History of Gove County, Kansas

HISTORY OF GOVE COUNTY, KANSAS

CHAPTER IV
POLITICS IN GOVE COUNTY

One election night the crowd was gathered at the county seat to hear the election returns. Every precinct had reported except Jerome, far out in the country, the roads were bad and there was no telephone connection. The election had been very close in spots, and the result hinged on the vote of this one country pre-cinct. At last the expected messenger arrived, and the crowd quieted down and gathered around to hear his report. He started at the top, with the vote for president,-"Roosevelt 48, Parker 12, Debs 6." Nobody said anything, no one appeared particularly interested, and the messenger inquired, "What do you fellows want first?" And some one spoke up, "How is the vote for sheriff?"

This little incident well illustrates the character of Gove county politics. Everybody wanted to know the vote for county officials, but the vote for president and for state officers could wait. When the campaign grows warm and voters get excited, the battle rages not about who shall be elected to the highest offices in the land but who shall fill the places in the court house. The voters dearly Jove to argue about, and vote upon, some "local issue"; and when veteran politicians get reminiscent about past political battles, it is not to tell of what we did for our candidate for president or governor, but of how we brought about the downfall of some local politician or helped to put some friend into an office in the court house.

Perhaps we have overdone it. It is a noteworthy fact that never in all our history has a Gove county man been a party nominee for any state or district office. This may be because we have exhausted our energies in local political contests. (There is one exception-the Socialist party nominated a Gove county man as their candidate for state senator in 1904.)

Gove county has always been Re-publican on state and national issues; but even this rule has its exceptions. Woodrow Wilson carried the county for president in 1912 and in 1916, and the county has on more than one occasion given a majority for the Democratic candidate for Congress or for judge of the district court.

It is worth noting that this county gave a majority for the prohibition amendment to the state constitution in 1880-when the county was as yet unorganized and for the woman suffrage amendment in 1912.

In the early Nineties the Farmers Alliance and Populist party swept most of our neighboring counties and kept political control of them for several years, but it was never strong enough in Gove county to command a majority. In its first campaign, in 1890, the party selected its nominees for county office in the regulation Farmers Alliance style, by secret ballot in the sub-alliances, and the result of the ballot was not known till later when the county alliance met to canvass the vote and announce the result. None of the Populist nominees of that year were successful; but in later elections a number of Populists were elected, by fusion with the Democrats. The Populist party made no more nominations after 1900.

After the Populist party was gone the Socialist party effected a county organization and for several successive elections nominated candidates for county offices. The party never became strong, its highest vote for president being fifty-five. Its highest vote for any county office was 65, and it elected a justice of the peace in Jerome township. The Socialist nominee for state senator in 1904 still remembers that he received 4 9 votes in Gove county, nineteen of them in his own precinct.

The events of the World War ruined the Socialist party in Gove county and destroyed its organization, though it still has a scattering vote at each election.
Since 19OS the law has required all party nominations to be made at a "primary" held in August preceding the election. But for a dozen years previous to the passage of the state primary law the Republican party in Gove county had been in the habit of having a county primary, with an occasional delegate convention instead. The Populists and Democrats made their nominations usually in mass convention, though sometimes a delegate convention was called instead.
County officials are sometimes elected to a second term, but not to a third. During war time this rule was broken, and some of the officials were given a third term. At that time there was but little politics, ev-erybody was thinking about the war or trying to raise some of that $2.40 wheat; but no candidate for a third term has gotten anywhere since the war came to an end and the country returned to normalcy.

The first representatives of Gove county in the legislature were in the same position as the representative of a territory in the congress of the United States-they had a seat on the floor and the privilege of debate, but no vote. The older counties of the state were very reluctant to give the voting privilege to the newly settled western counties. It was the Farmers Alliance legislature of 1891 which redistricted the state and put Gove and eighteen other western counties on an equal footing with the older counties in every respect.

The rest of this chapter is a catalog of names. Herewith we give the names of those who have held the offices since the county was organized. Those marked with a star (*) were elected as Populists or Democrats; the others are Republican.

Representative-J. K. Wickizer, C. H. Towsley, John W. Campbell", J. B. McClanahan, I. T. Purcell, R. D. Anderson, John L. Cook, A. J. Sprague*, John Heckman, James M. Sutcliffe, E. C. Prather*, John F. Jones, George D. Royer. D. M. Dennis, W. J. Davenport*, George P. Crippen, E. D. Samson, W. P. Har-rington*, A. Yale, Cecil Calvert*.

County Clerk-D. A. Borah. W. H. Wigington*, W. J. Heiney, C. P. Munns, I. N. Carver*, T. L. Sturman, C. R. Summers, George H. Thomas*, S. A. Mitchell, E. E. Baker, Christian L. Ikenberry, W. P. Harrington*, J. L. Mendenhall.

County Treasurer-F. F. Wright, George S. Dryer*, C. J. Ellithorpe, George S. Dryer*, A. J. Mitchell, J. F. Mendenhall, J. E. Smith, T. P. McQueen, C. C. Spiher*, Alex Haney, A. M. Weir, Lloyd J. Tustin*, F. A. Lewis.
Register of Deeds-L. F. Jones, C. E. Peirce, F. B. Strong, H. A. Spiher*, W. G. Jones, Martin Sutcliffe, J. M. Denning*, A. E. Osborn*, L. O. Maxwell, J. L. Mendenhall, E. H. Brown.

County Superintendent-G. G. Lehmer, D. J. Coy, C. H. Cole, Isaac Smith, W. S. Kriegh, Ruth Benson, E. L. Wickizer, C. H. Cole, Stella Mather*, J. R. Mohler, Mrs. Emma C. Sites, Charles D. Wrilson*, B. B. Bacon, John F. Lindquist, Ralph C. El-ler, Fred M. Crippen.

Probate Judge-J. H. Jones, C. E. Hebbard*, A. C. Hennesey*, J. W. Benson, Jesse Royer, J. M. Tyler, T. U. Moller, John L. Cook, I. B. Peck*, J. N. Turman, Gus Peterson*, W. T. Snowden, J. H. Orten, L. F. Thomas, Charles Swenson, George F. Turner*.

Clerk of the Court-Wm. Murphy, U. W. Oblinger, O. B. Jones, M. A. Lohr, John L. Cook, James P. Knight, J. A. Wilson,* Jennie E. Benson, E. E. Baker, A. J. Wiles*, Floyd B. Ha-zelwood, T. A. Evans, George F. Turner*, C. F. Cook, R. B. McNay.
Sheriff-John W. Hopkins, R. C. Bohn, N. E. Terrill, D. C. Blackwill, Gust Anderson, I. L. Longwell, W. T. McDonald, E. T. Lewis, H. A. Cook, W. T. McDonald, F. E. Batman*.

County Attorney-P. J. Cava-naugh, R. C. Jones, J. F. Todd, I. T. Purcell, O. B. Jones, L. O. Maxwell*. John R. Parsons, E. L. Tustin*, R. H. Thompson, E. F. Beckner*, R. H. Thompson, J. H. J e n s o n, R. H. Thompson.

Coroner-W. H. Crater, D. C. Blackwill, N. F. Davis, John W. Hopkins, J. H. Fosdick, James M. Sutcliffe, M. B. Smith, J. E. Vanderpool. E. N. Wert, George Birrer*, N. E. Terrill, O. J. Benson, C. S. Wall, A. M. Weir, George Birrer*, J. H. Rine-hart, C. O. Hoover*, W. H. Reckling. Benj. H. Morris, C. O. Hoover*. County Surveyor-F. B. Cope, A. P. Duryea, F. B. Coy, R. H. Samson.

L. O. Maxwell, J. W. Whitmer, J. J. Wolfe, J. H. Sprenger, N. C. Lewis*, A. R. Livingston, M. A. Lohr, C. W. Brown, W. W. Roberts.

County Commissioners-J. B. Mc-Clanahan, Lyman Raymond, T. M. Stokes, John W. Campbell*, James Hamilton*, Gus Peterson*, W. J. Hei-ney, J. H. Redifer, James Mather, J. S. Muchmore, Alex Haney, J. B. Wertz*, J. W. Wolfe, W. H. Leach, Ben Jones, M. E. Wilkinson*, George T. Brown, J. W. Purdum*, L. M. Baker, John Soderstrom, R. H. Holmes, C. G. Crippen, John Rund-berg, L. H. Livingston, Alex Haney, J. F. Harper*, H. W. Gee*, E. L. Tustin*, Hiram Richardson, N. C. Lewis*, J. W. Butler*, I. N. Carver*, C. C. Morgan*, T. F. Poole, George F. Wilson, T. H. Simmons, W. F. Bowman, J. H. Flora, W. E. Roesch, J. H. Mather*, J. H. Flora, R. S. Ikenberry*, T. F. Poole, Carl Knudsen.

County High School Trustees, 1903 to 1909-George D. Royer, J. M. Sturman, M. E. Wilkinson*, Hiram Richardson, A. A. Madden, E. C. Prather*, W. E. Bentley, B. B. Ba-. con, George F. Wilson, Nels Nordell, Mack White, H. A. Spiher*, H. W. Gee*.

CHAPTER V
THE PRESS

As previously related in this history, there were newspapers at Grainfield and Buffalo Park before the county was organized, but these were forced to suspend when the county was depopulated by the Drouth of 1880. Some six hundred people still lingered on, but for four years Gove county was without a newspaper.

The printing presses came again with the first wave of returning settlement in 18 85. In April of that year A. W. Burnett started the Buffalo Park Pioneer. Three more pa-pers sprang into existence in July, the Settlers Guide at Quinter, the Cap Sheaf at Grainfield and the Golden Belt at Grinnell. At the end of 1885 Gove county had four papers.

1886-The county was organized this year. Immigration is big, and here come two more papers. The Gove City Gazette made its first appearance in April, and the People's

Press was started at Grinnell in September. Then there were six.

1887-The Golden Belt absorbs the People's Press, in February. The man Criswell, who had started the Gazette and had disposed of it, now returns and starts the Graphic at Gove City in July. The Smoky Globe began publication at Jerome in March. Now for a time the county had seven papers, but the number was reduced one when the Buffalo Park Pioneer quit in December.

1888-The Smoky Globe suspends in April; Criswell sells again; his Graphic was a democratic paper, and immediately following Grover Cleveland's defeat for the presidency Criswell disposes of his paper to Loyd & Hart who change its name and politics to the Gove County Republican. Five papers are left.

The number remains the same in 1889. The Settler's Guide suspends in January, but Trimmer and Spalding start the Quinter Republican in April to take its place.

In the next few years the count}' loses half of its population and three-fifths of its newspapers, but the papers hang on longer and give way more slowly than the population. In April, 1890, the Golden Belt suspends and the Gazette absorbs the Gove Co. Republican. In March, 18 91, John L. Cook & Sons start the Echo at Gove City. There are no more changes till 1894. In August of that year Cook bought the Gazette and consolidates his Echo with it, and in November the Cap Sheaf is moved from Grainfield to Gove City and changes its name to the Gove County Leader. No change in 1895. In 1896 the Quinter Republican is moved to Gove City, in April, absorbs the Gazette in October and becomes the Gove County Republican-Gazette. There were now but two papers in the county, one Republican and one Populist, and both of them published at the county seat. This is a very natural and desirable state of affairs; and Gove City, twelve miles off the railroad, had proved itself the only town in the county capable of supporting a newspaper at that time. Of late years the citizens of Quinter, Grainfield and Grinnell sometimes turn up their noses at poor old Gove City which has no railroad, no heavy bonded debt and no high taxes, and it may be hard for them to realize that there was a time when they lost their citizens, their business and their newspapers to Gove City. One who now sees our thriving little towns along the railroad could hardly believe how dead those same towns were at that time. And no doubt Gove City without the county seat would have been as dead as any of them.

The year 1897 brings another change. In December the Leader becomes a Republican paper, and on the last day of the year the Gove County Advocate, a Populist paper, begins publication at Gove City. This Advocate will be given special attention in a later chapter. The three-cornered rivalry at Gove City con-tinues till 1901; in January of that year the Republican-Gazette absorbs the Leader; the Advocate suspended in December. And now at last Gove county has but one newspaper.

With the return of better and more hopeful times came more newspapers. In June, 1904, W. H. Tut-tle buys the Gove County Advocate press and type and starts publication of the Short Grass Advocate, at Gove City. The next year it moves to the railroad and becomes the Grainfield Advocate; and in 19 05 E. E. Bevan (who had learned his trade on the old Gove County Advocate) started the Record at Grinnell.

In 1908 Wm. Field Jr. bought out Tuttle and moved his paper to Quin-ter where it became the Gove County Advocate-s e c o n d of the name. Grainfield would not be without a paper, and in 1910 the editor of the WaKeeney World starts at Grainfield the Cap Sheaf-second of that name. In 1913 the Record, after many ups and downs and changes of ownership (and a fire) gives up the ghost; but in 1916 Rawleigh Young, the Oakley editor, starts the Grinnell Record again, the second of the name. Since that date the situation has remained unchanged with four newspapers in the county the Republican-Gazette at Gove City, the Advocate at Quinter, the Cap Sheaf at Grain-field and the Record at Grinnell.

During almost a half century of newspaper history there naturally have been many changes in the ownership of these papers. Also changes in politics and policy. The earliest editors, they of the Grainfield Republican, the Golden Belt Advance and the Buffalo Park Express were steadfast men who founded their papers and stayed with them till the depopulation and ruin of the country in 1880 compelled them to shut down. But the editors who came with the second settlement were a more restless and changeable lot and few of them could or would stay with the job long at a time.

At Grinnell, one early editor is said to have left town in fear for his personal safety as a result of the town row. At least one other always carried a "gun"; another one quit the job for a better one farther east and told the world through his new publication that Gove county was desolate and her people destitute. Maybe it looked that way to him, for that particular year was a season of drouth and high winds, when the country suffered severely and it was no place for the faint hearted. The founder of the first Quinter paper seems to have become involved in unfortunate land speculations which forced the paper to suspend. Another editor at Quinter violated the law of the land and left the country after dark.

The early newspapers depended largely for their living upon the land office patronage, the publication notices required in land contests and in proving up on homesteads, and these notices were political patronage and went by favor-so when the national administration changed from Republican to Democratic or vice versa it made a corresponding change in Gove county newspapers. Then. the board of county commissioners had sometimes a Republican or Democratic or Populist majority and awarded the county printing accordingly, and more than one Gove county paper changed its politics to get or to retain the county printing. The Gove City Gazette and the Graphic were started as Democratic and became Republican. The first Cap Sheaf was in both political parties by turns. The Gove County Leader ran the first part of its course as Populist and finished as Republican. The first Grinnell Record began as Republican, changed to Democratic and was finally sold out to and consolidated with a Republican paper. Some Gove county papers have been independent and nonpartisan, but of those which frankly were political organs only two have a clear record -- the original Gove County Advocate at Cove City was always Populist, and the Quinter (now Gove City) Republican has always been Republican.

The founder of the Buffalo Park Express in 1880 had been a member of the Wyandotte Convention in 1859 which framed the constitution under which Kansas became a state; the founder of the Buffalo Park Pioneer five years later was his son. Two Grinnell editors, Rickman and Carroll, went from Gove county to a larger field, to do newspaper work in Topeka. Of Grainfield editors McIvor has been state senator and Pur-cell has been district judge; both of them were to leave Gove county and take up their abode elsewhere before their ability was appreciated and these honors came to them.

To mention briefly the "passing show" of those who were our editors: First, the Buffalo Park Pioneer. A. W. Burnett founded it and ran it a year and a half, then sold out to G. F. Roberts and A. F. Potter. Most western editors in those days were real estate agents and used much space in their own papers to advertise their land business. Finally Roberts assumed sole control and closed the paper down, the last issue saying, "While we dislike to pull up stakes and leave our property and many friends, we do not propose to spend our time and printer's ink to eke out a mere existence."

W. P. Evans started the Smoky Globe at Jerome, and had for a time as partner J. L. Papes. Mr. Evans also ran a paper for a time at Farnsworth in Lane county. His son, who is now an editor in Coffey county, makes occasional visits to Gove county and tells of how his father brought the family and the print shop with him to Kansas in a covered wagon, halting occasionally along the way to do a little job printing. At the time he set up his shop in Jerome railroad surveyors were laying out a route along the Smoky and Jerome felt certain of getting a railroad.

J. H. Baker was owner of the Settler's Guide, and J. M. Cober editor. J. W. Baker succeeded Cober as editor of the Guide, and Cober later became prominent as a Democratic editor in Nemaha county.

The first Cap Sheaf changed hands frequently. Those who served more or less briefly as editors or proprietors were E. P. Worcester. A. F. Enos, E. M. Prindle (who was interested in the Smoky Hill Cattle Pool), Grainfield Publishing Co., Ira D. Chamberlain, W. J. Evans (the Cap Sheaf was at its best during the year he ran it), C. M. & E. L. Chamberlain (husband and wife), I. T. Purcell, Frank A. Mclvor, Beal & Dryer, Cap Sheaf Publishing Co., M. M. Martin and again Purcell.

Of the early Gove City papers: Ralph L. Criswell starts the Gazette and after running it for a year sells out to R. W. McAdam. Then a few months later Criswell returns to Gove and starts a rival, the Graphic. McAdam sells out to E. J. Killean who takes for a partner W. H. Max-well and, later, D. V. Smith. Criswell sells the Graphic to Loyd & Hart who later change the name to the Republican. (By the way, Criswell afterward became a prominent citizen in Los Angeles, California.) Killean & Smith of the Gazette absorb the Republican, and later sell out to O. B. & J. F. Jones. John L. Cook & Sons start the Echo, and for three years the Cooks and the Jones brothers are rival Republican editors in the same little town. Finally Cook terminates the rivalry by buying the Gazette and merging the two papers. Then Tom Kirtley moves to town with the new Populist paper, the Leader, (which had formerly been the Grainfield Cap Sheaf). Those were the days of per-sonal journalism; Kirtley, Cook, Evans, the Joneses and Trimmer, any or all of them, usually have a wordy war going on about the county printing or some thing else. No blood is shed and apparently no friendships disrupted, and evidently these newspaper rows are not to be taken very seriously news was scarce and the editor had to print something to fill up his paper. Trimmer moves the Quinter Republican to Gove City and absorbs, and hyphenates, the Gazette.

At this stage of the game there are but two papers in the county, of opposite political faiths, but the balance is soon disturbed. L. O. Maxwell buys the Leader and changes its politics. The Advocate is started by the writer of this history. Maxwell sells out to Bevan & Munns. they to Munns & Smith, they in turn to Trimmer of the Republican-Gazette. The Advocate suspends, and the Republican-Gazette emerges as the last survivor of fifteen years of fierce competition.

Rivalry, after a lapse of years, began again with "Short Grass Bill" Tuttle, who gave place after a time to Wm. Field Jr. Field was a moral delinquent, but a great rustler with a wonderful handshake. I remember hearing one who knew him say of him, "He shook hands as hard as he grafted." Field published his Advocate for a time at Quinter as a semi-weekly, and even talked of making it a daily-in a town of about three hundred population. Field was followed at Quinter by Lisle Mcllhenny (now running a paper in Douglas county) who gave way about ten years ago to A. A. Reiser. Most famous of editors at Grainfield in recent years is F. I. Wolfe, genius and cartoonist, who advertised to the world that the Cap Sheaf was "the only newspaper in the world printed in a barn." A year ago the Cap Sheaf was acquired by young Harvey Rei-ser who learned his trade in his father's shop at Quinter. The Record is owned and printed at Oakley but edited at Grinnell by Earl Davis. a crippled veteran of the World War.

Lastly, let it be mentioned as a part of Gove county journalistic history that the character of Gove county editors and newspapers . has changed greatly in these later times. The old time editor was usually a violent partisan, with but little invested and no business sense. He usually had a row going on all the time with some one about the county printing. Of late years it has become the settled policy of our boards of county commissioners to give the county printing to all four of the county papers instead of bestowing it as a favor upon some one of them, so that now each paper gets a part of the pay and they can stop quarreling. The present day editor is a business man with a typesetting machine and a power press, who cares little about politics but is running a paper to serve the community and to make a living. He lacks some of the old time fighting spirit and the ability to write those red hot editorials, but he is getting out a neater sheet with more news in it than the old time editors, and he is making dollars where the old timers never made cents.

CHAPTER VI
THE GOVE COUNTY ADVOCATE

Perhaps the reader will bear with me if I give a personal experience. This chapter is about the Gove County Advocate which the writer founded and ran for four years and discontinued, at Gove City. Those who are not interested are at liberty to skip this chapter 1will take up the general thread of the history in the later chapters.

Old Tom Kirtley, running a Populist paper in Gove City, was tired of the game and wanted to quit. The county board was Republican and he could not get the county printing; the Republicans had just come into control of the national administration and his patronage from the U. S. Land Office was cut off. It was a gloomy outlook for a Populist paper.

I was a newcomer in the county and had not come with any thought of running a newspaper. But, given a Populist who takes his politics seriously, just out of a print shop and fond of the work, some leisure time on his hands and an editor who is about to quit and leave the county without a Populist paper, and perhaps it is not strange that a fellow soon gets back into the game. In my state of mind at that time life was not worth living in a county without a Populist paper, where we had to bear the slings and arrows of an outrageous opposition and had no way of returning them. It began to look as if there might be some fun in being a Pop editor in Gove county, and possibly some profit.

But before bargaining with Kirtley to buy his paper I wanted to know something about the newspaper business in the short grass country, so I took a few days off to visit the Populist editors at WaKeeney, Hill City and Hoxie in quest of information and advice. Results were not altogether encouraging. I learned much about the hard struggles for existence of short grass editors (particularly those of the Populist faith and the advice ran all the way from "you can't make it, you will go broke," to "go it, we admire your spunk," but after a week's absence and a horseback journey of nearly two hundred miles I returned to Gove City with the intention of buying the Leader. But too late; during my absence Kirtley had sold the paper to L. O. Maxwell, who changed its politics, and now Gove county had two Republican papers and no Populist paper at all.

Well, perhaps two Republican papers would be no harder to fight than one. Having determined to go ahead, and being unable to buy a paper already established, it was now necessary for me to buy a new outfit and begin at the bottom. Inserting a paid notice of my intention in the Leader, I boarded the train for K. C. to purchase the necessary equipment. It took no very large sum of money to start a paper on the frontier in those days; a hand press and a few pounds of type was enough. Not all of my outfit was new. The Republican-Gazette, as a result of absorbing many other papers (Guide, Echo, Graphic, Gove Co. Republican, Gazette, and Quinter Republican) had more material than it could use, and Mr. Trimmer was glad to sell me a few fonts of display and advertising type at a reasonable figure.

As I look back now upon that adventure it seems to me to have been a very rash undertaking. I had been in the county less than a year and my acquaintance was very limited. I had no assurance of support not a dollar of advertising patronage promised, nor-I had almost said not a subscriber, but my friend Col. S. S. Reynolds of Grainfield asked for the privilege of being my first paid-up subscriber and paid over his dollar before I had even purchased my outfit. There was not even a decent place in town for a shop-during those years of depression the empty buildings in Gove City had been bought up by ranchers and moved out of town--and I was forced to build an office for my paper, meanwhile taking temporary quarters in an old "lean to" with a very leaky roof and no room at all. The population of the county had been practically stationary for several years. Newcomers were few and were looked upon with something like suspicion, and there was a growing feeling that the only people worth considering were those who had come to the country in Eighty Six and had stayed with it, and that the later comers were an inferior lot. This feeling of superiority was hardening into something like a caste system, and the Men of Eighty Six were being made into a sort of local aristocracy. Of course, this state of affairs was shattered later by another influx of new settlers, but it was quite noticeable at this time, in the year 1897, and it had its depressing effect even upon the egotism and self assurance of the new Populist editor. There was but one other Populist in Gove City, and he not very trustworthy; and inaiiy a time when I felt myself slipping and in need of encouragement I have jumped into the saddle and ridden far out into the country and sought out some old Pop (the more radical the better) and put up with him for the night and bade him talk to me and stiffen my backbone, lest I should lose the faith.

As for the Advocate itself, Gove county never had another paper like it, and never will. An old newspaper friend who knew the country had given me this advice, "Gove is a county where it does not pay a Pop to be good;" and this was the policy upon which the Advocate was run. It might be all right in some places for a Populist paper to roar gently and be mild and conciliatory, but the Advocate would have none of it. It had come to fight, and it kept up the fight as long as there was a party left to fight for; and when the Populist party ceased to be, the Advocate's excuse for existense was gone and it suspended publication.
Times have changed so much in thirty years that it is difficult to imagine our way of life in those days. We had no radio, no automobiles and no telephones. The country was in a state of stagnation, we had few visitors and little communication with the outside world. Business was dead, land of no value. there were no roads or bridges, everybody lived in sod houses, and there was no dividing line between the rich and the poor. Per consequence, our local affairs took on a magnitude such as they do not have in these later days; they were the only thing we had to talk about. and for the time being the editor of the local paper had an influence as a molder of public opinion such as few of them possess at this day. Elections were held every year, instead of biennially as now, and politics, local politics, was the one live subject all the year round.

Right here let me say that during its existence the Advocate was some thing more than a mere political organ. It chronicled the news, such as were; it ran a series of write-ups of the townships and their productions, and of individual citizens. And it wrote up some local happenings in a semi humorous strain which attracted the attention of, and caused them to be copied in, the press of Kansas and other states-such things, for instance, as the prize fight at Grainfield, the Advocate's prairie dog banquet, the "pigeon toed schoolma'am" story and the tale of the plucky Gove county girl who smoked a wildcat out of his den and beat him to death with a rock. It was the aim to have something attractive of a newsy nature in every issue. But the main purpose of the sheet was political.

And Politics at that time was a matter of personalities. Gove county was fiercely Republican. While neighboring counties had gone Farmers Alliance and Populist, Gove county had steadily refused to change. In a total vote of about five hundred the county gave about 125 majority Republican. Republicans might fight among themselves like cats and dogs, but they lined up for the straight ticket on election day. Those were the days when men boasted loudly of voting their ticket straight. Probably this was why my friend had said that it did not pay a Populist to be good. Up to this time the Populists had never been able to place a man in a single office in the court house. They had elected representative in 1894 and a county commissioner in 1896; these had been elected in a campaign full of personalities, which showed that this was at that time the only way to success.

Not to make the story too long, let it be said that the Advocate never gave the enemy a rest. The political "ring" was bombarded constantly. Every Republican candidate had to run the gauntlet of criticism. Public records were dug up and published if they could be made to reflect upon some candidate. Something had to be done to make these voters mad, and to shock them out of the habit of voting the straight Republican ticket. As is likely to happen in a campaign of this sort, the editor often got encouragement and assistance from unexpected sources. (I had a good laugh one day when glancing out of the window of my shop I saw a candidate shaking hands with one of his friends. This candidate was at that time under my heaviest fire, and his "friend" was the very fellow who had secretly furnished me the ammunition to make the attack,-but the poor candidate never suspected. I had to establish a reputation for keeping secrets, and for keeping my mouth shut, before any one would trust me like that.)

Under this style of attack the enemy's forces gave way. There are some voters still living in Gove county who learned then for the first time to vote a mixed ticket. The Populists put up only part of a ticket in 1898, and elected all their nominees. They elected most of their ticket in 1899; it was a nice war. But now Luck deserted. Perhaps the voters tired of the Advocate's style of journalism, after two campaigns. More surely, the Populist party itself had entered upon its decline, due to causes far beyond my control. The party was never to win any more victories, local, state or national, and soon was to disappear from the political field entirely. The Advocate did its part well enough, but it was involved in the ruin of the party.

The Advocate never was anything but a "side line" to me, and an expensive one at that. After having run it a year and put it on its feet I tried to dispose of it, but never had a chance; failing to find a buyer I leased the paper to Earl Hoffer and took the family back to the ranch. Hoffer was a better printer than I and a good writer and newsgetter. He needed no help from me except during the few weeks of each year's campaign. The paper paid its own way during the one year when it had the county printing. Hoffer ran the paper during 1899 and 1900, then went to run a paper of his own at Utica, and I came back into the shop again. The political party I was serving had lost its spirit. There was nothing left, to run a paper for. At the end of the year 1901 the paper stopped publication, and the first Gove County Advocate had passed into history.

The life of a pioneer editor was usually not a happy one. They might get quite a kick out of it, but they made no money and few of them broke even. During my brief career I was assaulted more than once, and I know how it feels to have a gun drawn on you. Also, to be arrestod.

A libel suit was hung over me, finally to be withdrawn after it had cost me several hundred dollars for attorneys' fees and court expenses. But my greatest grief is found in the realization that I accomplished so little-could have employed my time so much better at something else. I got quite a shock at the very time the Advocate was going the best. We were having a party committee meeting (at Colby, I think,) and each county was being called on in turn for its report. My report for Gove county seemed quite satisfactory to me-our party was united and feeling fine, we had elected certain county officials and expected to elect more. Then a wise old Pop mildly inquired, "Your campaign in your county seems to be of a personal nature, does it not?" Quite true. Then inquired my friend, "Do you think the kind of a fight you are making has helped to advance the Populist principles?" It had never occured to me before, but I was forced to admit that while we had raised considerable hades we had not made a single convert to the party. And so all my efforts had gone for nothing. There is a lesson in life which we all have to learn, to not take ourselves too seriously.

The Advocate press and type were moved out to the ranch and stored away, in a sod house. Then after a time the sign was right again to start another paper, and Bill Tuttle bought the outfit from me and started his paper, which, to my surprise, he called the Advocate. It was the "Short Grass Advocate," to be sure, but the prefix went through several successive changes until the name became again the Gove County Advocate, as it is today at Quinter. It is a good old name. But sometimes I find myself wishing that I had copyrighted the name thirty years ago, so that no one but myself could ever run a newspaper under the name, Gove County Advocate.