Locally owned since 1867
Youngsters take part in pitching clinic
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Jobless Kansans stuck in limbo PAGE A2
Pelosi calls House back to vote on Postal bill By LISA MASCARO and MATTHEW DALY The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that Nancy Pelosi the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election. Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak. “In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.” The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong Democratic National Convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess. See POSTAL | Page A2
Monday, August 17, 2020
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COVID-19 czar issues warning to Kansans By TIM CARPENTER Kansas Reflector
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx issued a stern warning Saturday that a window of opportunity was narrowing for Kansas and other Midwest states to adopt common-sense policies to deflect the coming wave of COVID-19. Birx, who met with health professionals at the University of Kansas Medical Center,
Deborah Birx said the virus was moving north from southern states without deference to urban or rural communities, partisan
affiliation or age. She said local and state government officials need to inspire wider use of masks inside and outside buildings, to build support for the 6-foot social distancing concept and to take other steps known to have economic consequences. “Kansas has rising test positivity,” she said. “This is the moment to get it under control. Wear a mask. Close bars. Decrease indoor dining. Increase outdoor dining. Every single person needs to com-
mit to not having parties and family gatherings that are going to spread this virus.” That type of advice when offered by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in Kansas has been met with opposition among Republican politicians frustrated by her decision earlier this year to shut down schools and businesses statewide in response to COVID-19. More recently, Kelly’s health recommendations have been cast See BIRX | Page A2
Painting the soil red Trevor Hoag Just Prairie The sky between Moran and Elsmore is open and dreamily quiet. There, late summer corn sways subtly upon warm wind and you can sense your heartbeat slowing to match its rhythm. But in the 1870s and ’80s, this place was anything but tranquil, and more than once the blood of Allen countians nourished the earth. There’s evidence of discord as early as 1873, when some 30 or 40 farmers assembled at the courthouse to protest the claim that the L.L.&G. Railroad had on their land. Early settlers in the area who’d been squatting on and farming the land thought this made them de facto owners. But it was the railroads who’d actually purchased the acres there by the thousands. “Land Leagues” were soon to form in order that squatters might defend their claims, by deadly force if necessary. In 1877, they met at the Nilwood schoolhouse “for the purpose of organizing for their own protection in case said lands are restored to entry with no stipulation favor-
In Bronson cemetery sits the unassuming grave marker of murder victim Columbus Carter.
In Moran cemetery sits the unique arched monument marking the graves of murder victims James Harclerode and Robert McFarland. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG ing present occupants.” As I nervously peered through the doorway of another nearby schoolhouse that’s still standing, Prairie Rose, I dreamed them there,
red-faced and bombastically shouting in the dusty little room, ironically incensed that lands which had been effectively stolen from native people had now been taken
from them as well. Four white barn owls gazed at me from the little building’s rafters and startled as I dared to get a closer look, their own silence suddenly turning as frantic as the livid farmers who’d once demanded the rights to their acreage. It wasn’t a small group of those concerned, either, for a meeting in Ard’s Grove in Elsmore Township reportedly drew 800 wagons and 2,500 people who were living on railroad lands. Demonstrations and protests were soon to follow, and See LAND | Page A4
Tennessee lawmaker helped women gain the vote By DAVID CRARY The Associated Press
One hundred years ago this month, women in the United States were guaranteed the right to vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment — secured by a 24-year-old Tennessee legislator’s decisive vote, cast at the bidding of his mother. Harry T. Burn’s surprise move set the stage for decades of slow but steady advances for American women in electoral politics. Two years ago, a record number of women were elected to Congress. On Tuesday, Democratic former
Dear Son, Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification. Your Mother. — Febb Burn
Vice President Joe Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate — making her the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket. Burn, from the small town of Niota in eastern Tennes-
see, joined the Legislature in 1918 as its youngest member. The following year, Congress approved the 19th Amendment, touching off the battle to win ratification by the legislatures of 36 of the 48 states. The process moved quick-
Harry and Febb Burn ly at first: By March 1920, 35 states had ratified, while eight states, mostly Southern, had rejected the amendment. Of the states yet to vote, Tennessee was the only one where ratification was See MOM | Page A4
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