The latest Kansas Preservation newsletter had an interesting article about efforts to locate and preserve Kansas governors’ homes. Looking over the list reinforced again how rarely Wichita, the state’s largest city, has produced a governor — only four of 54 govs, in fact — the last one being Edward Arn, who served a half-century ago, from 1951-55 (and whose house at 344 N. Fountain is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places).
Oh sure, Wichita offers up plenty of lieutenant governors, such as Gary Sherrer and John Moore, as well as lieutenant governor wannabes such as Sen. Susan Wagle, but few governors.
Why is that? Is there a lack of ambition around here?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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36 Comments
Randy,What a stupid topic. Can’t you come up with anything juicy?
Nope, lack of talent. Look at the current city/county governing bodies.
You gotta be kidding. I can’t think of anybody currently in city or county government who’s qualified for anything beyond political retirement.Wichita has a certian mindset that the rest of the state doesn’t like. Why would they want to elect someone from Wichita as governor?
Lack of talent and class
XXX,
Interesting comment. I spent a year teaching up in Emporia, and folks up there had nothing but disdain and contempt for Wichita. And it wasn’t the usual town / city kind of animosity, either. They looked down on Wichita. It was viewed as a mean-spirited place, populated by luddites.
And I must admit that, back then, when I needed some culture, I would typically drive the 80 miles to Lawrence rather than the 80 to Wichita.
The type of people who are considered leaders here are the same ones we would have laughed out of Manhattan.
Wasn’t Lawrence rated as the 2nd meanest city to the homeless?
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jan/12/coalition_lawrence_2nd_meanest_city_homeless/
Kind of goes to show that leftiest elitist talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. Doesn’t surprise me.
But going back to Wichita, we are a bit different, because we are a business powerhouse. We are more concerned about business that government, and that is the way it should be.
Let us look at a few local career politicans, like Bob Knight who ran for governor. He was a business man before being Mayor and he is a business man now that he is not.
He is more concerned about pushing a destination casino than being governor.
It’s like that in many other states, that most politicans come from a specific region or city, while the rest concentrate on business.
California is an example. Most politicans come from San Francisco, while the rest of the state concentrates on business and doing their thing.
What exactly isthe point of this thread? Is he trying to say that Wichitans are all idiots or something?
Bob Knight a businessman? Other then lobbying what business is he in?
I think a lot of talented people leave Wichita for better job opportunities, education and political opportunities.
Oh really? I didn’t know that. So there’s a brain drain going on down there??
Joe Williams, master of the cheap shot, ought to read the story to which he’s linked. If he did, he’d see that the ‘Civility Laws’ passed by the Lawrence city council were adopted at the urging of the downtown business establishment–those who, I suspect, are not members fo the ‘leftist elites’ he vilifies.
He then says this: “We are more concerned about business that government, and that is the way it should be.” Oh, really? Guess that’s why the Constitution spends so much time on self-government than entrepeneurship.
Joe, at least make it a challenge for people to show how stupid you are.
Heh, funny, CF.
Here’s another good Joe-ism:
“California is an example. Most politicans come from San Francisco, while the rest of the state concentrates on business and doing their thing.”
Joe, do you have even a guesstimate this is true?
Out of how many politicians in California came from the Bay? Nixon didn’t. Swartzenegger didn’t. Jerry Brown was mayor of Oakland for awhile, but I have no idea where he grew up.
Don’t post “facts” without some semblence of evidence.
Getting back to the subject of the post, I suspect that Wichita is so under-represented by Gov’s for the same reason we paid something like 10 cents per kwh for electricity while Topeka paid 8 cents FROM THE SAME COMPANY.
We have ceded power to the capital. Our two-party system is top-down, meaning once the power concentrates in Topeka and the Northeast corridor of the state, it tends to stay there, whether Repub or Dem.
Joe-ism Alert!
“The left-wingers, if the could get away with it, they would turn the US into the Nazi regime.”
The “socialism” in “national socialist” was a complete and utter fiction. It goes back to the founding of the party before Hitler et al. co-opted it.
See William Shirer’s definitive “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” for a complete discussion of the topic.
PL,
You are incorrect about National Socialism. Hitler wanted, above all else for there to be be class reconcilliation. Hitler stated that in the Reich the lowliest ditch digger should have the same worth as Prussian aristocrats and industrialists like Krupp and Thyssen!
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Thanks for setting me straight on that, you racist ignorant piece of schiezen.
I wouldn’t ask you for the time, Ian, let alone your opinion on something related to history.
Go practice goose-stepping and stop bothering the adults.
PL,
I will never allow the lies and slander of you and your ilk to go unchallenged!
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
You mean like the Jewish holocaust? What an ignorant putz!
Shirer writes on page 123 that Gregor Strasser “refused to kowtow to Hitler . . . This was to prove a fatal handicap, as was his sincere enthusiasm for the ’socialism’ in National Socialism.”
On page 126, “To Hitler talk of socialism was rank heresy, and he watched with increasing uneasiness the success of the Strasser brothers and Goebbels in building up a vigorous, radical, proletarian wing of the party . . .”
“Hitler was furious. A number of big industrialists were beginning to become financiall interested in Hitler’s reborn movement precisely because it promised to be effective in combating the Communists, the Socialists, and the trade unions.”
Goebbels, who was a true Socialist before he joined forces with Hitler, wrote about an early meeting in his diary: “What kind of a Hitler is this? A reactionary? Completely wrong on the Russia question.” (Because the USSR was communist and Hitler opposed them and wanted to ally with capitalist England and facist Italy.) p.128
“The Nazi revolution was political, not economic. . . . Hitler dismissed Nazi ‘radicals’ who had annoyed the big department stores . . . Schmitt (Hitler’s appointee) was the most orthodox of businessmen (insurance director of Allianz) and he lost no time in puttin an end ot the chemes of the National Socialists who had been naive enough to take their party program seriously.” p. 206
The SA “storm troopers” who were dispossed anticapitalists were sold out. p. 206
Having lived in another midwestern state many years ago, I saw a statewide animosity towards the largest city. Whether deserved or not, many other towns/counties harbored ill feelings just because the largest city was just that–largest. More shopping, more attractions, more to do, etc.
Not sure if that has anything to do with the climate here, but is worth speculating.
Nope..not claiming it is..just a thought.
Ian Santiago,
The utopic rhetoric of Fascist populism is, of course, essential to the legitimating of Fascism. Too bad the reality of power and privilege never corresponded to the rhetoric.
Here’s a nice exceprt, among others, from Daniel Guerin, author of “Fascism and Big Business.”
**********************************
“As to the nature of this crisis, fascism itself has no illusions.
“The crisis,” Mussolini admits, “has penetrated the system so deeply that it has become a systemic crisis. It is no longer a wound, but a chronic disease …”
In spite of the fact that fascism demagogically promises the reabsorption of unemployment and the resumption of business, it knows perfectly well that it will not set the economic machine going again. It does not seek seriously either to bring back to life the vanished consumer, or to stimulate the long interrupted investment of private savings in production. Others are free to cherish Utopias if they wish, but fascism knows what it wants and what it can do. It merely tries to check, through artificial means, the fall in the profits of a private capitalism which has become parasitic. In spite of its verbose demagogy, it has no great designs; it lives from week to week; it aspires to nothing more than to keep alive – through wage cuts, state orders and subsidies, seizure of small savings, and autarchy – a handful of monopolists and big landowners. And in order to prolong the latters’ reign (though limiting their liberty and without insuring them their pre-depression income), it has no hesitation in hastening the ruin of all other layers of the population – wage earners, consumers, savers, working farmers, artisans, and even industrialists manufacturing consumers’ goods.”
***********************************
Fascism depends as much on perpetuating phony populism as it does on stamping out real populism.
National Socialism was a fair and just system but it had to be destroyed because it conflicted with both judeo-bolshevism and robber baron judeo capitalism!
One of the first labor reforms to benefit the German workers was the establishment of annual paid vacation. The Socialist French Popular Front, in 1936, would make a show of having invented the concept of paid vacation, and stingily at that, only one week per year. But Adolf Hitler originated the idea, and two or three times as generously, from the first month of his coming to power in 1933.
Every factory employee from then on would have the legal right to a paid vacation. Until then, in Germany paid holidays where they applied at all did not exceed four or five days, and nearly half the younger workers had no leave entitlement at all. Hitler, on the other hand, favored the younger workers. Vacations were not handed out blindly, and the youngest workers were granted time off more generously. It was a humane action; a young person has more need of rest and fresh air for the development of his strength and vigor just coming into maturity. Basic vacation time was twelve days, and then from age 25 on it went up to 18 days. After ten years with the company, workers got 21 days, three times what the French socialists would grant the workers of their country in 1936.
These figures may have been surpassed in the more than half a century since then, but in 1933 they far exceeded European norms. As for overtime hours, they no longer were paid, as they were everywhere else in Europe at that time, at just the regular hourly rate. The work day itself had been reduced to a tolerable norm of eight hours, since the forty-hour week as well, in Europe, was first initiated by Hitler. And beyond that legal limit, each additional hour had to be paid at a considerably increased rate. As another innovation, work breaks were made longer; two hours every day in order to let the worker relax and to make use of the playing fields that the large industries were required to provide.
Dismissal of an employee was no longer left as before the sole discretion of the employer. In that era, workers’ rights to job security were non-existent. Hitler saw to it that those rights were strictly spelled out. The employer had to announce any dismissal four weeks in advance. The employee then had a period of up to two months in which to lodge a protest. The dismissal could also be annulled by the Honor of Work Tribunal. What was the Honor of Work Tribunal? Also called the Tribunal of Social Honor, it was the third of the three great elements or layers of protection and defense that were to the benefit of every German worker. The first was the Council of Trust. The second was the Labor Commission.
The Council of Trust was charged with attending to the establishment and the development of a real community spirit between management and labor. “In any business enterprise”, the Reich law stated, “the employer and head of the enterprise, the employees and workers, personnel of the enterprise, shall work jointly towards the goal of the enterprise and the common good of the nation.”
Neither would any longer be the victim of the other-not the worker facing the arbitrariness of the employer nor the employer facing the blackmail of strikes for political purposes. Article 35 of the Reich labor law stated that: “Every member of an Aryan enterprise community shall assume the responsibilities required by his position in the said common enterprise.” In other words, at the head of the company or the enterprise would be a living, breathing executive in charge, not a moneybags with unconditional power. “The interest of the community may require that an incapable or unworthy employer be relieved of his duties”
The employer would no longer be inaccessible and all-powerful, authoritatively determining the conditions of hiring and firing his staff. He, too, would be subject to the workshop regulations, which he would have to respect, exactly as the least of his employees. The law conferred honor and responsibility on the employer only insofar as he merited it.
Every business enterprise of 20 or more persons was to have its “Council of Trust”. The two to ten members of this council would be chosen from among the staff by the head of the enterprise. The ordinance of application of 10 March 1934 of the above law further stated: “The staff shall be called upon to decide for or against the established list in a secret vote, and all salaried employees, including apprentices of 21 years of age or older, will take part in the vote. Voting shall be done by putting a number before the names of the candidates in order of preference, or by striking out certain names.”
In contrast to the business councils of the preceding régime, the Council of Trust was no longer an instrument of class, but one of teamwork of the classes, composed of delegates of the staff as well as the head of the enterprise. The one could no longer act without the other. Compelled to coordinate their interests, though formerly rivals, they would now cooperate to establish by mutual consent the regulations which were to determine working conditions.
Belgian author Marcel Laloire, who observed conditions in the Reich first hand, wrote “The Council has the duty to develop mutual trust within the enterprise. It will advise on all measures serving to improve the carrying out of the work of the enterprise and on standards relating to general work conditions, in particular those which concern measures tending to reinforce feelings of solidarity between the members themselves and between the members and the enterprise, or tending to improve the personal situation of the members of the enterprise community. The Council also has the obligation to intervene to settle disputes. It must be heard before the imposition of fines based on workshop regulations.”
Before assuming their duties, members of the Work Council had to take an oath before all their co-workers to “carry out their duties only for the good of the enterprise and of all citizens, setting aside any personal interest, and in their behavior and manner of living to serve as model representatives of the enterprise.” [Article 10, paragraph 1 of the law.] Every 30th of April, on the eve of the great national labor holiday, council duties ceased and the councils were renewed, pruning out conservatism or petrifaction and cutting short the arrogance of dignitaries who might have thought themselves beyond criticism.
It was up to the enterprise itself to pay a salary to members of the Council of Trust, just as if they were employed in the work area, and “to assume all costs resulting from the regular fulfillment of the duties of the Council”.
The second agency that would ensure the orderly development of the new German social system was the institution of the “Workers’ Commissioners”. They would essentially be conciliators and arbitrators. When gears were grinding, they were the ones who would have to apply the grease. They would see to it that the Councils of trust were functioning harmoniously to ensure that regulations of a given business enterprise were being carried out to the letter.
They were divided among 13 large districts covering the territory of the Reich. As arbitrators they were not dependent upon either owners or workers. They had total independence in the field. They were appointed by the state, which represented both the interests of everyone in the enterprise and the interests of society at large.
In order that their decisions should never be unfounded or arbitrary, they had to rely on the advice of a “Consulting Council of Experts” which consisted of 18 members selected from various sections of the economy in a representation of sorts of the interests of each territorial district.
To ensure still further the objectivity of their arbitration decisions, a third agency was superimposed on the Councils of Trust and the 13 Commissioners, the Tribunal of Social Honor.
Thus from 1933 on, the German worker had a system of justice at his disposal that was created especially for him and would adjudicate all grave infractions of the social duties based on the idea of the Aryan enterprise community. Examples of these violations of social honor are cases where the employer, abusing his power, displayed ill will towards his staff or impugned the honor of his subordinates, cases where staff members threatened work harmony by spiteful agitation; the publication by members of the Council of confidential information regarding the enterprise which they became cognizant of in the course of discharging their duties. Thirteen “Tribunes of Social Honor” were established, corresponding with the thirteen commissions.
The presiding judge was not a fanatic; he was a career judge who rose above disputes. Meanwhile the enterprise involved was not left out of the proceedings; the judge was seconded by two assistant judges, one representing the management, another a member of the Council of Trust.
This tribunal, the same as any other court of law, had the means of enforcing its decisions. But there were nuances. Decisions could be limited in mild cases to a remonstrance. They could also hit the guilty party with fines of up to 10,000 marks. Other very special sanctions were provided for that were precisely adapted to the social circumstances; change of employment, dismissal of the head of the enterprise or his agent who had failed in his duty. In case of a contested decision, the legal dispute could always be taken up to a Supreme Court seated in Berlin-a fourth level of protection.
From then on the worker knew that exploitation of his physical strength in bad faith or offending his honor would no longer be allowed. He had to fulfill certain obligations to the community, but they were obligations that applied to all members of the enterprise, from the chief executive down to the messenger boy. Germany’s workers at last had clearly established social rights that were arbitrated by a Labor Commission and enforced by a Tribunal of Honor. Although effected in an atmosphere of justice and moderation, it was a revolution.
This was only the end of 1933, and already the first effects could be felt. The factories and shops large and small were reformed or transformed in conformity with the strictest standards of cleanliness and hygiene; the interior areas, so often dilapidated, opened to light; playing fields constructed; rest areas made available where one could converse at one’s ease and relax during rest periods; employee cafeterias; proper dressing rooms.
With time, that is to say in three years, those achievements would take on dimensions never before imagined; more than 2,000 factories refitted and beautified; 23,000 work premises modernized; 800 buildings designed exclusively for meetings; 1,200 playing fields; 13,000 sanitary facilities with running water; 17,000 cafeterias. Eight hundred departmental inspectors and 17,300 local inspectors would foster and closely and continuously supervise these renovations and installations.
The large industrial establishments moreover had been given the obligation of preparing areas not only suitable for sports activities of all minds, but provided with swimming pools as well. Germany had come a long way from the sinks for washing one’s face and the dead tired workers, grown old before their time, crammed into squalid courtyards during work breaks.
In order to ensure the natural development of the working class, physical education courses were instituted for the younger workers; 8,000 such were organized. Technical training would be equally emphasized, with the creation of hundreds of work schools, technical courses and examinations of professional competence, and competitive examinations for the best workers for which large prizes were awarded.
To rejuvenate young and old alike, Hitler ordered that a gigantic vacation organization for workers be set up. Hundreds of thousands of workers would be able every summer to relax on and at the sea. Magnificent cruise ships would be built. Special trains would carry vacationers to the mountains and to the seashore. The locomotives that hauled the innumerable worker-tourists in just a few years of travel in Germany would log a distance equivalent to fifty-four times around the world!
The cost of these popular excursions was nearly insignificant, thanks to greatly reduced rates authorized by the Reichsbank.
Didn’t these reforms lack something? Were some of them flawed by errors and blunders? It is possible. But what did a blunder amount to alongside the immense gains?
That this transformation of the working class smacked of authoritarianism? That’s exactly right. But the German people were sick and tired of socialism and anarchy. To feel commanded didn’t bother them a bit. In fact, people have always liked having a strong man guide them. One thing for certain is that the turn of mind of the working class, which was still almost two-thirds non-National Socialist in 1933, had completely changed.
The Belgian author Marcel Laloire would note: “When you make your way through the cities of Germany and go into the working-class districts, go through the factories, the construction yards, you are astonished to find so many workers on the job sporting the Hitler insignia, to see so many flags with the Swastika, black on a bright red background, in the most populous districts.” The “Labor Front” that Hitler imposed on all of the workers and employers of the Reich was for the most part received with favor.
And already the steel spades of the sturdy young lads of the National Labor Service could be seen gleaming along the highways. The National Labor Service had been created by Hitler out of thin air to bring together for a few months in absolute equality, and in the same uniform, both the sons of millionaires and the sons of the poorest families. All had to perform the same work and were subject to the same discipline, even the same pleasures and the same physical and moral development. On the same construction sites and in the same living quarters, they had become conscious of their commonality, had come to understand one another, and had swept away their old prejudices of class and caste. After this hitch in the National Labor Service they all began to live as comrades, the workers knowing that the rich man’s son was not a monster, and the young lad from the wealthy family knowing that the worker’s son had honor just like any other young fellow who had been more generously favored by birth. Social hatred was disappearing, and a socially united people was being born.
Hitler could already go into factories-something no man of the so-called Right before him would have risked doing-and hold forth to the mob of workers, tens of thousands of them at a time, as in the Siemens works. “In contrast to the von Papens and other country gentlemen,” he might tell them, “In my youth I was a worker like you. And in my heart of hearts, I have remained what I was then.” In the course of his twelve years in power, no incident ever occurred at any factory Adolf Hitler ever visited. When Hitler was among the people, he was at home, and he was received like the member of the family who had been most successful.
Ian Santiago,
I invite you to shove that ‘Nazi workers’ paradise’ fantasy, downloaded from Stormfront, up your neo-Nazi ass. It made a few people rich, and a lot more dead.
“Illinois Nazis? I HATE Illinois Nazis.”
CF,I like the “Blues Brothers” reference.
Speaking of films…
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Ian probably hasn’t seen “Schindler’s List”.
That’s where it’s from! “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin badges! We’re on a mission from God!”
Yeah, I feel better now.
CrusaderX,
Au contraire: ‘Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges” comes from “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
NoJoCo,
Indeed. I’m thinking “Ilsa, she-wolf of the SS” is more Ian’s speed.
crap. Well at least I know now.
Ian is one sick puppy.
Ian, if you don’t get help at Charter, get help somewhere . . .
Compare Wichita to Lawrence. That pretty much illustrates it.
Look, Ian should be allowed to say whatever he wants within the confines of brevity. This reposting of entire chapters of Mein Kampf should be stopped, however.
Todd,
Totally. When a posting requires even clicks of my ‘pg dn’ bottom to scroll past, it’s too long.
Ha ha! ‘Page down bottom’ indeed! Damn Freudian slip gets me every time.
Joe,
You are mistaken about Bob Knight. Bob Knight has not had a business nor has he held a private sector job since Jack Ranson fired him many, many years ago.
He has made a living off of the government dollar for years and donations of others. Example when Bob was Mayor he made is city salary and then took a salary from the aviation museum of about $60,000 after Ryun Aviation donated about $100,000 a year to the museum. Then when that got stopped he took a salary from the convention group in a specially created position just for him at a high salary.
When he was Mayor of Wichita and when he ran for Governor of Kansas he said that he was opposed to gambling because of the drain it had on local business, the social costs and it was not a dependable revenue source (the revenue source piece is similar to what the Governor of Nevada has said about their gambling dollars). But when Bob found that he was not employable he found a tribe with mega dollars and they have been willing to pay him. Interesting twist of events. Plus his wife worked for Governor Graves so it is a family on the government payroll for years.
So you may want to check your facts before you speak so highly of such an individual.
Actually Bob Knight was an investment banker before being Mayor of Wichita, also he actually advocated gambling, when they almost pushed a Casino downtown, but was push out because of legal issues. It is now the home of the Hyatt Hotel.
He runs an investment company now.
But I don’t dispute the other information. Yes! He did recieve an extra $60K a year from the Convention and Visitors Buearu.
I don’t believe there is any big secret as to why there are not more Governors from Wichita. Governors usually have an affiliation with the law or the courts. Sedgwick County officials view the Constituition as optional,the whole system seethes with corruption and malignant behavior which sickens anyone outside of the Wichita City limits. Voters and politicians alike smell the stench of Sedgwick County and are rightfully repulsed!
Joe Williams….Yes… and he’s right!