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Show THE KANSAS FARUEU'S MIND. Kansas has been termed, and not inaptly, in-aptly, a state of surprises. Everything within her borders, from the ragged river fringe on her east to the mountain moun-tain shadows on her west, is surprising in some manner to the native or the alien. The winds which sweep the stato in mighty gusts, or gently rock the tender nubbins in the field of corn, is always a surprise it comos as only a Kansas mind can come roaring, bellowing, bel-lowing, bowling along; or with the soft tread and'velvety touch of a ministering minis-tering samaritan. Hope feeds fat where skeletons would perish. No cloud is so black but a silver lining gleams from its turgid bosom. Born in bloodshod and carnage, reared amid death and disaster, the future lighted by tho iirus of burning homes, and the past emblazoned in murdered fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters, tho hardy pioneers did not despair the black clouds which veiled the future were but clouds, and no one knew better than the early Kansan that a gust of wind dispels and disintegrates a cloud in a smauur space 01 lime man it would require to plat a new townsito or successfully suc-cessfully jugglo an infant boom. Out of success aud failure, failure and success, wind and weather, drouth and blizzard, cyclones and burut-up cornfields, corn-fields, and sun-ravished wheat crops, has come the modern paragon of all there is in Webstor's idea of the word Erratic the Kansas farmer's mind. It appears to have taken all the qualities qual-ities of nervousness possessed in the legs of the Irishman's flea, the change-ableness change-ableness of a Kansas wind, tho absorbing absorb-ing qualities of a heavy sea sponge, the grasping greed of an appetite born of famine aud erected upon its pedistal of Hope, the epigramatie declaration of the junior Kansas senator that "public ollice is a private snap." The hazy appearance of tho farmer's mind towards the pending election threatens to unseat the republicans, repulse the democrats and abash the prohibitionists, if such a thing as the latter wero possible An organization, conceived in lust for ollice, with a platform flexiblo as a moonbeam, visionary as a rainbow, susceptible as a shadow of doubt, has entered into the scramble for office. It wields the knife, the hatchet or thn maul under the dyspeptio guise of the farmers' alliance an organization for the avowed furtherment of kindrod interests in-terests and mutual welfare of tho agricultural agri-cultural classes, but in reality a blood and thuuder, hail Columbia happy land, razzle dazzle political party with no other well dofinod principles than an Indefinite appetite for ollice and a large moist greod for the gain which usually goes with Kansas positions of public trust. Just what the ultimatum will be is a question of much doubt and apprehension apprehen-sion on the part of the republicans, which is the only party in the state the alliance can injure. The domocrats will fight as they always fight, with the desperation imbued by despair; the prohibitionists have nothing to lose and defeat of tho republicans would be paramount par-amount to success with them; the union labor agitators have sneaked in at the back door of tho farmers allianoo and there is nothing left for the republican party to do except light light without fear and without favor tight from early dawn to dewy eve fight from Atchison to Aristotle, from Wyandotte to Walkarusa, from Topeka to Tonga-noxie, Tonga-noxie, from Hutchinson to Hallelujah, from Hiawatha to Honolulu. Success now is everything. It is a vindication of tho vaunted 82,000 majority; ma-jority; it endorses in stronger language than stump oratory or party foally the cause of prohibition. It places the state on an equal footing with tho adage that "As Maine goes, etc.," besides be-sides effectually, finally and for all time to come placing the farmer's alliance in its proper sphere iu the political catalogue. cata-logue. The day may never come when the leopard will change his spots, the politician poli-tician hiB religion, or the rcnublinnn his views on the tariff, but the Kansas farmer's mind is continually changing and is in a perpetual eclipse, which places tho outcome of the Kansas election elec-tion upon as secure a footing as a boat resting on tho brink of Niagara or a baby elephant iu the tiger's junglo. |