HOCH, DER GOVERNOR OF KANSAS.

Taken to Task by a Recalcitrant Legislature Because He Said "Set 'Em Up," He Talks of Things That May Happen on Resurrection Morn.

Governor Edward Wallis Hoch, of Kansas, is a big man, with a slow manner and a keen sense of humor. Born fifty-seven years ago in Kentucky, as soon as he had graduated from a freshwater college he moved westward. At twenty-five he found himself editor and proprietor of a country weekly in Kansas; and the step from journalism to politics proved an easy one.

When Hoch talks about "trust-busting" legislation he speaks quietly and seriously, with shrewdness and intelligence. At other times he is capable of enlivening the dull routine of official work with a touch of unconventional pleasantry. During the recent legislative eruption at Topeka one of the more impetuous representatives introduced a bill which had already been passed. The Governor vetoed it, remarking that it was up to the representative to "set 'em up."

A member of the opposition, thinking that this was a dangerous expression for the Governor of a prohibition State to use, had a resolution adopted calling on the Governor to explain. Governor Hoch was extremely busy, but he disentangled his signing hand from the pile of bills before him long enough to dash off the following reply:

To the Senate—I am in receipt of Senate Resolution No. 40, introduced by the Senator from Atchison County, requesting me to explain what was meant by the term "set 'em up," as used in my veto message of Senate Bill No. 341. This expression, used playfully, and without having any particular meaning, and possibly hardly comporting with the dignity of your body, seems to have had, if not a good, at least an unexpected effect, in that it has caused the emaciated corpse of the Kansas Democracy to take on the semblance of life and sit up and take notice.

The belief in miracles is here strengthened by absolute proof, showing that the proper call will restore animation to the dead. If the Angel Gabriel, standing with one foot on land and one on sea, were to blow such a blast from his trumpet that the mountains should rock to their bases, the Democratic party of Kansas would probably sleep on undisturbed, but if he were even to whisper the magic words "set 'em up," the grave of this moribund organization would give up its dead, and from the entire aggregation, headed by the talented and handsome Senator from Atchison, would come the answer in swelling chorus, "We will take the same."

E.W. Hoch, Governor.