Word: topeka
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...Kansans, their bone-dry liquor law has long been a laugh. Good whiskey is easier to get in Topeka than in wet Kansas City, Mo., 67 miles away. It just costs a little more. Everyone knows that there are at least 45 reliable bootleggers among Topeka's 76,000 population; that every bellhop has a ready pint or quart; that mixed drinks are served at the Rainbo, the Northern Star, the It'll Do Club; that to get a fifth of Old Granddad (unavailable in Kansas City) at Meadow Acres Ballroom, all you have to do is beckon...
Kansans had thought that Democrat Harry Woodring was finished with public life when Franklin Roosevelt fired him in 1941. He went home to Topeka, lived quietly, invested in a soft-drink company, got a jeep agency. He tatted expertly, joyfully did the housework during the maid shortage, attended antique auctions, where he bid fiercely in competition with society matrons. One night a week he played bridge with Alf Landon and two other Republicans. This summer's polio epidemic dealt him a cruel blow-two of his three children contracted the disease; son Marcus, 12, died, daughter Melissa, 11, recovered...
...Into Topeka hurried Republicans to try to do something. They were unable to disregard the voters' growing disgust with the dry law. Yet they hated to go against the earnest advice of smart old Senator Arthur Capper, 81, veteran dry leader, who wanted no mention made of prohibition. So the worried platform makers shadowboxed around the question, promised to submit it to the voters...
This done, the Republicans checked out of the Kansan Hotel. Next morning cleaning women removed a near truckload of empty whiskey bottles from bedrooms; bellhops rested after a tough day & night of toting sparkling water and ice; and Topeka bootleggers happily totaled up the receipts...
Died. John Steuart Curry, 48, lusty realistic painter of harvests, storms, Big Top performers and legendary heroes, whose most praised picture, the John Brown mural in Topeka, Kans., he never signed; best of the famed Midwestern triumvirate which included Artists Thomas Benton and the late Grant Wood; of a heart attack; in Madison...