From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Oct. 17, 1914:

• “The general election to be held November 3 will be the first in the history of the state in which a person who can not read will not be able to vote with any degree of success. He will be given a ballot and an opportunity to mark his choice of candidates and to deposit his ballot in the ballot box, but unless he can read, he will not know what candidates he has voted for. The Massachusetts ballot system, adopted by the State of Kansas, will be used for the first time November 3. Previous to the adoption of the present law, persons who could not read were allowed instruction in marking their ballots. To make matters still plainer there was a circle at the top of each party’s candidates where a mark could be placed and the vote counted for all persons whose names were on that ticket. But the new ballots contain no such circle. Nor is there any way to vote a ‘straight’ ticket other than by reading the names of all the candidates and making a cross after the name of each candidates of any one party. Heretofore candidates’ names were printed on the ballot under captions, ‘Republican,’ ‘Democratic,’ ‘Socialist,’ or the name of whatever party a candidates belonged to. The new ballots do not segregate the names according to party. Instead the candidates for the various offices are grouped according to the offices for which they are running and the only party designation of the candidates are party abbreviations appearing after each name…. No longer can a voter do his voting on a wholesale scale by casting his ballot for all of any one group of candidates with one mark of his pencil. Now he must give his undivided attention to choosing between all the candidates for each office. It will take longer for the voter to prepare a ballot, but the work will be better done.”
• “The mass meeting of German-Americans of Douglas county to be held in Ecke’s hall tomorrow afternoon will have a twofold object, to prepare a protest against the seeming embargo against German war news, and to conduct a whirlwind campaign to raise funds to aid the German Red Cross Society. Police Judge Albach, who will be chairman of the meeting, stated to the Journal-World that, though good Americans, first, last, and always, and ready to abide by President Wilson’s neutrality declaration, the Germans of the United States are united in their protest against alleged distorted reports of the situation on the European battlefields.”
• “Editor Journal-World: It has been stated recently that very few boys are violating the anti-cigarette ordinance in Lawrence, but the one who made the statement is not well informed. High School boys are seen daily, singly and in clusters, in the act of smoking cigarettes. They stop on church steps, in the business streets and in groups of small children and indulge in the habit openly and boldly. There is apparently no effort on the part of the patrolmen to enforce the anti-cigarette ordinance.”
• “During the past month the Journal-World has had its solicitors in nearly every part of Lawrence trying to add additional names to its lists and the reports made to the office are of such a nature as to be of general interest. For instance in the large new territory to the southwest of Lawrence there are only two homes south of the University that do not receive the paper every night and it is probable that the occupants of these homes read it elsewhere. After eliminating all free copies the sworn average circulation for the Journal-World for the past six months, which included the three dull summer months, was 4,903 while the number actually printed and circulated exceeded 5,000. In nearly every part of Lawrence the same story can be truthfully told. Practically everyone reads the Journal-World. On the rural routes the per cent of readers sometimes goes as high as 98.”