A Notorious 7th District Character: Mary Elizabeth Lease

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by Hannah Thompson, HCHM Director

Today’s post is by Hannah Thompson, HCHM’s new director. Her research interests include late 19th century Spiritualism.  The influence of the national interest in Spiritualism can be found in Harvey County newspapers.

“Notorious” Characters

A 1903 article in The Evening Kansan-Republican mentioned several “notorious” characters from the seventh voting district, which Harvey County was then a part of.[1] Alongside “Iron Jaw” Brown and Carrie Nation, the paper mentions Mary Elizabeth Lease who “is now playing the role of an advanced spiritualist in New York City.”

“The JoAnn of Arc of the Kansas Populist Craze, 1892”

But who was Mary Elizabeth Lease, and why was she notorious? Born in Pennsylvania in 1850 as Mary Clyens, she followed the then-typical path for a woman of the 19th century: she met and married a man (Charles Lease) and had several children. When her husband’s pharmacy closed in 1874 due to a nationwide financial panic they moved from Kingman County to Texas, ultimately finding their way, with their four living children, back to Kansas and settling in Wichita.

It was there that Mary Lease began working for the Union Labor Party and kicked off her career in political activism as an engaging speaker. She was passionate about women’s and African American rights, and became a strong proponent of what would become the Populist Party.

The Populists or “People’s Party” was a major left-wing political force in the 1890s that held strong anti-bank and anti-railroad sentiments. It was supported mainly by farmers in the West and South and ultimately merged with the Democratic Party in 1896. Like the Prohibition Party, the Populists encouraged the involvement of women–keep in mind the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote was not passed until 1920!

Lease’s speeches were inspiring to many, but the fact that she was a woman worked against her, as her outspokenness was seen as “unwomanly.” She was nicknamed “Mary Ellen” by newspaper wags, so that they could call her “Yellin’ Ellen” or “Mary Yellin.’” The New York Tribune went so far as to accuse her of being a “mob leader”:

“But there is this to be said, of which there can be no denial, that Mrs. Lease upon the political platform or stump, uttering invectives more than masculine, and appealing to the brutal passions of the mob rather than to the calm sense of reasoning men and women, must be treated the same as any other mob leader, male or female. She cannot shelter herself behind her sex while appealing to bloodthirsty passions and inciting lawless riot.”[2]

The quote most often attributed to her, wherein she (supposedly) told Kansas farmers to “raise less corn and more hell” actually was not hers and may have been invented by reporters. When asked about the quote she denied it as her own, but agreed with the sentiment since she thought “it was a right good bit of advice.”[3]

Some blame Lease for the failure of the Populist Party in 1894 to elect a wide swath of officials. This is due to her contrariness and argumentativeness when she openly criticized the 12th governor of Kansas, the Populist Lorenzo Lewelling. She believed that he discriminated against her and tried to remove her from an appointed position due to her desire to bring women’s rights and temperance to the forefront of Populist Party concerns. Whatever the truth behind their disagreements, Lease found herself ostracized from the party, effectively putting an end to her political career.

The 7th District’s very Own Notorious Character.

By the time of the 1903 article in the Evening Kansan-Republican reporting on her activities, Lease had divorced her husband and was living in New York. It was around this time that her interest in Spiritualism grew, or at least became apparent in the historical record. Spiritualism was essentially the idea, not quite a religion but certainly closely tied to belief and faith, that immortality could be empirically proven by making contact with the afterlife via mediums. Lease presented at a Connecticut Spiritualist convention in 1901 a lecture titled “If a Man Die, Shall He Live Again?” wherein she described historical figures who believed in life after death, exclaiming that the Spiritualists of the time also knew life after death to be true.[4]

It’s interesting, then, that someone who shone brightly for such a short period of time, and was derided in newspapers for being “unwomanly,” “over-zealous,” and “turbulent and inflammatory,” would have her life not only tracked by a Newton newspaper but treated what seems to me to be a sense of grudging respect and maybe even pride.[5] Sure, she was a “notorious” character, off in New York calling forth spirits from beyond the grave as she “used to call forth Populist victory from windy caves of Kansas,” but she was 7th District’s very own notorious character, and they claimed her openly.[6]

Sources:

[1] Today Harvey County is in the 4th voting district.

[2] New York Tribune, Aug 13, 1896

[3] Topeka State Journal, Topeka, KS May 25, 1896

[4] Kuzmeskus, Elaine M. Connecticut in the Golden Age of Spiritualism.

[5] The Representative Minneapolis, MN June 10, 1896; New York Tribune, New York, NY Aug 13, 1896

[6] The Evening Kansan-Republican, Newton, KS Aug 28, 1899

 

New & Cool: YMCA Baseball Uniforms

Posted on by hchm-curator

Recently, the museum received a collection of YMCA baseball uniforms.

Did you play on any of these teams? Let us know!

 

 

YMCA Senior Champions Trophy from 1930.

Adequate for the Needs of the County: Harvey County Jails

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by Kristine Schmucker, HCHM Curator

Despite the early history of violence in Newton, there was not a county jail until 1880. Prisoners deemed “real bad men”  were either guarded or taken to prisons in another county. Less violent, “ordinary culprits” were locked up in “makeshift cabooses or allowed to come and go on their own recognizance.”  In 1879, “after much discussion and agitation” the county commissioners decided a county jail was needed.  The proposition issuing county bonds for a jail was put on the November ballot.  The proposition passed 997 in favor, 712 against.

S. Chamberlian contracted to build “a two story stone building with double tier of cells” for $5,975. The jail was constructed out of large slabs of Florence rock. Also included, two reservoirs on the east end of the building to retain water from  the roof and an apartment  for the “jailer and his family.” The jail was completed in 1880.

Harvey County Jail, 1880-1917.

“Not the proper material to use in jail construction”

There seemed to be difficulties soon after completion. The contractor, Chamberlain, “lost considerable money . . . the reservoirs never proved a success and it soon developed that Florence rock was not the proper material to use in jail construction.” The rock walls created an unhealthy, damp environment.  In 1905,  “health officers . . . demand[ed] a new jail“ because of the poor living conditions.  When put on the ballot, the proposition failed in 1905 and a second time in 1908.

Another unforeseen difficulty was securing prisoners. A reporter observed that escape was not a challenge with “prisoners  able to dig out almost at will.”

“A Stinking Place”

The issue of a new jail was brought up several times between 1908 and 1916. The Evening Kansan Republican described the conditions in the jail and sheriff’s residence with the headline “County Jail is a Stinking Place.” The sheriff’s residence was dismal with poor ventilation and a single “flimsy wooden stairway” to the second floor creating a potential firetrap. The presence of bars, “jail fashion,” on the windows of the family bedrooms added to the danger. The editor warned that  “in the event of a fire which would almost instantly cut off the inside stairway, occupants of these bedrooms would be quickly roasted, like rats in a trap.”

 

The cell block for inmates was also sub par with no heating system. The only method  to prevent prisoners from freezing was the use of “coal fires in some ramshackle old stove.”  The system of locking the jail cells was also complicated and required that the sheriff lock and unlock all the cells at one time. The article described the cells as “almost indescribably filthy”  and not fit even for dogs.  The conditions were not unlike what “one would expect to find  the prison pens of the south during the civil war.”

In an editorial in the Evening Kansan Republican, editor S. R. Peters described the jail and sheriff’s residence as “insufficient, out of date . . . neither safe, sightly nor wholesome.”  In addition to the health hazards he pointed out that “the present county jail is not secure and does not compare with the newly erected court house.” Peters concluded that “the county is in a prosperous condition . . . and there is no reason to believe that the slight tax of two mills on the dollar will be any less of a burden.”

Although inadequate “to cope with more modern methods of criminals” the building served as the jail until 1917, and even became something of a landmark in the community. Finally in August 1916 at a special election,  the proposition to build for a new jail passed 928 to 460.

“One of the beauty spots of the city”

D.S.Welsh demolished  the 1880 structure and several other local men were involved in the “landscape gardening” which made “the jail and courthouse premises really one of the beauty spots of the city.” The new jail was open for use in October 1917.

In 1921, some improvements were made including new cots and replacement of the “soft steel bars . .  with tool steel ones, that are guaranteed against sawing.”  The reporter for the Evening Kansan Republican boasted;

“Even the fastidious Sedgwick county prisoners could find no fault with the county jail.”

“Adequate for the needs of the county”

Harvey County Jail, 1917-1964.

In 1922, the author of the section on  “Harvey County Jails” noted that “the present jail should be adequate for the needs of the county remainder of this century.  It is sanitary, strongly built, room, and ornate.  Ample housing for the jailer and family is provided. The elected county sheriff and his family continued the practice of living at the jail.  The last sheriff to live at the jail with his family was Earl ‘Russ’ Werner 1961-1965.  Werner was also instrumental in planning the new jail constructed in connection with the new courthouse in the mid-1960s.

Sources

  • Newton Daily Republican: 31 March 1887,
  • Evening Kansan Republican:  27 January 1908, 1 February 1908, 31 October 1908, 11 January 1911, 11 April 1911, 29 September 1914, 1 December 1915, 3 May 1916, 8 November 1916, 16 September 1919, 8 July 1921.
  • “Harvey County Jails,” Newton Kansan 50th Anniversary, 22 August 1922, p. 27.