme. It was based upon reason and experience. The bankers, the manufacturers, the corporations and all their ilk had been calling at the White House for thirty years with pretty good success ; why wouldn't it do for the workingman ? And as to riding on trains, without paying fares, the Congressmen and all other publie men were doing the same thing. and then charging up mileage to the Government.
One division of the Commonweal Army under General Bennett, passed through Topeka at the time of the People's Party convention June 12. 1894. and the convention raised $102 for him.
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It was apparent to all the Populists long before the State Conven- tion was called that the party was on the wane. Efforts made to appease the anti-administration crowd only drove the factions farther apart. The work of alienating the Democrats, already begun in Lewel- ling's administrative policy, was finished by the State Convention in endorsing the suffrage amendment. The Republican convention had met a few days before and refused to endorse the amendment, but promised the women on the quiet that they would work for it, which they hadn't the slightest intention of doing. Fatal as was the endorse- ment of the suffrage amendment to both the cause of suffrage and the Populist ticket, it is hard to see how it could have been avoided. The Populist women insisted upon it, and as it was a Populist measure, it was out of the question to turn it down, without laying the party open to the charge of bad faith. If the women had had the good judgment to have known that an amendment which goes to a vote of the whole people is better off without the endorsement of any political party unless it has all of them, they might have been voting in this state twenty years before they did. It was not the Kansas women, however, who made the blunder. Susan B. Anthony who had forgotten the Kansas language, Anna B. Shaw, and Carrie Chapman Catt, came here from the East and forced the Kansas women into the action on threat to withdraw all support of any kind whatsoever from the state if the Kansas women should not consent to force the issue in the Populist convention. The Kansas women at that time thought they could not live except these great gods gave them breath, and against their better judgment they sealed the doom of suffrage and further divided the Popnlist party in insisting upon an endorsement.
The ticket nominated was the same as in 1892, except for Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor. J. W. Amis was put in the place of Osborne for the former office, and D. I. Furbeck in place of Daniels. Osborne and Daniels were anti-administration. The platform was essen- tially the same except that the graduated income tax was left out to keep Daniels in the party. George W. Clark was candidate for Asso- ciate Justice.
The campaign was formally opened July 12, with a big old-fash- ioned Populist rally at the City Park in Topeka. Governor Waite of Colorado was the Lion of the occasion. After he was through talk- ing, Mrs. Lease got up and attacked Mrs. Diggs. Sister Diggs responded, and called her a liar, and the campaign was properly launched. Mrs. Lease blew hot and cold and played fast and loose. She seems to have lost her balance wheel. One day she would be condemning the admin- istration, Governor Lewelling, and Chairman Breidenthal in particular. The next day she would be glorying in the fact that there had been no fusion, that the flag still waved, and that Governor Lewelling, a grand and noble man, had been chosen to lead the party, and she would put on her fighting harness to defend him from the attacks of his enemies. In former campaigns the Republicans tried to make a joke of her. This time they succeeded. Mrs. Diggs stayed with the administration con-
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sistently, believed in fusion, supported it in 1896, 1898, and in 1900, and became the first and only real woman political boss in State affairs in Kansas.
In September the anti-administration Populists outlined an opposi- tion ticket, and were circulating it for signers to get it on the ballot. It was as follows: Governor, Cyrus Corning ; Lieutenant Governor, M. A. Pratt; Associate Justice, W. H. Bennington; Secretary of State, Fred Anthony; Auditor. Alexander Young; Attorney General, H. A. White; Treasurer, S. T. Cherry; Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mrs. Etta Semple. Populism, divided, antagonistic and calling each other by the most vindictive names known to the science of etymology, went against a united Republicanism in November and lost out.
In 1896 Free Silver at a ratio of 16 to 1 was the big issue. Sixteen to one simply means to coin a silver dollar with sixteen times as much metal in it as there is in a gold dollar. Bryan had been lecturing all over the West under the auspices of the Bi-Metallic League. He had been stumping the country for three years on the money question, and was a finished orator. though only 36 years of age. He went to the Democratic Convention at Chicago and electrified the country with his great speech in which he said, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." A new star of revolution seemed to have blazed into the heavens. He captured the convention. and the platform was shaped to draw the Populist vote for Free Silver. The Populist National Con- vention met and endorsed Bryan and the Democratic platform, adding a few resolutions.
In Kansas an agreement was made between the Populists and Demo- crats, and a fusion ticket made up which both agreed to adopt at their conventions. It was as follows: Governor, John W. Leedy ; Lieutenant Governor, A. M. Harvey; Secretary of State, W. E. Bush; Auditor, W. H. Morris; Attorney General, L. C. Boyle; Treasurer, David Hefle- bower; Superintendent of Publie Instruction, William Stryker; Chief Justice, Frank Doster: Congressman at Large, Jerry Botkin. Most of these were either Democrats, or, like Doster and Botkin, had always been Democrats at heart, though in the Populist party. The ticket was elected. The Anti-Fusion faction organized a Middle of the Road Popu- list Party. but put up no state tieket. Jerry Simpson defeated Long for Congress, and the fusion ticket elected congressmen in all but the first district. The legislature was anti-Republican, and twenty Popu- list laws were passed :
An act regulating the organization and control of banks.
An act authorizing cities to obtain gas light, electric light. electrie power, water or heat, either by purchase or construction.
An act providing that contracts fixing a different time for the bring- ing of aetions than that provided by law are void.
An act to establish trial by jury in cases of contempt of court and to restrict the power of judges and courts in contempt proceedings.
An act requiring clerks of the Appellate Court to account for the fees collected.
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An act putting the clerk of the Supreme Court on a salary and re- quiring him to account for fees collected.
An act to prevent blacklisting.
An act shutting ont the Pinkerton detective force by forbidding the hiring of non-residents as peace officers.
An act reducing the fees and salaries of county officials.
An act taking the weighing and inspecting of grains away from the boards of trade and placing it under the management of the State.
An act fixing the liabilities of insurance companies.
An act providing for the health and safety of persons employed in mines.
An act requiring the railroads to furnish transportation to shippers. An act providing for the recording of the assignment of mortgages. An act for the protection of motorneers.
A school text-book law.
Stockyards law.
A law for the taxation of mineral reserves.
A law requiring the reports of telephone and telegraph companies and providing for their taxation.
A law prohibiting trusts.
After the fusion of 1896, the Populists did not again put up an inde- pendent fight. The Republican Populists lost no time in seeking the original fold, as they did not want to support Democrats. Mrs. Lease was among these. In 1898, the Fusionists put up the same ticket with the addition of S. H. Allen for Associate Justice, his term having expired. The Republicans won everything except Congressman in the third dis- trict. In 1908, the state went Republican again. The Populist party gradually dwindled away, and even the semblance of the organization was dropped in 1906, ten years after the fusion with the Democrats took place.
Populism played a short return engagement under a different name in 1912. The Progressive Party, with a platform not unlike that of the People's Party, divided the Republican forces and swept the state and nation that year, with the result that a Democratic administration was elected. Kansas got over it in two years so far as the Democrats were concerned, and elected a Republican governor who was a Progressive. In 1916, the State voted for the Democratic National administration, and retained the Republican Progressive administration.
XIX
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
The most lasting and permanent memorial of the People's Party is the changed ideal of government. They taught, and were really suc- cessful in getting men and women to understand, that this is our gov- ernment, made to serve our needs. The ideal in government before the Vol. II-89
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time of the Populist Uprising was. that laws should be made in the interests of a few people who are allowed to control the destinies of the masses, and that through their great prosperity a few erumbs, as many as he is entitled to, will, automatically, drop to the producer of wealth. The Populist view was that laws should be made in the interests of the produeer of wealth, and if any one wants prosperity let him beeome a producer of something. This view is now the generally accepted one in theory at least. The coneourse of laboring men who ealled upon President Wilson a few months ago in the interests of the eight hour law and more pay were not treated with the contempt with which Cleve- land treated those who eame to him asking merely the right to live.
Populism educated the grass roots, and bequeathed to posterity a knowledge of politics and government such as has probably never been in the possession of so large a mass of people in the history of eiviliza- tion. It is doubtful if, with the present knowledge attained by the voter in this country, such outrages as the financial policy of the sixties and seventies could be inaugurated. Of course these things go on, but by reason of the fact that they are in accordance with the system which was established at that time and is only gradually being overthrown. But in the days of the Civil War and just after its elose, it was rank heresy for a voter to think. He was made to believe that if he doubted the wisdom of his party he was a traitor. To doubt Grant was as bad as to doubt Christ. The Populists educated us out of this condition of mind, and left us both example and preeept to think for ourselves. The movement awakened initiative in the people.
The desire of the Populists to educate is illustrated in the action of Jerry Simpson, who gathered his Populist colleagues together, and tak- ing Henry George's Progress and Poverty, assigned certain portions of it to each man, to be quoted by him in speeches sometime during the session, so that the whole of this book was spread upon the Journal of ('ongress. Simpson prized this work and did not want its teachings lost to posterity.
The Populist doctrines had so permeated the consciousness of the masses, that although the Republicans sueeeeded in defeating the party, the people had turned Populist, and believed in the Populist program, and in order to keep down the party of that name the Republicans were compelled from time to time to give the people measures which they had learned to think of as their right. The big fight in the Legislature in 1905 over the State Oil Refinery, the pipe lines and the anti-diserimina- tion against towns in making priees which attraeted attention all over the country, was a Populist fight. The anti-diserimination law put apon the statute books by the independent oil producers, compelling the oil trust to sell their product at the same price plus the freight, in every town in the State, was a joy to the old battle-scarred Populists of the nineties.
The Populists wanted anti-trust laws, and we have them galore. Some of them have helped and some of them haven't, but everybody is a Populist in that particular. We no longer recognize the divine right of
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wealth and cussedness. We did away with railroad free passes, not only for public men but for everybody. The Populists wanted legisla- tion regulating freight and passenger rates and we got it. We have the Utilities Commission with ever increasing power to regulate the pub- lie service corporations, until before long this regulation will be equal in effect to public ownership. Then there is the Australian ballot, the Parcels Post, Free Rural Delivery of Mail, Postal Savings Banks, Rural Credits Banks to loan money direct to the people, non-Partisan Tariff Board, income tax, election of United States senators by direct vote. equal suffrage, state publication of school text-books. election of insur- anee commissioner and state printer by the people, all found in the will of the political Sampson who slew more Philistines at his death than he ever did in his life.
The present laws for the arbitration of labor troubles are founded on a plank which the Populists borrowed from the Union Labor party. Much improvement in favor of the debtor has been made in the laws governing the collection of debts and the foreclosure of mortgages, and in the sell- ing of land for taxes. Immigration laws have been improved, the con- tracting of convict labor has been done away with and the eight hour laboring day is rapidly becoming the universal rule. The Populists were opposed to grain gambling. Bucket shops have been done away with in Kansas, and the Federal Government is hot on the trail of the grain gambler. But the curse of both the producer and consumer of farm products is still the speculator, who buys and holds produce for large gains. He will never be put out of business until we get the sub- treasury, which was the Populist solution of the evil. Free silver was another principle which has never been enacted into law, and probably never will be. But flexible currency, which was the Populist remedy for panies is looked upon by students of finance with great favor. The People's Party had its birth in the desire to save the farming land to the people, but it was born a few years too late. The foreclosure of mortgages which was going on at an alarming rate in 1888, 1889, 1890. continned unabated while the hands of the legislatures of 1891 and 1893 were tied by Republican interference, and by 1896 half of the land of Kansas had passed into the hands of the loan sharks and the tax title sharks, and to-day not more than 50% is in the possession of the actual tillers of the soil, and it looks as though it would take the application of the old Populist doctrine that the rights of the user are paramount to the rights of the owner, to get it back into the hands of the people where it ought to be.
The Populist Party came to rather an ignoble end, in its fusion with the Democrats in order that some of its prominent leaders might sat- isfy their ambition to hold office, but its original aim was high and it will be a matter of more and more pride to us as the years pass on that the inauguration of the first People's administration on earth took place in Kansas. whether much or little was accomplished. because it places our State exactly where it belongs in relation to progressive ideals.
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