Jason Clarke Swayze (1830–1877), the pugnacious editor of the Topeka Blade.
Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 38 (Autumn 2015): 146–163
146
Kansas History
The Shooting of
Jason Clarke Swayze:
Libel, Press Freedom, and
Editorial Civility in 1870s Kansas
by Erika J. Pribanic-Smith
T
opeka newspapermen Jason Clarke Swayze and John W. Wilson had a violent history. Soon after Wilson took
the helm of the Topeka Times in 1875, Swayze published an insulting woodcut in his Topeka Blade that led Wilson
to threaten him with a club. Two years later, Wilson responded to virulent editorial comments in the Blade by
attacking Swayze in the street.1
Undeterred, Swayze published an editorial in the Blade that accused Wilson of being a gambler and a pimp.2 As
Wilson approached him outside a tavern that evening, Swayze brandished his pistol. “I did not come here to beat you
up,” Wilson said, drawing his own revolver. “I don’t intend you to beat me up,” Swayze replied. The ensuing altercation
took the men into an alley, where they fired at each other. One of the bullets struck Swayze’s chest; he died thirty minutes
later.3
Though some newspapers lamented Swayze’s demise and cursed the judicial system for acquitting his killer, many
wrote that it served him right.4 His ongoing verbal assaults on Wilson were not unique; no one was safe from Swayze’s
attacks. Wilson was not even the biggest target; Swayze harassed Commonwealth editor Floyd P. Baker for years and, in
fact, connected him with Wilson in the gambling and pimping scheme. Following the shooting, some accused Baker
of conspiracy, which led him to sue Swayze’s ally M. C. Morris of the Leavenworth Times for libel. Years later, Swayze’s
Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Arlington, is a past president of the American Journalism Historians
Association. She earned her MA and PhD from the University of Alabama.
1. The woodcut appeared in the Topeka Blade, July 17, 1875; the Blade reported on the attack and ensuing legal action on July 21, 1875, and July 22,
1875. See also Topeka Blade, March 12, 1877.
2. Topeka Blade, March 27, 1877.
3. Scene recreated from witness and medical professional testimonies to the coroner’s jury as published in “Assassination!,” Topeka Blade, March
28, 1877, and “A Fatal Affray,” Commonwealth, March 28, 1877.
4. The court ruled the murder an act of self-defense because Swayze drew his pistol first. See “The Verdict,” Commonwealth, May 31, 1877.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
147
This view of the southeast corner of Sixth and Kansas Avenues in Topeka was made in 1876 and captured a number of local businesses: most
notably, perhaps, the office of the Kansas State Record at 104 Kansas Avenue. S. D. MacDonald edited the Record until May 1875 when it was
consolidated with the Topeka Commonwealth—thus “Commonwealth Office” is painted on the side of the building’s second story.
son suggested that Baker ordered the slaying to punish
Swayze for implicating him in a lottery scandal.5
Taken in total, the shooting, its causes, and its
aftermath raise questions about libel, press freedom,
and editorial civility in postbellum Kansas. The incident
also demonstrates that despite the verbal and physical
violence of some editors, Topeka was home to a leader in
the movement toward a more respectable and objective
form of journalism.
Aggression among newspaper editors was not unusual
in nineteenth-century Kansas. Some historians aver that
conflict in territorial newspapers over slavery set the
tone for the rest of the century. The Kansas–Nebraska
Act of 1854 allowed for settlers to determine whether
5. Oscar K. Swayze, undated speech (plain paper), and speech to
the Shawnee County Early Settlers’ Society, folder 16, box 3, Oscar K.
Swayze Papers, Collection 83, State Archives Division, Kansas Historical
Society, Topeka, Kansas (hereafter cited as “Swayze Papers”).
148
the state would enter the Union with or without slavery.
Few settlers arrived in the new territory without a
passionate view on the slavery question, and violent
factions developed.6 Historians of Kansas journalism
demonstrate that skirmishes of the Bleeding Kansas era
spilled over into the press. Editors of opposing factions
engaged in bitter feuds, hurling accusations and insults
in print. Moreover, mobs destroyed the presses of several
6. Craig Miner, Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State, 1854–2000
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 35, 49–79; William Frank
Zornow, Kansas: A History of the Jayhawk State (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1975), 67. For discussions of American Indians and
settlers who arrived prior to the territorial phase, see William G. Cutler
and Alfred T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (Chicago: A. T.
Andreas, 1883); Charles C. Howes, This Place Called Kansas (1952; repr.,
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984); Rita Napier, ed., Kansas
and the West: New Perspectives (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
2003); Dale E. Watts, “How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas? Political
Killings in Kansas Territory, 1854–1861,” Kansas History: A Journal of the
Central Plains 18 (Summer 1995): 116–29; Zornow, Kansas, 67–79.
Kansas History
newspapers because of the causes
their editors advocated, and the most
passionate newspapermen joined
proslavery and free-state militias.7
Editorial abuse did not wane
after Kansas joined the Union as a
free state. Many pioneering editors
of the territorial period maintained
publication after statehood, and
they continued fighting each other.
Some conflicts stemmed from battles
between neighboring communities
for the distinction of county seat, as
editors included the flaws of opposing
newspapers in the list of reasons why
the other community was inferior.
Other arguments were personal.
Historians declare that the biting
language of the territorial period
persisted in many Kansas papers for
decades after statehood, until the
newspapermen of Bleeding Kansas
died, retired, or mellowed with age.
Historian David Dary argued that by
the 1920s, editorial language became
more polite and newspapers sought
respectability.8
While invective pervaded, some
editors were punished for their words.
A particularly famous example is
Colonel Daniel R. Anthony of Leavenworth. During his editorial career,
Anthony shot two rival editors in
Colonel Daniel R. Anthony, a former Jayhawker and the brother of suffragist Susan B.
Anthony, published the Leavenworth Times. During his editorial career, Anthony shot two
rival editors in separate incidents three years apart. He killed one and maimed another, but he
was acquitted in both cases. Anthony took a bullet in a third argument. Later, another editor
fatally wounded the editor who shot Anthony.
7. Bill Cecil-Fronsman, “‘Death to All Yankees and Traitors in
Kansas’: The Squatter Sovereign and the Defense of Slavery in Kansas,”
Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 16 (Spring 1993): 22–33;
David Dary, Red Blood & Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 22–26, 42–45; Marilyn S. Blackwell, “‘Nobody
Out Here Knows Anything about Wimin’s Rights’: Clarina Howard
Nichols, Woman’s Rights, and Abolitionism in Kansas Territory,” Kansas
History: A Journal of the Central Plains 33 (Autumn 2010): 147–63; Cecil
Howes, “Pistol Packin’ Pencil-Pushers,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 13
(May 1944): 116–18; Kansas State Historical Society and Department of
Archives, History of Kansas Newspapers: A History of the Newspapers and
Magazines Published in Kansas from the Organization of Kansas Territory,
1854, to January 1, 1916 (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, 1916), 5, 9,
10; John R. McKivigan, “James Redpath, John Brown, and Abolitionist
Advocacy of Slave Insurrection,” Civil War History 37 (December 1991):
293–313.
8. Kenneth C. Bronson, “The Local Press and the Changing
Community,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 42 (Spring 1976): 50; Dary, Red
Blood & Black Ink, 27–28, 35–37, 55–65; Howes, “Pistol Packin’ PencilPushers,” 123, 128–32; Howes, This Place Called Kansas, 55–65.
separate incidents three years apart, killing one and
maiming another; judges acquitted him in both cases. He
took a bullet in a third argument. Later, another editor
fatally wounded the editor who shot Anthony. Dary and
twentieth-century journalist Cecil Howes offered
Swayze’s death as another example of editorial brutality,
though they pay it far less attention than Anthony’s
incidents. Both provide similar, short accounts, noting
that Swayze had a long-standing feud with Wilson’s
family and Baker. Both attribute the shooting to an article
about padding bills for county printing, but this research
shows otherwise.9
Historians have recounted these stories in sweeping
overviews of the time and have not explored them in any
9. Dary, Red Blood & Black Ink, 116–19, 121; Howes, “Pistol Packin’
Pencil Pushers,” 118–22.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
149
depth. Digging into the incident between Swayze and
Wilson reveals that it is not just another editor shooting
a rival editor as a carry-over from editorial violence of
the bloody territorial period. Topeka’s newspapers in the
1870s do not mirror the generalizations of nineteenthcentury Kansas journalism that appear in these histories.
Some editors eschewed personal journalism and sought
respectability well before the 1920s. As such, they reflected
broader trends in American newspapers of the era.
H
istorians of nineteenth-century journalism
indicate that notable changes marked the
postbellum era. Perhaps the most significant
transformation was the shift in emphasis
from editorial views to objective news. During the Civil
War, newspapers had taken on an important role as
providers of information, and many newspapers shed the
partisan purpose they had served since the Revolution.
Newspapers in larger cities became less identified with
individual editors, and the highly personal editorial
attacks that characterized the antebellum era decreased.
Invective persisted in the South, where radical and
conservative editors battled over Reconstruction policy.
Elsewhere, however, newspapers that emphasized
commentary lost readers and influence.10
A new type of journalism emerged, which Ted Smythe
labeled “western journalism.” Young editors in Detroit,
Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City, Missouri, developed
practices that expanded the role of newspapers in
business and civic life. These editors aimed to provide
entertainment and information that readers could use
and to protect readers from corruption through reform
campaigns. As midwestern editors pushed for the largest
possible audience, they kept harsh editorial attacks to a
minimum. Frank Luther Mott focused on the same editors
in his chapter on “Journalism in the West” from 1872 to
1892, in American Journalism: A History.11
During the period of western journalism, Kansas
courts helped shape the concepts of conditional privilege
10. Hodding Carter, Their Words Were Bullets: The Southern Press in
War, Reconstruction, and Peace (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1969), 42–46; Donna L. Dickerson, “From Suspension to Subvention: The
Southern Press during Reconstruction, 1863–1870,” American Journalism
8 (Fall 1991): 230–45; Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in
Nineteenth-Century America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1989), 51, 53, 61; Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History,
1690–1960 (New York: MacMillan, 1962), 444; Ted Curtis Smythe, The
Gilded Age Press, 1865–1900 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), 1–4, 57.
11. Smythe, Gilded Age Press, 72–97; Mott, American Journalism, 459–
77.
150
and actual malice in American libel law. In its famous New
York Times v. Sullivan ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court cited
a 1908 Kansas Supreme Court decision that had roots in
Reconstruction-Era Kansas. Coleman v. MacLennan arose at
a time of political infighting and muckraking journalism
in Kansas. In Topeka, a rivalry emerged between the State
Journal, which dedicated itself to uncovering Republican
wrongdoing, and the Republican Daily Capital. An August
1904 article in the Journal asked voters to consider the
alleged wrongful behavior of three state officials facing
reelection, resulting in a libel suit. The Kansas Supreme
Court ruled that the press generally was free to publish
anything, so long as it was true and not blasphemous,
obscene, or scandalous. Even when the published material
was untrue, if the matter was of public concern or involved
public men—particularly officeholders and candidates—
the injured party needed to prove actual malice. Justice
Rousseau Burch wrote that the Journal circulated the
offending article to provide what the defendant believed
to be truthful information concerning a candidate,
enabling voters to cast their ballots intelligently.12
Nearly fifty years earlier, the framers of the Kansas
Constitution stipulated that truth was an adequate defense
against libel and that the accused should be acquitted if
he published the libelous matter for justifiable ends. The
Kansas Supreme Court applied those provisions in the
1877 case of Castle v. Houston, in which a citizen seeking a
state clerkship accused the Leavenworth Daily Commercial
of publishing false allegations. The court ruled in favor
of the Commercial’s legislative correspondent, stating that
the defendant established the truth of the claims. Seven
years later, the Kansas Supreme Court cited its Houston
decision in its ruling on State v. Balch, reversing a district
court’s conviction of a man who circulated a handbill
accusing a candidate of election fraud. In that case,
which historian Deckle McLean called the key precedent
for Times v. Sullivan, some of the allegations were false.
Nonetheless, the court argued that the defendant was
blameless because he believed what he published was
true. Furthermore, the broadside’s aims to create an
informed electorate were just. Burch cited the Balch ruling
in the Coleman v. MacLellan decision, emphasizing that
the public benefit of stimulating discussion of candidates’
12. Deckle McLean, “Origins of the Actual Malice Test,” Journalism
Quarterly 62 (Winter 1985):750–54; David Redmon, “Libel: Sullivan and
the Kansas Connection,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 43 (Summer 1977):
154–71.
Kansas History
qualifications outweighed the possible injury to a
candidate’s reputation.13
Although the Midwest clearly was a significant
region in postbellum journalism history, and Kansas
courts contributed heavily to the development of libel
laws at the time, scholars largely have ignored Kansas
newspapers from this era. Some authors have undertaken
studies of the Kansas press during the territorial period
of the 1850s.14 A majority of scholarly attention to Kansas
journalism has focused on the 1890s and twentieth
century, though. A portion of that research concentrated
on politics and political activism, much like the work on
territorial Kansas journalism did.15 However, most of the
research on Kansas journalism has explored the work
of Emporia editor William Allen White, whose political
insights, pioneering community journalism, and Midwest
propagandism have inspired numerous articles, books,
theses, and dissertations.16
A gap exists in scholarly study between territorial
journalism and that of White’s day. Aside from Howes’s
study of violence among Kansas editors, what has
been written about postbellum Kansas journalism has
appeared in Dary’s history of the “Old West” press and
in broad histories of Kansas and Kansas journalism by
13. McLean, “Origins of the Actual Malice Test”; Redmon, “Libel.”
14. Blackwell, “Nobody Out Here Knows Anything about Wimin’s
Rights”; Cecil-Fronsman, “Death to All Yankees and Traitors in Kansas”;
Calvin W. Gower, “Kansas ‘Border Town’ Newspapers and the Pike’s
Peak Gold Rush,” Journalism Quarterly 44 (Summer 1967): 281–88;
McKivigan, “James Redpath.”
15. Teresa C. Klassen and Owen V. Johnson, “Sharpening of the
Blade: Black Consciousness in Kansas, 1892–1897,” Journalism Quarterly
63 (Summer 1986): 298–304; Bruce L. Larson, “A Kansas Newspaper and
the Nonpartisan League,” Journalism Quarterly 49 (Spring 1972): 98–106;
David Paul Nord, “The ‘Appeal to Reason’ and American Socialism,”
Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 1 (Summer 1978): 75–89;
A. Bower Sageser, “Joseph L. Bristow: The Editor’s Road to Politics,”
Kansas Historical Quarterly 30 (Summer 1964): 153–62.
16. See, for example, Edward Gale Agran, “Too Good a Town”: William
Allen White, Community, and the Emerging Rhetoric of Middle America
(Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998); Charles E. Delgadillo,
“‘A Pretty Weedy Flower’: William Allen White, Midwestern Liberalism,
and the 1920s Culture War,” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains
35 (Autumn 2012): 186–202; Jean Folkerts, “William Allen White: Editor
and Businessman during the Reform Years, 1895–1916,” Kansas History:
A Journal of the Central Plains 7 (Summer 1984): 129–38; Jean Lange
Folkerts, “William Allen White’s Anti-Populist Rhetoric as an AgendaSetting Technique,” Journalism Quarterly 60 (Spring 1983): 28–34; Sally
Foreman Griffith, Home Town News: William Allen White and the Emporia
Gazette (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Walter Johnson,
William Allen White’s America (New York: Henry Holt, 1947); Jean Lange
Kennedy, “William Allen White: A Study of the Interrelationship of
Press, Power, and Party Politics” (PhD diss., University of Kansas, 1981);
Richard W. Resh, “A Vision in Emporia: William Allen White’s Search
for Community,” Midcontinent American Studies Journal 10 (Fall 1969):
19–35; Sheldon M. Stern, “William Allen White and the Origins of the
Founded in 1871, the North Topeka Times changed hands several
times before V. P. Wilson & Sons became the publishers in 1874.
Within a year, the Wilsons began publishing a daily edition in Topeka,
with James King as editor. By 1876 the Commonwealth absorbed
the daily Topeka Times too, though it later reemerged back in North
Topeka. King was also a historian of sorts and published a History of
Shawnee County in 1905.
individuals contemporary to the editors of the 1870s and
1880s.17 The latter works present a stark contrast to the
former. Dary and Howes provide a sensational view of
sharp-tongued editors prone to drawing their weapons
at a moment’s notice, whereas histories published in
the early twentieth century portray nineteenth-century
Kansas newspapers primarily as town boosters who
Coolidge Stereotype,” New England Journal of History 55 (Summer 1998):
57–68; Jack Wayne Traylor, “William Allen White and His Democracy,
1919–1944” (PhD diss., University of Oklahoma, 1978); Robert Lee
Wilhoit, “The Rhetoric of the Folk Hero: William Allen White” (PhD
diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1962).
17. Dary, Red Blood & Black Ink; Howes, “Pistol Packin’ Pencil
Pushers”; Kansas State Historical Society, History of Kansas Newspapers;
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
151
lured immigrants, promoted enterprise, and maintained
morale in the face of adversity. These works elevate certain
editors as pillars of the community, including Swayze’s
adversary Baker, who was an organizer, the first secretary,
and eventually president of the Kansas State Historical
Society. Historian James King paid Swayze little attention,
merely mentioning that Swayze operated the Blade until
his death, “resulting from a newspaper controversy.” The
Historical Society’s History of Kansas Newspapers never
discussed the shooting at all and only mentioned Swayze
as founder of the Blade in a list of Kansas newspapers.18
Obviously a booster publication itself, King’s 1905
History of Shawnee County proclaimed, “Shawnee County
has from the very beginning been a great field for
newspapers, and Topeka has for more than half a century
maintained its reputation as an important news center.”19
Perhaps it was, yet historians ignore it while emphasizing
neighboring Missouri’s importance to the development of
postbellum journalism. Therefore, Topeka’s newspapers
warrant examination. The true story of Topeka journalism
in the 1870s lies somewhere between the mud- and gunslinging view of Dary and Howes and the rose-colored
image that the editors’ contemporaries depicted. This
study demonstrates that Swayze was an unwelcome
anomaly who brought a vindictive style of editorializing
from Reconstruction Georgia to a midwestern city that
upheld the tenets of civil and objective western journalism.
Swayze arrived in Topeka in 1873 with a new set of
copper-faced type, a Campbell cylinder press, and a
Colt’s Armory job press—all purchased with a loan from
Swayze’s former New York Tribune employer Horace
Greeley. The New Jersey-born Swayze took a position
in 1866 as an agent of the Freedman’s Bureau in Griffin,
Georgia, but he quickly resigned after his actions
generated too much controversy. Swayze then took over
the American Union and eventually moved it to Macon.
“Being ku-kluxed, ridden on a rail for refusal to shout
for Jeff Davis, shot at on the streets and threatened with
hanging was a part of the life of the Union editor,” recalled
James L. King, ed., History of Shawnee County, Kansas, and Representative
Citizens (Chicago: Richmond & Arnold, 1905). Charles Howes reiterated
some portions of his father Cecil’s “Pistol Packin’ Pencil Pushers” article
in “Editors, the Fighting Kind,” chapter 14 in This Place Called Kansas,
79–87.
18. History of Kansas Newspapers, 6–7, 9, 11–17, 292; King, History
of Shawnee County, 107, 109–10, 594–96. Dary nods to the boosterism
function of western newspapers as well, but that is not his emphasis.
See Red Blood & Black Ink, 79–105.
19. King, History of Shawnee County, 107.
152
Swayze’s son Oscar, who apprenticed at the newspaper as
a child.20 Although some peers expressed the worthiness
of the Union’s Radical Republican cause and praised
Swayze’s fearlessness, others criticized his zealousness.
One wrote, “This child of the devil is doing all he can to
stir up riot and bloodshed in Georgia.”21 Once the Ku Klux
Klan drove away or killed many of Swayze’s supporters,
he determined that he had to “leave or starve.” Oscar
Swayze indicated that the family moved to Kansas at
Greeley’s urging. In the evening Blade’s prospectus, Jason
Swayze explained that he canvassed the state and decided
Topeka needed another newspaper.22
Topeka already had a healthy morning paper (the
Commonwealth) and the weekly North Topeka Times.
Salmon S. Prouty and J. B. Davis had founded the
Commonwealth in 1869. Up until the Blade’s appearance,
the Commonwealth had managed to buy up any direct
competitors in Topeka proper. Baker bought the
Commonwealth in 1875. Previously, the native New Yorker
had been a school teacher and administrator, a lawyer, a
farmer, and a legislator. Founded in 1871, the North Topeka
Times changed hands several times before V. P. Wilson &
Sons became the publishers in 1874. Within a year, they
began publishing a daily edition in Topeka, with James
King as editor. By 1876 the Commonwealth absorbed the
daily Topeka Times, too, though it later reemerged back in
North Topeka.23
Vear Porter Wilson was a prominent citizen in
Dickinson County. He had immigrated to Abilene,
Kansas, from Ohio in 1870 and started the county’s first
newspaper. He also served as a judge, postmaster, and
minister before his election to the state senate in 1872.
He remained in the capital briefly after his term ended
in 1874 but turned the Times over to his son John Wilson,
King, and a third associate when he left in 1875 to edit a
paper in Enterprise, a town he helped found. John Wilson
worked in the Commonwealth office as a job printer at the
time of the shooting.24
20. “Address to Craftsmen,” folder 16, box 3, Swayze Papers, Kansas
Historical Society. For a scholarly exploration of Swayze’s American
Union, see Richard H. Abbott, “Jason Clarke Swayze, Republican Editor
in Reconstruction Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 79 (Summer
1995): 337–66.
21. “Prospectus of the Topeka Blade,” Topeka Blade, August 13, 1873.
22. O. K. Swayze, undated speech (on Shawnee County letterhead),
folder 16, box 3, Swayze Papers; Topeka Blade, August 13, 1873;
“Prospectus of the Topeka Blade,” Topeka Blade, August 13, 1873.
23. History of Kansas Newspapers, 289–90; King, History of Shawnee
County, 112, 555–56, 594–95.
24. “Vear Porter Wilson,” Kansas Memory, http://www.
kansasmemory.org/item/224428; Commonwealth, July 18, 1875;
Kansas History
Arguments with these other newspapermen
ultimately got Swayze killed. From the start, he
emphasized that he saw his editorial duty as
exposing corruption. The prospectus announced
that his new paper “will be a Blade in every sense of
the word, and will be used to cut off rotten limbs.”
Other early editorials vowed to condemn wrongs
wherever they existed and give readers a paper that
would fearlessly uphold their rights. Sometimes,
this type of journalism required harsh language,
Swayze wrote.25
Swayze immediately opened fire on his
competitors. Within a month of commencing the
Blade, he replied “rather mercilessly” to an editorial
in the Commonwealth on a road bond issue. When the
Commonwealth failed to respond, Swayze believed
his abuse silenced it and promised to be gentler in
the future. Another Blade editorial questioned the
Times’ independence after the weekly supported a
candidate Swayze considered unscrupulous.26
Extracts from other Kansas newspapers
demonstrated that the Blade was at first a welcome
addition, in spite of Swayze’s sharp tongue. Some
pointed out the practicality of its motto: “We will not
hurt anybody unless they deserve it.” Editors called
the Blade sensible, outspoken, lively, and honest.
One wrote, “The editor wields a pointed pen and
fearlessly dashes down upon corruption.” Some
disliked Swayze’s forwardness, though, including
one editor who proclaimed, “The Topeka Blade has
In 1870 Vear Porter Wilson moved from Ohio to Abilene, Dickinson County,
an old woman with a butcher knife at the head of
Kansas, where he started the Chronicle, the county’s first newspaper. Wilson
its editorial page.”27 The Blade initially struggled and
also served as a judge, postmaster, and minister before his election to the state
senate in 1872. He remained in the capital city briefly after his term ended
ceased publication within six months, but Swayze
in 1874 but turned the Topeka Times over to his son John Wilson, James
revived it, after a year’s absence, in January 1875.
King, and a third associate when he left in 1875 to edit a paper in Enterprise,
That May, the Wilsons began the daily Topeka Times,
another Dickenson County town he helped found.
which published south of the Kansas River. As an
evening paper in direct competition, the Wilsons and
in his death. Swayze began his attack by copying extracts
their paper were Swayze’s prime targets in his new Blade,
from other Kansas newspapers predicting the daily Times’
beginning in earnest the newspaper war that culminated
failure. The Blade repeatedly alleged that Wilson could not
pay his staff, and Swayze cautioned King against joining
the Times to rescue it, professing there was too much work
for too little pay.28
“Change,” Topeka Times, July 17, 1875, reprinted in North Topeka Times,
Swayze credited the editors’ and proprietors’
July 23, 1875; “The Parties,” Commonwealth, March 29, 1877; “Justice
Prevails,” Kansas Gazette, June 8, 1877.
incompetence for the Times’ purported lack of success.
25. “Prospectus of the Topeka Blade,” Topeka Blade, August 13, 1873;
Topeka Blade, September 29, 1873; “The Blade,” Topeka Blade, October 6,
1873; “Fearless and Free,” Topeka Blade, October 23, 1873.
26. “Sorry,” Topeka Blade, August 18, 1873; Topeka Blade, August 20,
1873; “As We Suspected,” Topeka Blade, October 21, 1873.
27. “Opinions of the Press,” Topeka Blade, August 20, 1873; “Opinions
of the Press,” Topeka Blade, September 6, 1873.
28. Topeka Blade, May 7, 1875; May 17, 1875; May 18, 1875; June 7,
1875; June 14, 1875; June 25, 1875; and July 5, 1875.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
153
On several occasions, Swayze pointed out mistakes in
the paper, including typos and incorrect dates, which
he labeled as “a fair index of the ability of the outfit.”29
Swayze also contended that the stories in the Times were
too dull to interest readers and that the insights V. P. Wilson
attempted to provide lacked wisdom. Furthermore,
Swayze declared that Wilson lacked the business sense to
run a daily newspaper in a city Topeka’s size.30
Swayze frequently accused Wilson of letting potential
patronage color his reporting. Swayze alleged that the
Times published puff pieces about people who might
offer Wilson printing work, and he contended that the
Times straddled the fence on certain issues to avoid
offending potential patrons. Moreover, Swayze asserted
that Wilson’s lust for the local postmaster position caused
him to editorialize in favor of President Ulysses S. Grant.31
Swayze also assaulted Wilson’s credibility by charging
the Times with inflating its circulation reports. Similarly,
Swayze accused the Times of overstating its size and value.
Because the Blade was a tabloid, Swayze took particular
offense to Wilson’s assertions that the daily Times would
be of “respectable size.” Swayze claimed that the Times’
twenty columns contained less “reader matter” in bulk
and quality than the Blade and ranted that the Times had
attempted “to perpetrate a fraud upon the people of
Topeka by pretending to give them something worth twice
as much per week as the Blade,” when the product was
“inferior in every respect.”32 Swayze repeatedly reiterated
his claim that the Times’ editors filled several columns
of the daily Topeka Times with “dead advertisements”
purchased for publication in the weekly North Topeka
Times. Yet he heckled Wilson for soliciting legitimate
advertisers for the daily. Swayze advised advertisers who
wished to reach the public to do so in a paper that people
actually read.33
Moreover, Swayze constantly jeered the Times for
claiming to be respectable when its proprietors behaved
disreputably. In one example, the Times proclaimed, “We
say to Mr. Swayzee [sic] in all candor that we can please
29. Topeka Blade, May 13, 1875; June 7, 1875; and May 31, 1875.
30. Topeka Blade, May 6, 1875; June 10, 1875; June 14, 1875; and July
5, 1875.
31. Topeka Blade, January 18, 1875; February 18, 1875; June 4, 1875;
and June 7, 1875.
32. Topeka Blade, May 7, 1875. See also Topeka Blade, May 18, 1875.
Topeka Blade, January 16, 1875; March 13, 1875; April 24, 1875; May 26,
1875; May 28, 1875; June 24, 1875; July 2, 1875; and July 22, 1875.
33. Topeka Blade, May 25, 1875; May 28, 1875; June 7, 1875; June 10,
1875; July 2, 1875; July 9, 1875; and July 14, 1875.
154
respectable people best, the class who read the Times,
by going right along, regardless of envious growls and
misrepresentations.”34 Swayze responded in a series of
three editorials over the course of two days that blasted
the Times’ claims at respectability. Swayze also argued
that a newspaper’s purpose was not to please people but
to supply them with useful information.35
Swayze made repeated mention of the fact that Wilson
was a former minister, yet he had no trouble lying. For
instance, Swayze accused the Times of fabricating claims
that it had a special arrangement for exclusive dispatches
from St. Louis, when in fact the same news appeared in
other newspapers first. The Times also professed to be the
only legitimate evening daily in Topeka—an obvious jab
at the Blade. Swayze responded that the Times only was
legitimate if having an editor who had sold his vote as a
state legislator made it so.36
V
ery few issues of either the North Topeka Times or
the Topeka Daily Times are available from 1875.
Only one of the extant copies alluded to the
feud with Swayze, proclaiming that the daily
Times was gaining ground in the community even if it was
not “everlastingly lying about its neighbors and falsely
bragging about itself.”37 However, excerpts republished
in the Blade indicate that as Swayze’s attacks against the
Times grew increasingly personal, the Wilsons responded
in kind. One editorial asserted, “There is a mud-slinger in
this town who has been endeavoring to get the Times to
kick him for some time past, and is very wroth because he
has not succeeded. The Times considers him beneath its
notice, and hence has paid no attention to his snarlings.”
The time had come, though, for the Wilsons to show
Swayze’s true character, so they published an extract from
a former Georgia colleague intended to expose Swayze as
a liar. As a final blow, the Times alleged that Swayze had
abused his wife. A paper in Dodge City later confirmed
that Swayze had “some family troubles,” and “nearly
34. Quoted in Topeka Blade, May 27, 1875. (This issue of the Times is
not available.) Topeka Blade, May 28, 1875; June 1, 1875; June 23, 1875;
and June 24, 1875.
35. Topeka Blade, May 27, 1875; May 27, 1875; and May 28, 1875.
36. Topeka Blade, May 18, 1875; May 24, 1875; July 10, 1875; July 13,
1875; July 20, 1875; July 21, 1875; July 22, 1875; and July 31, 1875.
37. Topeka Daily Times, July 1, 1875. The July 22 issue of the daily Times
and the July 23 issue of the North Topeka Times also are available but did
not contain any mention of Swayze or the Blade. The next available issue
of either Times title is from October 1875, after the argument between the
Blade and Times had ended.
Kansas History
every day the columns of Wilson’s paper were filled with
references to these ‘family jars’ and attacks upon Swayze’s
private character.”38
Swayze denied the rumors of domestic violence but
called Wilson’s wife a prostitute and averred that Wilson
pimped her out. The following week, the Blade reported
that Wilson aimed to sue Swayze for libel. Upon Swayze’s
death, Wilson reflected in his Enterprise paper that the
Blade had “outraged every sentiment of decency and
honor implanted in the human heart by inhumanly
attacking . . . a faithful wife against whose pure life and
character no breath of slander had ever before been
uttered.” Prominent attorneys advised the Wilsons that
libel proceedings generally failed in Kansas, though, and
they could ill afford a futile attempt.39
Wilson retired from the Times the next month to turn
his attention to other interests. In his valedictory editorial,
Wilson declared the Topeka Times firmly established in the
community and announced that, though the past year had
been hard on newspapers, the Times had paid all its bills
and made itself “the best newspaper property in the city
of Topeka.”40 Swayze reported the paper would go to “the
‘devil,’ his son and heir, who will, with all due dispatch,
run it into the ground.” Shortly thereafter, John Wilson
berated Swayze on the steps of the courthouse, warning
him of dire consequences should the Blade publish
anything more about the Wilsons. Swayze accompanied
his July 17, 1875, report of the encounter with a woodcut
of a drunk.41
A few days later, Wilson hunted Swayze down with a
hickory club “for the purpose of ‘lickin’ the damned son
of a bitch.’” Upon finding Swayze on the street, Wilson
began spewing “disgustingly dirty language” and raised
his weapon. The Commonwealth reported that Swayze
“drew, drew at, or thought of drawing, a revolver,”
at which time Wilson called for police, and an officer
arrested Swayze for carrying a concealed weapon. One
witness indicated that Swayze drew a revolver with a
wooden handle, while another testified that he placed his
hand on his hip pocket, where something that looked like
the butt of a revolver peeked out, but he did not draw
38. “The Shooting of Swayze,” Dodge City Times, March 31, 1877;
Times, quoted in Topeka Blade, June 7, 1875.
39. “Justice Prevails,” (Enterprise) Kansas Gazette, June 8, 1877; Topeka
Blade, June 7, 1875; and June 14, 1875.
40. “Change,” Topeka Times, July 17, 1875, reprinted in North Topeka
Times, July 23, 1875.
41. Topeka Blade, July 14, 1875; July 16, 1875; July 20, 1875; and July
17, 1875.
Soon after John W. Wilson took the helm of the Topeka Times in
1875, Swayze published an insulting woodcut of Wilson’s father, V.
P. Wilson, in the Topeka Blade that led the son to threaten Swayze.
Swayze accompanied his July 17, 1875, report of the encounter with
this woodcut that not so subtly branded the younger Wilson a not too
intelligent drunkard. Both illustrations had first appeared in Joseph
G. McCoy’s Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and
Southwest (1874).
it. According to the Commonwealth, the item in his pocket
“might have been a revolver, or it might have been a
banana, or a bologna.” Swayze identified it as a woodenhandled eraser and alleged that “the great lubber” only
called out for police to make sure Swayze had no means
to defend himself against a beating. The judge dismissed
the case, citing lack of evidence.42
The day after the incident on the street, the Wilsons
had Swayze arrested for libel, specifically citing the
woodcut of a drunk. Swayze retorted, “To the best of
our knowledge and belief, it was a good likeness.”43
Swayze also contended that he had ten times more
cause than Wilson to seek redress, alleging that the Times
had published countless slanders referring to Swayze’s
“domestic misfortunes.” A justice examined the Wilsons’
42. Topeka Blade, July 21, 1875; July 22, 1875; July 23, 1875; July 24,
1875; and July 24, 1875; “A Distressing Affair,” Commonwealth, July 21,
1875; “Legal Proceedings,” Commonwealth, July 22, 1875.
43. Topeka Blade, July 21, 1875; and July 22, 1875.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
155
Swayze harassed Commonwealth editor Floyd P. Baker for years
and, in fact, connected him with Wilson in the gambling and pimping
scheme. Following the shooting of Swayze, some accused Baker of
conspiracy, which led him to sue Swayze’s ally M. C. Morris of the
Leavenworth Times for libel. Years later, Swayze’s son suggested that
Baker ordered his father’s slaying to punish Swayze for implicating
him in a lottery scandal.
libel case against Swayze for two days before dismissing
it, again on the grounds of insufficient evidence. V. P.
Wilson later lamented that the libel suit was “laughed out
of court.”44
Soon after the failed libel suit, the Wilsons sold the
Times. The Commonwealth reported that its co-founder
Prouty would edit the Times, and N. R. Baker would
handle its business from the Commonwealth counting
room, but the Commonwealth and Times would run as
separate enterprises. Swayze insisted that F. P. Baker
acquired the Times so that he could have a monopoly on
newspapers in Topeka and try to run Swayze out of town.
44. Topeka Blade, July 26, 1875; and July 27, 1875; Commonwealth,
July 27, 1875; “Justice Prevails,” Kansas Gazette, June 8, 1877. Swayze
admitted that his ex-wife had accused him of abuse but insisted that he
had been cleared of all charges and that the former Mrs. Swayze had not
even been awarded alimony when they divorced.
156
Such allegations increased after Swayze began harassing
Baker over his connection to a lottery.45
The lottery was a raffle for cash prizes, purported to
raise funds for the Topeka Library. Because a number of
similar operations had been scams, a portion of the public
and press had become wary. The Oskaloosa Independent
declared the Topeka Library benefit a “high toned fraud”
and wondered why Swayze had not opposed it. Swayze
asserted that because the men who ran it were respected,
Topekans generally considered the lottery respectable.
“Hence, no matter how reprehensible it may seem to us,”
Swayze explained, “we would be insulting our readers
if we should attempt a war upon it.” Swayze received a
torrent of responses indicating that Topekans generally
did not support the scheme, so he took investigating it as
his duty.46
Swayze focused a great deal of energy on Baker’s
alleged role, noting that he had run two similar scams
during his time as an editor in Texas. Swayze asserted
that Baker “still hankered after the plan of getting other
people’s money without giving an equivalent.”47 Baker
and his associates procured the charter for a bank to
comply with legal requirements stipulating that a lottery
must be run through a legitimate banking operation, but
Swayze emphasized repeatedly that the outfit conducted
no bank business. According to Swayze, the bank’s
article of incorporation listed Baker and his Texas partner
G. W. Bain as the primary stockholders in the bank;
additional stockholders included Baker’s brother-in-law
R. H. C. Searle, his son C. C. Baker, and R. A. Barker,
former Kansas secretary of state. Swayze wrote that the
men named their organization the Topeka Library Aid
Association “for the purpose of reaching the confidence of
simple hearted people,” although the library insisted that
the organization took the name without authorization
and likely would not benefit from the scheme. Finally,
the men appointed esteemed citizens as officers to imply
respectability: former State Record editor S. D. MacDonald
as president, the Topeka city treasurer as treasurer, and
45. Commonwealth, March 25, 1876; “A New Evening Paper,” Topeka
Blade, March 23, 1876; “Parentless,” Topeka Blade, March 25, 1876;
“Monopoly Knows No Bounds,” Topeka Blade, March 31, 1876; Topeka
Blade, March 31, 1876; “A Public Question,” Topeka Blade, April 12, 1876;
“Pre-emption Right,” Topeka Blade, May 17, 1876.
46. Topeka Blade, March 25, 1876; “The Topeka Lottery,” Topeka Blade,
March 28, 1876.
47. “Our Topeka Lottery,” Topeka Blade, March 30, 1876. For earlier
articles about Baker’s interest in the Texas lotteries, see Topeka Blade,
April 24, 1875; and May 3, 1875.
Kansas History
Barker as secretary. Swayze alleged that Baker named
these figurehead officers to keep his hands clean, but
Baker and Bain would handle—and pocket—the funds.48
Baker also purportedly secured endorsements from
city, county, and state officials to lend the operation
respectability. On April 2, 1876, Swayze asserted that
the Kansas Constitution prohibited the sale of lottery
tickets and questioned why officials would “allow these
robbers to further drag the names [sic] of Kansas in the
mud of corruption.” He alternately accused Baker of
using the officials’ names on Library Aid Association
literature without their authorization and of buying
their endorsements. Swayze also averred that some
politicians had their hands in the scheme, perpetuating
the political robbery that led newspapers to nickname
Kansas the “rotten commonwealth” early in its
statehood.49 Although Swayze accused the Republican
Party in general, he specifically named Baker’s favored
gubernatorial candidate, John Guthrie, as a participant.
Swayze hoped the connection would prevent Guthrie’s
election, declaring, “It is quite time the people of Kansas
should cease to elect bribe-takers, lottery swindlers and
Treasury plunderers to office.”50
Swayze wondered why some of the state’s editors
remained silent on the issue when exposing such frauds
was their duty. He vowed to continue his incessant
editorials about the lottery until the scam ended; “too
much of this devilment” in Kansas already had been
“shielded by a venal press.” Swayze published extracts
from several newspapers that praised the Blade for the
48. “Our Lottery Institution,” Topeka Blade, March 29, 1876; “Our
Topeka Lottery,” Topeka Blade, March 30, 1876; “Some of the Deceptions
practiced by Lottery Gamblers,” Topeka Blade, March 31, 1876; Topeka
Blade, April 1, 1876; and April 1, 1876; “More about that Lottery,” Topeka
Blade, April 2, 1876; Topeka Blade, April 3, 1874; “What ‘they’ Say,” Topeka
Blade, April 13, 1876; “The Library Association,” Topeka Blade, April 14,
1876; “The Lottery Squelched,” Topeka Blade, April 29, 1876; “Reliable
Journalism,” Topeka Blade, May 5, 1876; Topeka Blade, May 9, 1876; “The
Letter-Writers,” Topeka Blade, May 13, 1876.
49. “More about that Lottery,” Topeka Blade, April 2, 1876. Historian
William Connelly pointed to a bond scheme allegedly involving Kansas’s
first governor, Charles Robinson, Secretary of State J. W. Robinson,
and State Auditor George S. Hillyer as the first in a series of crooked
incidents that resulted in the “rotten commonwealth” moniker. William
Elsey Connelly, An Appeal to the Record: Being Quotations from Historical
Documents and the Kansas Territorial Press, Refuting “False Claims” and
Other Things Written for and at the Instance of Charles Robinson by G. W.
Brown (Topeka: William Connelly, 1903), 26–41.
50. “Our Lottery Institution,” Topeka Blade, March 29, 1876; Topeka
Blade, April 10, 1876; “Our Politicians,” Topeka Blade, April 14, 1876;
Topeka Blade, April 17, 1876; “Political,” Topeka Blade, May 2, 1876;
“Reliable Journalism,” Topeka Blade, May 5, 1876; “Gubernatorial,”
Topeka Blade, May 8, 1876; “Big Ike Business,” Topeka Blade, May 10, 1976;
Emporia News, June 15, 1877.
vigor with which it “ventilated the thieving concern.”51
He devoted even more space to newspapers that criticized
him. The Hays City Star, for instance, declared that the
“howl that is being kept up by the Blade, branding the best
citizens of Topeka as thieves and swindlers” frightened
settlers away. Swayze received the most abuse from
friends of Baker’s, and he hurled it back. He accused
editors of the Troy Kansas Chief and Topeka Kansas
Democrat of perpetrating frauds and being bribed into the
lottery’s service. Swayze placed these publications, along
with the Commonwealth and several others, among a class
of long-established newspapers that had helped give
Kansas the “rotten commonwealth” moniker. Swayze
wondered which papers would be sustained: those that
aimed to expose corruption or those based on fraud and
owned by robbers.52
“The Letter-Writers,” Topeka Blade, May 13, 1876; “The Lottery Printing,”
Topeka Blade, May 15, 1876; “And Still More Fraud,” Topeka Blade, May 15,
1876; “Corruption in Politics,” Topeka Blade, May 17, 1876; Topeka Blade,
May 19, 1876.
51. Topeka Blade, April 4, 1876; “What of the Press,” Topeka Blade,
April 5, 1876; “Of Lotteries,” Topeka Blade, April 18, 1876; “Monotonous,”
Topeka Blade, May 12, 1876; “The Lottery,” Topeka Blade, June 3, 1876; “Too
Tardy,” Topeka Blade, June 5, 1876.
52. “The Topeka Lottery,” Topeka Blade, April 11, 1876; “A Public
Question,” Topeka Blade, April 12, 1876; “Sol. Miller Justice,” Topeka Blade,
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
157
Swayze reserved particular venom for Baker’s
newspapers. The Commonwealth mentioned the lottery
in only four items: an announcement that its presses
were available for job printing after being consumed by
contract work for the Topeka Library Aid Association,
a notice that sales were closing and the drawing would
take place June 8, a list of winners, and a recap of the
concert event where winners were announced.53 Swayze
took the Commonwealth’s failure to “condemn evildoers” and its bolstering of “lottery pimp” Guthrie
for office as endorsements of the scheme; he deemed
the Commonwealth’s few mentions of the lottery as
proof of Baker’s connection to the operation. While the
Commonwealth was silent, Swayze proclaimed that Baker
refused “to compromise the dignity of his morning
paper” and alleged that he had taken over the Times to
use it as a mouthpiece for the lottery organization instead.
Swayze also accused Baker of starting a new paper, the
Topeka Herald, as a lottery organ and pretending it was a
longstanding publication to lend credibility.54
Baker took the Blade’s allegations in stride, but upon
seeing correspondence in the Emporia Ledger accusing
the Commonwealth of supporting the lottery, he wrote
two letters in self-defense. Baker explained that he had
done nothing to refute similar charges perpetrated “in the
satanic and blackmailing papers in this State” because “as
long as they appeared in no reputable journal,” he did
not think it necessary. He feared, though, that some of
the influential Ledger’s readers would see the accusations
and believe them, and he denied involvement. After the
prize drawing, Baker made a similar statement in the
April 21, 1876; Topeka Blade, April 24, 1876; “Still More Fraud,” Topeka
Blade, April 25, 1876; “The Democrat and the Lottery,” Topeka Blade, May
6, 1876; “The Lottery Squelched,” Topeka Blade, April 29, 1876; “Rotten
Commonwealth Representatives,” Topeka Blade, May 12, 1876; “A
Specimen of Drunken Spleen,” Topeka Blade, May 15, 1876; “Swindlers
and their Tools,” Topeka Blade, June 2, 1876. The Hays City Star quoted in
“Monotonous,” Topeka Blade, May 12, 1876.
53. Commonwealth, May 13, 1876; “A Card,” Commonwealth, May
30, 1876; “Official Drawing of the Topeka Library Aid Association,”
Commonwealth, June 9, 1876; “The Concert Last Night,” Commonwealth,
June 9, 1876.
54. “Our Lottery Institution,” Topeka Blade, March 29, 1876; “The
Committee of Investigation,” Topeka Blade, March 29, 1876; “Our Topeka
Lottery,” Topeka Blade, March 30, 1876; Topeka Blade, March 30, 1876;
“Inquiries about the Lottery,” Topeka Blade, April 4, 1876; “Reliable
Journalism,” Topeka Blade, May 5, 1876; “Obituary,” Topeka Blade, May 8,
1876; “Baker’s Tactics,” Topeka Blade, May 9, 1876; “The Lottery Fraud,”
“The Lottery Printing,” Topeka Blade, May 15, 1876; Topeka Blade, May 30,
1876; “Social Snakes,” Topeka Blade, June 2, 1876; “The Grand Swindle
Consummated,” Topeka Blade, June 9, 1876; “A Lottery Swindling
Organ,” Topeka Blade, June 12, 1876; “Cheek,” Topeka Blade, June 12, 1876.
158
Commonwealth. He noted that his objective paper had said
nothing either for or against the lottery. Baker declared
himself opposed to lotteries on principle, but he did not
feel it necessary to denounce good citizens who wished
to buy tickets.55 Baker vowed to say nothing more on the
issue and remained true to his word, but Swayze was
bound to no such oath. He called Baker a lottery swindler
and the Commonwealth a lottery organ right up until his
death eight months after the drawing.
Adding fuel to Swayze’s editorial fire, the state
legislature proclaimed that Baker became bitter when the
state refused to appropriate funds for the Commonwealth’s
benefit and subsequently “misrepresented and slandered
members of this house” out of spite. Therefore, the
body recommended that Baker “start another lottery”
to “replenish his pockets.” Resolutions banned the
Commonwealth from state patronage, awarding it
exclusively to the Blade.56 Swayze barely could contain
his glee. He rejoiced that some politicians could not be
“manipulated by lottery swindlers” and touted his own
political independence: “The Blade has asked no favors,
but has stood aloof, making just, and sometimes harsh,
criticisms; though which have been respected, because
they were reasonable, and made with a spirit of fairness,
and without hope of reward.”57
An Associated Press agent from the Kansas City Times
filed a story on the resolutions that several Kansas and
Missouri newspapers ran, prompting the Commonwealth
to publish a denial labeling the resolutions a “manifesto
from a lot of bummers” known as the “third house.” Baker
claimed the house did not have a quorum and bystanders
were counted in the vote. Swayze averred that the
resolutions were offered in regular order, admitted by the
Speaker of the House, and passed legally; Baker’s denial
was just another fraud. Swayze contended that Baker
tried to “bulldoze” the clerk into leaving the resolutions
out of the record, but “Fraud Pimp Baker cannot dictate
to the legislature.”58
55. “The Concert Last Night,” Commonwealth, June 9, 1876; Baker
quoted in “Baker’s Tactics,” Topeka Blade, May 9, 1876. See also “The
Letter-Writers,” Topeka Blade, May 13, 1876.
56. The Topeka Blade ran the resolutions at the head of its editorial
column on page 2 for several days: March 16, 1877; March 17, 1877;
March 19, 1877; March 20, 1877; March 21, 1877; March 22, 1877; March
23, 1877; March 24, 1877; March 26, 1877; March 30, 1877.
57. “The Handsome Thing,” Topeka Blade, March 7, 1877; “Climbing
Down,” Topeka Blade, March 9, 1877. See also Topeka Blade, March 9, 1877;
and March 10, 1877.
58. “Those Resolutions,” Topeka Blade, March 12, 1877; Commonwealth,
March 10, 1877; “The Way of the Transgressor is Hard,” Topeka Blade,
Kansas History
After local prostitute Belle Holmes began a rumor that
Swayze had visited her brothel, Swayze accused Baker
of enlisting her services to blacken Swayze’s character
because Baker could not tolerate the Blade earning
recognition from the legislature. Denying the prostitute’s
claims, Swayze insisted that the character he had built
through “a moral and upright life” could not be “swept
away in a single breath by a harlot,” aided by a “wifepoisoner” and “lottery swindler.” Now Swayze added to
his growing list of epithets for the Commonwealth “organ
for prostitutes” and “organ of brothels.”59
A
midst the tirades against Baker, Swayze
reopened his quarrel with John Wilson,
who recently had taken a position in the
Commonwealth print shop. Swayze declared
that Wilson was “on the roll as a gambler” in Topeka and
“required to pay a periodical fine the same as prostitutes.”60
That evening, Wilson set out to find Swayze and asked
why Swayze had to pick on him. Swayze retorted he
would put whatever he pleased in his paper. Wilson then
struck Swayze, knocking him down, and proceeded to
kick him until, according to the Commonwealth, “Swayze’s
face and head bore the appearance of having been run
through a sausage grinder.” The Commonwealth also
reported on March 11, 1877, that no one tried to break up
the fight; bystanders cheered Wilson on and offered to pay
any fine a judge might levy. The Commonwealth extracted
from several other newspapers that claimed the public
felt “Wilson only erred in not going further than he did.”
One newspaper professed that everyone detested the
Blade because it “panders to the lowest human instincts.”
Its editor hoped the beating would reform Swayze.61
It did not. If anything, the assault fueled Swayze’s
editorial fury. Swayze accused Baker of lying in the
Commonwealth and his Associated Press dispatch on the
affray. Swayze denied that his condition was as poor as
Baker described and that bystanders cheered on the attack.
March 26, 1877; “How it Seems to Outsiders,” Topeka Blade, March 26,
1877; “The Boot on the other Foot,” Topeka Blade, March 27, 1877.
59. “Contemptible,” Topeka Blade, March 22, 1877; “The Organ,”
Topeka Blade, March 24, 1877; “Has Touched Bottom,” Topeka Blade, March
26, 1877; “The Way of the Transgressor is Hard,” Topeka Blade, March 26,
1877; “How it Seems to Outsiders,” Topeka Blade, March 26, 1877; “The
State Printer,” Topeka Blade, March 28, 1877.
60. Topeka Blade, March 10, 1877.
61. “Whipping an Editor,” Commonwealth, March 16, 1877; “Blood in
Topeka,” Commonwealth, March 11, 1877; “How It Seems to Outsiders,”
Commonwealth, March 17, 1877.
He also refuted that the Blade had wrongfully assailed
Wilson’s character, claiming that the Blade always had
tried to be on the side of truth and the community’s best
interest. He called Wilson “an unprincipled vagabond”
who tried to associate with decent people and “conceal
from them his habit of visiting the worst slums of the
city to gamble.” Swayze only aimed to expose Wilson’s
duplicity. Only Baker would have liked to see Wilson go
further, Swayze averred: “The cowardly old scoundrel
would like to have had Wilson go far enough to kill, and
thus he would have been rid of a foe to swindlers and
tricksters like himself.”62
Swayze contended that Baker spread lies in retaliation
for showing “him to the world for what he is.” The Blade
extracted from friendly newspapers that proclaimed if
the incident occurred as Baker described it, the whole
thing was a disgrace to Topeka. If it did not, then Baker’s
lies were “one of the most villainest libels ever uttered
upon the good name of a whole community.” The Blade
also extracted from papers that “took their cue from the
ex-State paper” and lambasted them as part of an “old
corrupt ring” of newspapermen who had built their
careers on lying and swindling.63
Wilson pleaded guilty to the assault and was fined
$12.45, reportedly paid by a man named Cochran, Baker’s
friend and favored candidate for marshal.64 Swayze
crowed that although Wilson had threatened him with
further harm should the Blade publish anything more
about him, the newspaper “not only repeated what we first
said” but also “set it up to him on other scores, and still he
seems to be civil.” The civility ended on March 27, 1877.
An editorial in that evening’s Blade asserted Wilson had
been arrested for pimping Belle Holmes—the prostitute
Baker allegedly enlisted to smear Swayze’s name. The
editorial also claimed that Cochran owned the brothel
where Holmes worked. Now Baker reportedly employed
Wilson, Cochran, and Holmes to slander Swayze because
62. “Organ Grinding,” Topeka Blade, March 17, 1877; “Baker’s Lying,”
Topeka Blade, March 12, 1877; “An Assault,” Topeka Blade, March 12, 1877.
See also Topeka Blade, March 13, 1877; “The Nob of It,” Topeka Blade,
March 16, 1877; Topeka Blade, March 21, 1877.
63. “Baker’s Infamy,” Topeka Blade, March 14, 1877; J. B. F., “Legislative
Excursion Notes,” Topeka Blade, March 14, 1877; “How It Seems to
Outsiders,” Topeka Blade, March 19, 1877; “The Nob of It,” Topeka Blade,
March 16, 1877; “The Wilson Organ,” Topeka Blade, March 17, 1877.
64. This likely was Thomas W. Cochran, who eventually served as
marshal in Topeka from 1881 to 1883; Cochran had a loan office in Topeka
at the time of Wilson’s arrest. See Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 545;
F. W. Woodbury, Topeka City Directory (Topeka, Kans.: Swayze, 1874).
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
159
to boast of as an orderly, law-abiding community”
than other cities of similar size, particularly in
the west, and he hoped the incident would not
be counted as a blot upon the community’s good
name. A special consideration of this incident
was that the feud originated through newspaper
assaults on private character, inflamed by “the
printing of accusations which, whether true or
false, were of purely personal concern and not
at all of public interest.” Baker declared that
such things had no place in a newspaper, but he
claimed no ill will toward the deceased.66
Baker’s foes disagreed. A Blade editorial,
most likely written by city editor J. B. Fithian,
proclaimed that the people of Topeka believed
there had been “a deep laid conspiracy to murder
the proprietor and editors of the Blade” and that
Wilson had “backers.” Correspondence in the
Kansas City Times specifically condemned Baker,
alleging that “the Commonwealth’s steady and
unqualified approval” of the beating Wilson gave
Swayze earlier encouraged Wilson to commit
murder. In the same newspaper, correspondence
purportedly written by Swayze’s long-time
friend M. C. Morris contended “the life of Mr.
Swayze was purchased with lottery money.”67
The Kansas Chief criticized newspapers that
pronounced the self-defense killing a deliberate,
By the time the Wilson-Swayze editorial feud ended with Swayze’s violent death,
premeditated murder with Baker as a conspirator.
Solomon “Sol” Miller had been in the Kansas editorial fray for two decades.
Editor Sol Miller wrote that those papers seemed
Miller settled in White Cloud, Doniphan County, in 1857 and published the
to forget the abuse Swayze heaped upon “almost
first issue of the Kansas Chief on June 4, 1857. He moved his paper to Troy in
every public man in the State.” He emphasized
1872, consolidated it with the Doniphan County Republican, and published
in another editorial that Swayze had “done much
the Kansas Chief there until his death on April 17, 1897. On April 5, 1877,
to bring his doom upon himself.” Other editors
the Chief criticized newspapers that pronounced the “self-defense” killing of
Swayze a deliberate, premeditated murder with Baker as a conspirator. Editor
echoed the latter observation. The Kansas City
Miller wrote that those papers seemed to forget the abuse Swayze had heaped
Times cited a St. Joseph Herald editorial calling
upon “almost every public man in the State.”
Swayze’s death a public benefit and noted that
the Atchison Champion, Fort Scott Monitor, Kansas
the Blade had been a vehicle for exposing truth.65 Wilson
City Journal, and others expressed similar sentiments. The
shot Swayze that evening.
Times averred that Swayze was attacked as much as he
Baker pointed out that Swayze was Topeka’s first
attacked others. Swayze libeled no one, though; according
murder victim in four years. “In view of this fact,” he
to the Times, he spoke the truth. The Kansas City editor
asserted on March 29, “it will hardly be charged that the
condition of public morals here invites or encourages such
things.” Baker claimed Topeka had less blood and “more
65. Topeka Blade, March 14, 1877; and March 15, 1877; “A Few
Circumstances,” Topeka Blade, March 27, 1877.
160
66. “The Recent Homicide,” Commonwealth, March 29, 1877.
67. “Topeka’s Tragedy,” Kansas City Times, March 30, 1877. See also
“The Killing of J. C. Swayze,” Kansas City Times, March 29, 1877, and “The
Dead Swayze,” Kansas City Times, March 30, 1877. “The Assassination,”
Topeka Blade, undated extra (likely published March 28). Fithian took
over the paper shortly after Swayze’s death.
Kansas History
made Swayze’s murder a free press issue, proclaiming,
“It shows that life is insecure where corrupt politicians
are banded together.” He hoped that freedom of speech
would be asserted all the more vigorously in other places
because of its suppression in Topeka.68
Other newspapers took the shooting as an opportunity
to review the practice of personal journalism and libel
laws in Kansas. The Emporia News believed that “an editor
should not, under any circumstances, make his paper
the channel for the expression of his malice toward any
man.” Yet the News condemned the resort to violence as
a means of redress: “There is law and there are courts for
the treatment of such cases, and to these Wilson ought
to have gone.” Wilson’s father reminded readers of his
Enterprise Kansas Gazette that he had tried the law when
Swayze slandered him before, and the law did nothing;
he asserted that “not once in a thousand cases is the law
enforced.”69
The Lawrence Journal suggested the libel laws needed to
be reformed. Its editor declared that the press’s sole duty
was to furnish news, not to “play the spy, the detective,
the informer, or even the critic, upon the private lives and
morals of individual members of the community.” The
Journal blamed lax administration of laws against slander
for much of the violence against editors in Kansas. “If the
law, as executed, offered men more ample protection for
assaults upon their reputation, there would be much less
temptation to the taking of the law into their own hands,”
the Journal argued.70
Following Morris’s letter to the Kansas City Times
blaming Baker for Swayze’s murder, Baker had Morris
arrested for libel. He noted that several papers were
clamoring for law in the wake of Wilson’s violence, and
he resolved to take their advice after submitting “to a
great deal within the last year and a half, and generally
in silence.” Baker vowed to try the law “in behalf of every
citizen of the state who is exposed to like assaults.” He
declared, “If . . . the courts refuse to punish the author or
authors of such wicked and unprovoked assaults; then the
issue will be settled. The law of libel may be considered
68. “A Vital Principle,” Kansas City Times, March 31, 1877; “Still
Another Victim,” Kansas City Times, June 3, 1877; “Terrible Affair at
Topeka,” (Troy) Kansas Chief, March 29, 1877; “Making Use of Murder,”
Kansas Chief, April 5, 1877.
69. “A Brief Statement of Facts,” Kansas Gazette, April 6, 1877;
“Tragedy at Topeka,” Emporia News, March 30, 1877.
70. “The Topeka Tragedy and Its Lessons,” Lawrence Journal, reprinted
in Emporia News, April 6, 1877.
blotted from the statute book, and men will understand
that they must resort to other means than law for . . .
protection.” Baker’s case against Morris was dismissed.71
In conclusion, although Kansas had been a state for
merely sixteen years in 1877, Topeka newspapermen had
formed a fraternal bond that resulted in a great deal of
crossover, such as Prouty of the Commonwealth editing the
Topeka Times and John Wilson of the Times working for
the Commonwealth. This bond extended beyond Topeka as
a large circle of Kansas editors encouraged each other’s
endeavors and defended each other against attacks.
This editorial brotherhood never accepted Swayze
into the fold. Editors of the Commonwealth and the Times
professed respectability, and early histories of Topeka and
the Kansas press remembered them as upstanding citizens,
but the Blade portrayed a different view. Swayze insisted
Baker and others friendly to him composed a corrupt ring
that encouraged fraud, sullying the reputation of Kansas
and its press.
Many Kansas editors saw Swayze as a troublemaker
and shameful purveyor of filth. He had been trained as
a newspaperman in antebellum New York, where the
many newspapers of the big city competed for readers
using sensational tactics and often editorially assaulted
each other.72 Swayze spread his own editorial wings in
the tumultuous South during Reconstruction, where
hostile feuds between conservative and radical editors
characterized the press. The persecution Swayze faced
there contributed to a thick skin and fearless editorial
style. The personal, even violent journalism that Swayze
practiced in Georgia was not completely foreign to Kansas;
the state’s journalism was born of quarrels between freestate and proslavery factions and matured during conflict
between towns vying for county seat. Historians noted
that pioneering editors of the territorial era reached into
the second era of Kansas journalism—which included
Baker and his cohorts—and passed down their ideals and
methods.73
et the old guard heaped criticism on newcomer
Swayze for his scurrilous attacks. Hazel
Dicken-Garcia asserted that societal changes of
the nineteenth century brought about shifting
Y
71. “An Experiment,” Commonwealth, April 18, 1877. See “A Plain
Statement,” Leavenworth Times, September 13, 1877.
72. See William E. Huntzicker, The Popular Press, 1833–1865 (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999); Susan Thompson, The Penny Press: The
Origins of the Modern News Media, 1833–1861 (Northport, Al.: Vision
Press, 2004).
73. Abbott, “Jason Clarke Swayze”; History of Kansas Newspapers, 6.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
161
This view of the Shawnee County Court House on the west side of Kansas Avenue looking south from Fourth Street was made around 1880. It
was on these steps in June 1875 that John Wilson berated J. Clarke Swayze, warning him of dire consequences should the Blade publish anything
more about the Wilsons. Swayze took no heed, of course, and almost two years later, inside this courthouse, Wilson was tried and acquitted of
Swayze’s murder.
journalistic norms, and media criticism arose because of
deviations from established values.74 Many of the editors
of 1870s Kansas, particularly Baker, had progressed
toward a more civilized type of journalism, akin to the
western journalism Smythe defined. The values Swayze
expressed in the Blade were unwelcome.
In several editorials, Baker commented on the
Commonwealth’s style in contrast with Swayze’s. Baker
refused to fill the air “with mud, rotten eggs and
kindred substances.” He admonished the “certain class
of newspapers” that concocted scandals to increase
their circulations, proclaiming those tactics unnecessary
for a respectable newspaper. Referring primarily to the
Blade, Leavenworth Times, and Kansas City Times, Baker
also condemned newspapers that labeled Kansas the
“rotten commonwealth.” He lamented that mudslinging
newspapers so often repeated how badly state affairs
were mismanaged that outsiders had come to see Kansas
as a “sink-hole of corruption.” Baker insisted that Kansas
was the best-run state in the nation.75 As early histories
of Topeka and the Kansas press noted, one of Kansas
newspapers’ primary functions was to boost their towns
and state. Baker did that well; even in his report of
Swayze’s shooting, he insisted that Topeka was a safe and
moral place. Swayze, on the other hand, trumpeted the
corruption of politicians and private citizens alike.
As reports of Swayze’s beating a few weeks before the
shooting attest, the whole editorial feud reflected poorly
on the community. It also raised important questions
about the rights of journalists and their subjects. Swayze’s
74. Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century
America, 15–16.
75. “A Word to Republicans,” Commonwealth, November 8, 1876;
“A Year’s Work,” Commonwealth, March 7, 1876; Commonwealth, May 6,
1876; “Two Years,” Commonwealth, March 6, 1877.
162
Kansas History
feud and its aftermath demonstrate that courts offered
little help in libel cases. Swayze insisted that what he
published about the Wilsons was accurate, and two days
of examination failed to refute his truth defense. Baker
fared no better against M. C. Morris. These outcomes are
consistent with what historians have written about libel in
late nineteenth-century Kansas; as long as the defendant
believed the slanderous statements to be true, the plaintiff
had no recourse. Further, because his competitors were
charged with serving the public through their newspapers,
Swayze declared informing readers of their shortcomings
to be his civic duty.
However, the editors in Kansas’s newspaper
brotherhood viewed the Wilsons as private citizens, unlike
the officeholders who brought Castle v. Houston, State v.
Balch, and Coleman v. MacLellan to the Kansas Supreme
Court. Although V. P. Wilson had been a legislator, he was
retired from public office, and his maligned wife never
was a public figure. John Wilson was a mere job printer
when Swayze accused him of gambling and pimping.
Editors declared that revealing damaging information
about private citizens had no bearing on public welfare;
truthful or not, publication of that information was
malicious and unjustified. In the aforementioned cases,
the Kansas Supreme Court defined malice as “ill will”
and “wanton disregard of the rights of others.76 Swayze’s
fellow editors accused him of both.
Some editors, including John Wilson’s father, insisted
that without legal defense against vicious slanders, the
subjects had no choice but to take matters into their own
hands. The Kansas City Times proclaimed silencing Swayze
for speaking his mind demonstrated suppression of free
speech in Kansas, but other editors argued that free speech
did not give editors the right to publicize the scandalous
activities of private citizens. In addition to damaging
the reputations of the individuals, focusing on scandals
damaged the image of the community. Their arguments
predated the 1908 Coleman v. MacLellan decision, in which
Justice Burch wrote that papers “devoted largely to the
publication of scandals” should be suppressed to protect
the morals of the community because such newspapers
displayed the licentiousness, not the liberty, of the press.77
Swayze’s frequent charges of prostitution and pimping
certainly would apply.
The logical course for an editor in 1870s Topeka
would have been to conform to the established values
Jason Clarke Swayze, the editor of the Topeka Blade, was shot and
killed by revival editor John Wilson on March 27, 1877, after two years
of sometimes violent confrontations in the streets of Topeka. The fatal
confrontation began when Wilson approached Swayze outside a tavern
that evening, and Swayze brandished his pistol. “I did not come here to
beat you up,” Wilson said, drawing his own revolver. “I don’t intend
you to beat me up,” Swayze replied, according to sworn testimony.
The ensuing altercation took the men into an alley, where they fired
at each other. One of the bullets struck Swayze’s chest; he died thirty
minutes later.
and publish a “respectable” newspaper like Baker’s
Commonwealth. Baker’s promotion of civil and objective
journalism made him a leader in Kansas of the western
journalism movement that Smythe identified in other
nearby states.
76. McLean, “Origins of the Actual Malice Test,” 750.
77. Redmon, “Libel,” 167.
Shooting of Jason Clarke Swayze
163