Harold T Chase; Teddy Roosevelt; William H Taft; Sen. Ingalls

(Harold T Chase’s biography can be found in the January 2, 2016 post)

A TRIBUTE TO HAROLD CHASE

           By Tom McNeal

In the  KANSAS MAIL AND BREEZE

         March 6, 1896

THE CAPITAL’s EDITOR  (a sketch of Harold T. Chase, who succeeded Major Hudson)

Here is a young man who, like Imlach in the story, has “found the delight of knowledge and the pleasure of intelligence.”  To the training of the university, Harold T. Chase, the editor of the Topeka Capital, has added the important education of practical life.  There has long been a controversy between the classically cultivated and the self-made as to who is better reared, but there can be no doubt that fortune has been good indeed to him who carries with grace and uses with skill the returns of both schools.

Beginning on the Capital as a proofreader, Mr. Chase has earned his way to editorial control by the diligence and merit which the printer Franklin spoke of as the mother of good luck.  Nothing has fallen to him;  he has worked his passage so far through the world.  During these years of laborious ascent he has profited by what experience has to give and learned the while to make the best use of his schooling.  This is why I say he has two good educations;  one of books, the other of affairs.

Mr. Chase was born in Pennsylvania, thirty-one years ago.  Graduating from Harvard in 1886, he began work as a reporter for his home paper, the Wilkes-Barre Daily Record, and subsequently became telegraph editor.  A year later he settled at Topeka and took employment with the Capital, of which he was made associate editor in 1889.  Two years after, he became a stockholder in and the treasurer of the Topeka Capital company.  Upon retirement of Major Hudson from the head of the paper in the middle of last month, Mr. Chase succeeded to full editorial charge.  Five years ago he was married at Topeka to Miss Annie Thompson, also a Pennsylvanian, whom he met at school when she was a Wellesley student.  

“Every woman”, a cynical writer has observed, “is beautiful and accomplished” in the newspaper reports.  Mrs. Chase is so everywhere.

  (Factual correction from Frances Chase Courtsal: Annie Thompson attended the Dana Hall  School for girls, a pre-collegiate preparatory boarding school for girls in Wellesley, MA. She was never able to attend Wellesley College because of her father's (Thomas U. Thompson's) financial calamity (which cause the whole family to move to Wakarusa, Kansas (see previous blog post from April 9, 2016)

But for several years Mr. Chase has devoted most of his attention to political controversy, for against the Capital every anti-Republican newspaper hand has been turned, always with malignity and quite frequently with force.  To the “enemy” it has been the chief apologist  in Kansas of those wrongs out of which American Reign of Terror was predicted.  The battle, now probably over, was long and extremely furious.  Many Republican papers, charged by some with having been dazed by the magnitude of the opposition which had sprung up, thought a policy of conciliation better than a baresark warfare, but the Capital, moved apparently by the spirit of old glory, would talk of nothing but absolute extermination.  For every phase of the controversy Mr. Chase found himself well accoutered, but he was particularly prepared for a discussion of the main issue, the money question.  It is not too much to say that of the theories and the history of finance, and of the science set forth by the leading writers on economics, Mr. Chase is as well informed as any other man in Kansas.  Nor was he at any disadvantage when it came to exchange of “anentities” and the use of the short-sword, for through those piping times he wrote many an article which passed for Hudson at his hottest.  A truce came one November day and all the contentions of the Capital and it kind were triumphant at the polls.

Personally Mr. Chase is unpretending, gentlemanly and kind.  Knowing him very thoroughly, I have, with respect for his constitutional dislike of parade drawn every statement less strong than it should be.  It is to his disadvantage that he is not more of what is known in Bohemia as a “mixer”, but this is owing less perhaps to his nature than to the weight of his confining work.  He is an engaging conversationalist and a genial companion everywhere.  He is one of the only two schoolmen I have ever met who says that the value of a collegiate education is overestimated by those who do not have it.

Professionally Mr. Chase’s purpose is to make a good clean paper every day.  This the Capital is.  Such a purpose is high, indeed, and such an achievement is worthy of mention among great works.  The paper’s circulation throughout the state is very large and its character is in high respect.

Mr. Chase is without prejudice or littleness and he is, moreover, brave and honest.  And journalists who are liberal, brave and honest should be pointed out for admiration as they pass along the streets, for newspapers stand daily face to face with social and civil wrongs which it imperils them to touch.  To the business office, to the moneyed man is behind advertisers, to the tax-dodging prominent citizen, to the powerful employer who grinds the faces of the poor, to these and other influences which may be grouped under the one head of “opinion”, the press, with many bright exceptions which make more noticeable the rule, pays the respectful if reluctant deference of silence;  and, whatever it may say with its mouth about fearlessness and independence, utters in its life to this composite and dominating power the words of subserviency which Dante addressed to Virgil:  “Thou are my author and my master, thou.”

--- From the Newspaper West.

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Letter from Theodore Roosevelt at Oyster Bay, N,  July 5, 1899

Mr. Harold Chase,  Topeka Capitol, Topeka, Kas.

My dear Mr. Chase;
As we are both Harvard men, and as you cannot be a better Westerner that I am, I know you will pardon my writing and saying how much I appreciate what you have said about me.  I only hope it will be my good fortune to see you in Albany during my term of office.
Again most heartily thanking you, my dear sir, I am,

Faithfully yours,  Theodore Roosevelt

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Letter from President William H. Taft,  June 8, 1910
The White House

My dear Sir,
I have had no suggestion from anyone that Senator Long be put upon the Commerce Court.  and I had no intention of appointing him.  It may be that some one will press it on me, but no pressure exists at present.

Sincerely yours,
William H. Taft

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Letter from Senator John James Ingalls (Kansas) in Atchinson, Kansas, November 26, 1890

From the United State Senate to Mr. H.T. Chase, Topeka

Dear Mr. Chase,

Had I seen your Georgia Editorial in the Capital before your visit Monday evening, I should have thanked you personally as I do now with the pen. Much that I said to you then was confidential as I suppose you understood. though I did not say this.

Yours faithfully,

John J. Ingalls

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The Editor in Chief punches the "Speaker"

Article from 1979 about the history of the Topeka Capital

The Editor in Chief punches the "Speaker"

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To Hamilton Chase

Campbell Apartments

1312 Main Street,  Winfield, Kansas

From Arthur Capper,   United States Senate, Washington, DC

August 13, 1929

My dear Hamilton:

Upon my return from a short vacation in California I found at the hotel the announcement of your marriage to Miss Eva Lieuween Tonkinson and I want both of you to have this expression of my warmest congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy wedded life.   It just doesn’t seem possible that the son of my life-long friend and business associate, Harold Chase, should have reached man’s estate and taken himself a wife. I am sure you know of my sincere interest in you. I am pleased to know that you are getting along so nicely with the telephone company and hope that the best of success may attend you always.  

If I can do anything for you at any time, please let me know.

Sincerely your friend,

Arthur Capper

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