For a biography of Harold T. Chase and a letter of the same era from President McKinley, see the January 2, 2016 blogpost
____________________________________________________________
Date: February 6, 1900
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to Harold Chase, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Chase:
You are right in your conclusion is just but here:
I’ve never been East except two weeks spent in Washington and I don’t know the type of eastern scoundrel. How can I write about (personal name) for instance when I don’t know his environment, his ancestry nor anything save what the newspapers print, which is interesting enough but not convincing; I mean when you try to boil it into a magazine point of view.
I am sincerely grateful for your kind words and I accept your previous criticism, with the sad reflection that until I grow older and broader and more cosmopolitan, I can’t help it very much.
Here is a clipping I wish you’d hand to Kits to show him what the Gazette is doing to help your C.D. along. It’s a bully scheme, financially, spiritually and politically, and I want you to succeed.
Truly, W.A.W.
________________________________________________________________
Date: October 1, 1905 from Manitou, Colorado
Letter from William Allen White, Editor of The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase, The Topeka Capital
My Dear Chase:
I dont bother you often to read my stuff but I have an article in the Atlantic Monthly under the title “ The Golden Rule” -- their head not mine --- which I wish you would do me the kindness to read. They seem to have played it up pretty well and are evidently pleased with it. There are a dozen or so men in Kansas whom I am particularly anxious to have as readers of the article. I hope to make it the first of a series of essays along its line which I am ruminating.
When you have read it I should be glad to have your frank opinion of its position -- not in the paper but for my personal guidance. Remember me kindly to Capper and House and Smucker.
Truly W.A. White
_______________________________________________________________
Date: August 31, 1906
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase of The Topeka Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Chase:
Here is a “piece” I have writ. I wish you could print it some place in the Sunday Capital. It embodies my views on the situation and as I am assuced by the Herld of “attacking the constitution,” I desire to be set right before the state.
Truly --- W.A. White
I hope you will read it. How goes the battle?
_____________________________________________________
Date: October 18,1906
Letter from William Allen White, Editor of the Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to Arthur Capper or HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Capper and Chase:
A fellow doesn’t get anything unless he asks for it. Here is what I would like to have:
I brought LaFollette out to here to answer Long and add to the merriment of the campaign. I took him to Hutchinson where I thought it would stick a little deeper than elsewhere and I had Stubbs run the meeting and he properly enough put it in the hands of the fellows who hate Bill Morgan. Ralph Faxon now informs me that the only real result of my bringing LaFollette to Kansas will be the defeat of my friend Morgan -- which is unfair.
The Capital was kind enough right after the legislature adjourned you were kind enough to speak kindly of Bill. Since that time of course he mixed up in the state convention, contrary to what you and I thought was right, but he has come out squarely for the square deal questions: he has not sniffed at them, and his legislative record is such that I am sure he means what he says when he says to me he is absolutely in earnest in that matter. He will not be controlled by Long, nor anyone else in his Legislative acts.
What I want is a half dozen lines in the Capital that he can reprint in the News, and send out in a circular. He has not asked me to do this, but I know it will help wonderfully. The Capital is with the people, and its endorsement of a man counts. So long as I have made Morgan trouble in the LaFollette matter which you will admit was for the good of the order, I hope you can help me undo whatever injustice may have resulted from the meeting to Morgan. Of course it is not necessary to mention the LaFollette incident in referring to Morgan.
Truly -- W. A. White
________________________________________________________________
Date: January 9, 1908
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Chase,
Miss Tarbell will speak in Emporia before the state editorial association not before the state teacher’s association as announced in this morning’s Capital.
Emporia is preparing to have a great time at this meeting. A country town you know can always make more of such an event than a town like Topeka. The date is April 20th and 21 -- not the 22 -- as announced in the Capital -- and we are preparing to put up $50 in prizes for the best write ups of Emporia by Kansas Editors who attend the meeting.
We also are going to give a banquet for the Editors and their wives and numerous reception, teas and fluffy doings for their wives.
I wish in making the connection about noted that you could make a little editorial paragraph indicating in a general way that Emporia expects to give the Kansas Editors a sample copy of eternal joy for the two days which they will spend here. I wish you and Mrs. Chase could run down and spend a day or so with Mrs. While and me and meet MIss. Tarbell. Mrs. White wishes to pull down the blinds and light up for Miss Tarbell one afternoon and we feel that she needs a pretty girl like Mrs. Chase to help out an otherwise dull occasion. Let us know some time in April how you feel about it.
Sincerely, W. A. White
____________________________________________________________
Date: May 13, 1908
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Chase: --
I am very much obliged to you for running my Bristow story in the Monday paper. I trust that it did no harm. In the meantime, what do you think of the proposition of having Winston Churchill of New Hampshire come out here and make a few speeches for the cause ? Would it do any good ? I think perhaps I could interest him. Do suppose that Senator Everett Colby of New Jersey, who has made the reform fight there, would be well enough known to attract any Kansas attention ?
Very truly and sincerely, W. A. White
____________________________________________________________
Date: June 2, 1908
Letter from William Allen White, Editor of The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase, the The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Chase:
I am glad you liked the screed. I have blocked out two other articles -- one on Long and the President and the other on Long and Labor which ought to count.
I am trying to be exceedingly careful on this matter. I write the articles, Keep them in soak for days and Mrs. White and I go over them and over them together; so I have no fear of jumping the track unless someone deliberately misleads me as to the feds.
I hope you can print those articles in the weekly Capital. You don’t know how grateful I am for the Capital’s help.
Sincerely, W.A.W.
______________________________________________________________
Date: June 10th, sent from Paris, France
Letter from William Allen White, Editor of The Emporia Gazette
Letter to HTChase, The Capital, Topeka
My Dear Chase:
I have asked the MacMillan Company of New York, to send you a copy of my novel, “A Certain Rich Man”. Also, I sent an autographed fly leaf to be bound in the book. You should get it some time between now and August first. If not, kindly notify me at Emporia, and the letter will be forwarded, and I’ll see to it that the book goes out. I shall be in Europe probably until September first. I hope you and Mrs. Chase will like the book.
Truly and Sincerely,
W. A. White
PS: We are having a really beautiful time for very little money.
I hope old Joe is tracking right. I don’t see the papers over here.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sept. 4, 1908
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Harold Chase:
I am enclosing a proof of an article that appeared in the Portland Oregonian which reflects our situation so accurately that it seems to me that it will be well to publish it. Generally speaking, I have noticed that we who are on the winning side in the primary fight, have been very kind to Senator Long since the primary. Very properly so. But this article shows that the situation in Kansas was not unique, but simply reflects the condition found elsewhere in the West. And this article seems to prove that we were in line with the best Republican ideas in the United States. So I think it would be well if we could give it the widest possible publicity.
Very truly and sincerely yours,
W. A. White
________________________________________________________________
Date: September 12, 1908
Letter from William Allen White, Editor of The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Topeka Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My Dear Harold Chase:
I have been thinking over that Portland Oregonian article that I sent you, and I have finally decided that it shouldn’t be run. It didn’t seem to me at first that it was jumping on Long, and yet now it does seem so very definitely, and of course, I don’t want to do that. Just tear it up, and forget all about it. Every man makes more or less mistakes, and I make more than my share of them. But I finally get around to seeing my mistakes and sometimes see them in time to correct them.
Very truly and sincerely yours,
W. A. White
PS: I see you are not for the party that stands “for all things Grand and Noble”.
Shame, Shame ! - WAW
________________________________________________________________
Date: February 10, 1915
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My dear Harold: --
This letter will introduce to you former Senator Frederick M. Davenport of New York. Mr. Davenport was conspicuous during the gubernatorial administration of Charles E. Hughes, as his advocate in the senate and in the legislative caucus generally.
Mr. Davenport is in the west now on a mission for the National Short Ballot Association. He desires to meet a number of members of the legislature and I am sending him to you in the hope that you can let him meet a number of the leading men of all parties and talk informally with them. Whatever courtesies you may find time to extend to Senator Davenport will be appreciated by me.
Truly, W. A. White
_____________________________________________________________
Date: March 3, 1915
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My dear Chase: --
In reading the exchanges today I saw this in the Wichita Beacon. My first impulse was to sit right down and send it to Arthur, but it occurred to me that there was a very good reason why I should not send anything concerning the Bell Telephone Company directly to the Governor’s office, so I am sending it to you.
It seems to me, what with Hunt in the Attorney General’s office and the Topeka environment such as it is, they might put over just such a joker-ridden measure as the article in the Beacon seems to indicate.
I wish you would take this editorial from the Beacon to Arthur and tell him what I have said. Do not leave my letter in the Governor’s office for obvious reasons.
I should be pleased to know how you size up the legislature. I have made several stabs at it but I have never been able to get seven consecutive days on it tallied.
Truly and sincerely yours,
W. A. White
________________________________________________________
(William Allen White ran for Governor of Kansas in this November 1924 election, but did not succeed. However, he did succeed in diminishing the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas.)
Date: November 8, 1924
Letter from William Allen White, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, Kansas
Letter to HTChase at The Capital, Topeka, Kansas
My dear Harold,
Here is an editorial from the Gazette which I would be mighty pleased if you would run in the paper. It will be my last dying request as far as this campaign in concerned.
Now that the smoke of battle is cleared away and the Klan came darn near cleaning up three men on the Republican ticket and would have done so if I hadn’t begged those persecuted by the Klan to vote for these men, I hope you can see that the Klan issue was not a fake issue in Kansas. The Klan was out to defeat these three men and if you want to know, honest to God truth about it I was vastly more concerned about them than about my own vote. Because they hold the strategic position on the Klan.
I had a wonderful time and came out of it with physical strength and spiritually refreshed, ready to go to the major business of life which is writing for a living with zest and enthusiasm.
I hope you are well and happy and I wish you would come down and see us and bring your family as many as you can assemble. Since Mary went Sundays are lonesome for us and we like to have people drop in and cheer us up.
I hope you will like the Wilson book. I did my prettiest, and I think I got back to a style that I feared was lost. Anyhow come and see me.
Affectionately yours,
Will
(William Allen White)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
