The Kinsley Graphic

THE AGRITA ROAST.

Col. Murdock's roast of Gov. Lewelling in Sunday's Eagle on the subject of the Greenlee railroad bill was written more as a resident of Wichita than as a republican editor.

The Greenlee bill should not and cannot be considered as a republican measure, although it was unfortunately introduced by a republican; nor, however, as a measure tending to meet the reforms pledged or the relief demanded by the republican party, but as a species of special legislation for the peculiar benefit of the individuals introducing and supporting the bill, and operating to the detriment of all other localities and merchants in the state.

We regret to admit that Mr. Greenlee, the father of the bill and president of the Hutchinson Wholesale Grocery company, so far forgot the equitable principles of his party in his enthusiasm for his mercantile establishment as to sacrifice them to his personal interests, and we equally regret that so great a man as Speaker Douglass allowed his love for Wichita to outweigh his knowledge of justice to all.

There were but two points in the Greenlee bill. The first provided for what is termed a "commodity rate in car loads" only of a few articles of staple heavy groceries, hardware and drugs, and fixed a maximum basis for such rate.

No provisions were made for lowering or regulating the rates on less than car loads of these goods, nor did it consider even incidentally the rates on coal, lumber, salt, grain, live stock or any other article shipped in or out of the state.

Hon. John Seaton offered an amendment restricting the railroads from making a greater difference than five cents per hundred pounds between car loads and smaller shipments of these so-called commodities, so the retailer and consumer could be equally benefited, but Speaker Douglass and Mr. Greenlee opposed it, and it was lost.

This opposition to so fair an amendment leaves no doubt that the bill was intended to be solely in the interest of the jobbers in Wichita, Hutchinson and Salina, and that the author of it was willing to sacrifice the entire state for self.

The only point in the bill was a provision that the orders of the railroad commissioners, whether right or wrong, whether procured by fair means or foul, should be in force until set aside "by a court of complete jurisdiction," or in other words, the supreme court.

It is just such selfish attempts to use the legislature for personal ends that has lost the republican party much of its prestige in Kansas, and in order to regain influence, republicans throughout its length and breadth must think and work more for the good of the state at large and subdue personal ambitions or make them secondary.

Atchison Champion, (Republican).

As the Champion shows in the above article the Greenlee bill that the republican papers are praising so highly was gotten up simply in the interest of a few jobbers in Wichita, Hutchinson, Salina and one or two other points, and would have been an injury to the consumers in this part of the state.

The present law is better than the Greenlee bill, not only for the people, but also for the merchants of the western towns.