We are onto that man White. Perhaps he pays his debts. He may be kind to his family. But he is not the man to run for Governor. And if he is a candidate for Governor or for any other office, we propose to tell the truth about him—how he robbed the county with a padded printing bill, how he offered to trade off his support to a Congressman for a Government building, how he blackmailed good citizens and has run a bulldozing, disreputable newspaper in this town for twenty years, and has grafted off business men and sold fake mining stock and advocated anarchy and assassinations.
These are but a few preliminary things that occur to us as the moment passes. We shall speak plainly hereafter. A word to the wise gathers no moss.
That is the way they run the Emporia "Gazette." It is a kind of forum in which White and Mason air their different points of view, for, as Mason said to me: "The only public question on which White and I agree is the infallibility of the groundhog as a weather prophet."
White and Colonel Nelson of the Kansas City "Star" are great friends and great admirers of each other. One day they were talking together about politics.
"I hear," said Colonel Nelson, "that Shannon (Shannon is the Democratic boss of Kansas City) says he wants to live long enough to go to the State Legislature and get a law passed making it only a misdemeanor to kill an editor."
"Colonel," replied White, "I think such a law would be too drastic. I think editors should be protected during the mating season and while caring for their young. And, furthermore, I think no man should be allowed to kill more editors at any time than he and his family can eat."
CHAPTER XXVIII
A COLLEGE TOWN
It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when my companion and I alighted from the train in Lawrence, Kas., the city in which the Quantrell massacre occurred, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, and the seat of the University of Kansas.