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Title: Addresses - Delivered in Kansas
Author: Martin, John Alexander
Language: English
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ADDRESSES:
By
JOHN A. MARTIN.
DELIVERED IN KANSAS.
PRIVATE CIRCULATION.
TOPEKA.
KANSAS PUBLISHING HOUSE: CLIFFORD C. BAKER.
1888.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION.
BY DANIEL W. WILDER.
Those most familiar with the Governor’s office during recent years know
what a busy place it is. During the session of the Legislature it is not
often that the Governor has a rest of ten minutes, by day, and at night
he is followed to his hotel and the solicitations often continue until
midnight. Governor Martin usually reaches the office at eight in the
morning and remains until five or six, never going out for a lunch.
During these hours he sits and listens to the crowds of callers,
dictates letters, and, rarely, reads or writes. With all of these
personal demands, entreaties, and importunities, the Governor not only
never neglects any caller, never loses his placid self-control, but even
finds time to attend to many outside affairs in his own busy life and in
the ceaseless activity of the restless Kansas life that surrounds us
all. The busy man is the one who finds the most time; he loses none.
Before coming to Topeka our Governor had passed all of his active life
in a printing office or in the editorial room. He began at the case,
setting type, and has remained in the same office, the _Atchison
Champion_,—soon buying the paper, and changing its form from a weekly to
a daily when the growth of town and State demanded it. During the war he
was the Colonel of the Eighth Kansas, one of the youngest in the
service, and one of the most successful. That is the only “rest” he has
had since boyhood. But change is rest, and his election to the office of
Chief Magistrate he appears to have enjoyed as a vacation; no cessation
of labor, but great intellectual activity and real enjoyment.
The speeches and addresses in this volume are not the efforts of a man
of leisure who is trying to see what he can say and how handsomely he
will say it. They are all hastily prepared; no corrections, no
re-writing, no polishing. But they need no apology.
They are of and for Kansas by a man whose whole life and thought is
wrapped up in Kansas. They are chapters of Kansas history, and worthy of
preservation. For this reason they have been cut out of the newspapers
in which they originally appeared and are now presented in permanent
form. That they will be highly prized by our people there is no doubt.
Kansans are a reading and writing people; they are proud of their
history, and they preserve all the records of the past. Governor Martin
was one of the founders of the State Historical Society, has been its
President, and if he did not have this spirit he would not be a Kansan.
The historical facts in this book will be eagerly prized and gladly
treasured. Governor Martin was one of the Secretaries of the convention
that organized the Republican party of Kansas, at Osawatomie; he was the
Secretary of the convention that framed our State Constitution; he was a
member of the first State Senate; he has been President of the Kansas
and Missouri Associated Press, and has long been Vice President of the
National Board of Soldiers’ Homes. Thus he has been an active
participant in the scenes and events that he describes.
The work was not intended as a history, but it abounds in historical
narratives, relating to war and peace; the part played by our State
during the great Rebellion; the growth of the State in population; its
agriculture, and manufactures; its schools and colleges; its civic and
benevolent organizations; in brief, illustrations of the full, eager
life of our people—a picture of the Kansas of these years.
A century hence it will appear strange that all of these things took
place in the life of one man, before he had reached his fiftieth year.
John Winthrop and William Penn had no such story to tell of
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Those commonwealths became only
clearings in the wilderness during the lives of their founders. Future
readers of these records will know the man revealed herein, his standard
of manhood and patriotism, and the people who chose him as their leader.
They loved courage and truth; they honored labor; they believed in
education; coming to a desert, they planted trees and flowers and made
it a garden; wayward and feverish at first, they soon started the church
and made a land of steady habits. And so our own children will read this
book in their school libraries.
The most important address in the volume is the one delivered when the
State was a quarter of a century old. Its statistics will be of enduring
interest. One of the most graphic is the Address at Wichita, describing
the different types of Kansas soldiers,—with its tribute to the flag.
The happiest literary effort is the picture of an army on the march, in
the speech to the Loyal Legion, at Topeka. The Scandinavian Address,
delivered at Lindsborg, was translated and printed in the Swedish papers
in this country and in Sweden. Probably no other Kansas speech has
enjoyed that distinction. The speech that has had the widest circulation
and has done the most good is the one entitled “Republicanism in
Kansas,” delivered in Topeka. It was called for all over the Union, but
especially in Texas, Tennessee and Michigan, where the friends of
Prohibition were endeavoring to have that principle placed in their
State Constitutions. The most distinctive feature of Governor Martin’s
administration has been the enforcement of the Prohibitory law and the
redemption of the State from the liquor traffic.
Should this book be read in any European country the reader will know
just what Kansas is, and the greater his familiarity with the history of
other lands and peoples, the greater will be his surprise and delight.
Kansas has added a new page to the progressive history of humanity, and
is still marching on.
TOPEKA, May 16, 1888.
ADDRESSES.
PENNSYLVANIA AND KANSAS.
Address at a Reunion of the Pennsylvania Society of Atchison County,
held at Atchison, March 1st, 1878.
MR. PRESIDENT: The reunion of Pennsylvanians held in our city to-day is
a meeting to be commended, not alone because it affords opportunity for
acquaintanceship among citizens native of the same State, and promotes
social friendships among them, but because it is favorable to the
development of that individual and National sentiment which, while
reverencing birthplace and old home, has a still higher reverence and
love for the broad country which stretches from ocean to ocean. Whether
in Kansas or in Pennsylvania, the same brave old flag floats over us;
our new home and our native State are parts of the same good land; and
the Union, which takes in its wide, and strong, and loving embrace the
wheat-fields of Kansas and the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, is the
dearer to us because away off there near the Atlantic are the graves of
our forefathers, and here by the Missouri, half-way across the
Continent, are our homes, our wives, and our children.
Years ago, when the passions born of our Territorial troubles were yet
fiercely burning, I heard it said that Kansas was “the child of
Massachusetts.” The “Old Bay State,” it is true, contributed her full
quota towards moulding that public sentiment whose enthusiastic impulses
sent so many immigrants to people our prairies, and her firm friendship
for Free Kansas did very much to break down the intolerant domination of
slavery within our borders. The voice of Massachusetts, then as during
the Revolution of our forefathers, was eloquent and courageous, and her
action swift, vigorous and determined. But Sam and John Adams, a century
ago, had Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris, representatives of the
“Old Keystone State,” as their most efficient coadjutors, and so in the
struggle which made Kansas free, the zeal, the courage, and the
constancy of Pennsylvania’s sons were conspicuously illustrated.
If Kansas could properly be called the child of any State, she is the
daughter of Pennsylvania. But Kansas is really cosmopolitan. The blood
of all States and all Nations runs in her veins. The East and the West,
the North and the South, all sections and all nationalities have sent
their sons and daughters to swell her population and contribute to her
development. There is a wonderful aggregation of peoples in the
citizenship of this young Commonwealth; and out of these has grown a
remarkable community—a people homogeneous, yet diverse; combining the
sturdy independence, firm convictions and all-conquering energy and
industry of the North with the intense enthusiasm and fine courage of
the South. It is difficult to estimate what the result of such fusing of
bloods and temperaments will be in the future, but I believe it will
produce as strong, intelligent and vigorous a manhood as this Continent
or the world ever saw.
I do not intend, however, to discuss physiological questions. This is
Pennsylvania’s Day in our city, and I want to trace the connection of
Pennsylvania and her sons, as briefly as may be, with the history and
development, political and material, of Kansas. But first let me ask,
did any of you ever notice the striking similarity in the appearance of
the two States, Pennsylvania and Kansas, as shown upon the map? In size,
shape and general outlines, this resemblance is remarkable. In no other
two States of the Union is the conformation of outlines and appearance
so noticeable. Three sides of each, and the same three sides—north,
south and west—are squarely cut, while the eastern boundary of each is
irregular and formed mainly by the course of a river. Pennsylvania has a
territorial area of 46,000 square miles, and is 315 miles east and west
by 160 miles north and south. Kansas is a larger State, having a
territorial area of 81,000 square miles, and being 400 miles east and
west by 200 north and south. Both are longer, in about equal
proportions, than they are wide.
Perhaps the resemblance between the two States on the map of our
country—a resemblance as striking as that so often noticed in twin
children—is the birth-mark which stamps them as of one blood and family,
and accounts for the curious and interesting identification of
Pennsylvania’s sons with events in Kansas, during the whole of that
exciting epoch when this State was so prominent a figure in the history
of the Nation.
And the relations of the two States have been indeed curiously
interwoven—so curiously that I wonder the facts have not attracted more
general attention and remark. Less than a month after the bill
organizing the Territory of Kansas had become a law, Andrew H. Reeder,
of Pennsylvania, was appointed the first Governor. At the first election
ever held in the Territory, R. P. Flenniken, a Pennsylvanian, was the
Free-State candidate for Congress. The first Free-State newspaper ever
printed in Kansas was published and edited by George W. Brown, a
Pennsylvanian. The first great seal of Kansas was designed by Governor
Reeder, and engraved by Robert Lovett, a Philadelphia artisan. John L.
Dawson, a Pennsylvanian, was the second Governor appointed for Kansas,
but he declined. The first Free-State delegate convention ever held in
Kansas was presided over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian; and the
resolutions adopted, constituting the first platform of the Free-State
men, were mainly written by the deposed Governor Reeder. One of our
first Territorial Judges was J. M. Burrell, a Pennsylvanian. The
convention which set in motion the Free-State government organized under
the “Topeka Constitution” had for its President William Y. Roberts, a
Pennsylvanian; and at the election held that year, Andrew H. Reeder
received a majority of the votes cast as the Free-State candidate for
Congress. William Y. Roberts was elected Lieutenant-Governor under the
Topeka Constitution. Capt. George W. Bowman, a Pennsylvanian—long a
resident of this city—at the peril of his life and property took
Governor Reeder out of Kansas. Hon. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania,
introduced the first bill in Congress to admit Kansas into the Union
under the Topeka Constitution.
The third Governor of Kansas, succeeding Governor Shannon, was John W.
Geary, afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania. And he, like Governor
Reeder, espoused the cause of the Free-State men before he had been in
the Territory a week. He had been here only four days, in fact, when he
ordered the Lawrence Company of Capt. Sam’l Walker, a Pennsylvanian, and
one of the fighting leaders of the Free-State men, to be mustered into
the United States service, and issued a proclamation ordering the
invading Missourians out of Kansas. During the whole term of his service
he was an earnest opponent of the outrages and crimes which were
perpetrated upon the Free-State men. He was succeeded by Robert J.
Walker, a native of Pennsylvania, who soon espoused the cause of the
Free-State men; who induced them to take part in the election held in
October, 1857; and who threw out the returns from Oxford and Kickapoo
precincts and McGee county, thus giving the Free-State party control of
both branches of the Legislature, and sending a Free-State Delegate to
Congress.
The Grasshopper Falls Free-State Convention, held in August, 1857, at
which it was decided to vote at the ensuing election, under the promise
of Governor Walker that the vote should be free and fair, was presided
over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian. On the assembling of the first
Free-State Legislature, in December, 1857, Cyrus K. Holliday, a
Pennsylvanian, was elected President _pro tem._ of the Council, and
George W. Deitzler, long a resident of Pennsylvania, and who came from
that State to Kansas, was chosen Speaker of the House.
December 21, 1857, at the election held for State officers under the
Lecompton Constitution, George W. Smith and William Y. Roberts, both
Pennsylvanians, and the candidates of the Free-State men, were elected
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively.
The last Territorial Legislature assembled in January, 1861, and it had
native Pennsylvanians for presiding officers in both branches, W. W.
Updegraff, President of the Council, and John W. Scott, Speaker of the
House. The bill admitting Kansas into the Union under the Wyandotte
Constitution was signed on the 29th of January, 1861, by James Buchanan,
of Pennsylvania. And when the first State Legislature assembled,
thirteen of its members and four of its officers, including the Speaker
of the House, W, W. Updegraff, were native Pennsylvanians.
The connection of the sons of Pennsylvania with affairs in Kansas,
political, military and industrial, has since that time been quite as
prominent and as honorable. But I have no time to trace such details
further. I can only add that of the officers commanding and the soldiers
forming our gallant Kansas regiments and companies during the war for
the Union, a very large proportion were native Pennsylvanians; of our
civil officers, a United States Senator, a Governor, a member of
Congress, a Lieutenant-Governor, three Superintendents of Public
Instruction, and a number of other State officials, have been
Pennsylvanians; and in every State Legislature there have been many
members who were natives of the “Old Keystone State.” And, as Owen Seip
would say, “the returns from Old Lehigh are not all in yet.”
The last accurate census of this State, taken in 1875, shows that 13,399
citizens of Kansas came from Pennsylvania. Only five States, Missouri,
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, furnished a larger number of
immigrants to Kansas. I think, however, that many more of our citizens
are natives of the old Keystone State. The figures I quote do not show
how many were born in each of the States, but only “where from to
Kansas.” Of the citizens of Atchison county, 640 emigrated from
Pennsylvania to Kansas. Only five States, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa
and New York, furnished a larger number. I have no doubt that quite a
large proportion of those who came from the Western States were
originally from Pennsylvania.
Kansas is a young State. It was only seventeen years old last month,
while Pennsylvania has rounded a full century of Statehood. Yet in 1542,
just 140 years before William Penn landed on the shores of the Delaware,
Francisco de Coronado, a Spanish commander of high rank, marched from
Mexico through Kansas to its northern boundary. He was seeking gold and
silver mines. He missed them. But he found, as he reported, “mighty
plains, full of crooked-backed oxen;” and he wrote that “the earth is
the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain; for while it is
very strong and black, it is well watered by brooks, springs and
rivers.” This old Spanish explorer gave a very accurate description of
the Kansas of to-day. But they didn’t receive his report in England,
which probably accounts for the fact that Penn landed on the shores of
the Delaware instead of sailing up the Mississippi and Missouri to
Kansas.
Kansas was embraced in the grant of land made by King James I, of
England, in the Virginia charter of 1609. Pennsylvania was embraced in
the grant of land made by Charles II, of England, to William Penn, in
1681. But the French discovered the Mississippi in 1682, and from that
date until 1763, Kansas was a French possession. It then passed into the
hands of Spain. In 1780 Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, set on foot
negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana, which included Kansas. In
1800 the first Napoleon wrested Louisiana from Spain, and on the 30th of
April, 1803, sold it to the United States. Pennsylvania remained an
English colony until it became an American State.
A very old poetical legend explains how Pennsylvania came to be settled,
in the statement that that—
“Penn refused to pull his hat off
Before the King, and therefore sat off
Another country to light pat on.”
Reduced to sober prose, this doggerel expresses an idea that first
attracted public attention to Kansas, and for many years did much to
promote settlement in this State, _i. e._, love of freedom—religious,
political, and individual. This sentiment gave Kansas her first start in
the world, and she has kept her pace and her place ever since. In 1800
our old native State had a population of only 602,361, and in twenty
years this had increased to but little over a million. Kansas will far
surpass that growth within twenty years from 1875, when she had a
population of 531,156. We have over 700,000 now, and will have a round
million in 1880. This is a fast age. Kansas was organized as a Territory
less than a quarter of a century ago, and yet we have had nearly as many
Governors as Pennsylvania, mossed as she is with the antiquity of over
two centuries. As to State Constitutions, we can beat her, for
Pennsylvania has managed to get along with three in a century, while
Kansas had four before she got fairly into the Union, and I don’t know
how many amendments since. Only one railroad crosses the good old
Keystone State from East to West; Kansas has two passing from the
Missouri to the Colorado line, and a third nearly half-way across.
Atchison has more railroads than the great manufacturing city of
Pittsburgh, and is as great a “Railroad Center” as Philadelphia. They
make a man live there seven years before he can be Governor, yet they
sent us three who were sworn in before they ever saw Kansas.
Pennsylvania had nearly three million people in 1860, yet their
Legislature is not as big, numerically, as is ours. Probably the average
Kansan needs more laws to keep him within reasonable bounds than does
the average Pennsylvanian.
Pennsylvania is a great State, and no son of hers, wander wheresoever he
may, is ever ashamed to acknowledge his nativity. Virginia may be the
mother of States, but the “Old Keystone” is the _Pa._—especially of
Kansas, as I think I have shown. And the citizens of Kansas hailing from
Pennsylvania will never “go back on” their native State—nor to it,
perhaps, unless on a visit. Not that they love Pennsylvania less, but
Kansas more.
Looking back over the records of our eventful, often stormy past, and
contemplating the prosperous present and hopeful future of Kansas, it
has seemed to me that one great duty this State of ours has forgotten.
All nations, all States, have delighted to perpetuate, in the names they
have given to their cities or counties, the memory of those who, in
times of great trouble and danger, testified their devotion to the
welfare of the people by a courageous, steadfast, self-sacrificing
defense of their rights and liberties. It is one of the crowning glories
of the Old Keystone State, that of all the Governors who wielded the
executive power during the Territorial existence of Kansas there were
three, and only three, who did not consort with, or assist, or excuse
those who invaded our soil with armed force, murdered our people,
stuffed our ballot-boxes, burned our towns, and attempted to stifle free
speech and a free press, in order to blight this fair land with the
curse of human slavery—and these three were Pennsylvanians. And it is a
just reproach to Kansas that not one of our counties bears the name of
either of these three men—Reeder, Geary, or Walker. Kansas owes them
much. Their memory should be honored by every Kansan. They have all
passed away from the trials and troubles of this world. This State, the
rights and liberties of whose people they defended with such
self-sacrificing devotion and steadfast courage, cannot now reward them
with substantial gifts. But it can at least testify its respect for
their memory, and its gratitude for their splendid services in behalf of
its early pioneers, by perpetuating their names in the names of some of
its counties. And this it ought to do. Kansas will be justly open to the
reproach of having forgotten those to whom she is largely indebted until
three of her counties bear the honored names of Reeder, Geary, and
Walker—her only Federal Governors who held justice above partisanship,
who enriched the history of a dark and troubled period with the record
of official duties fairly, honestly and bravely discharged; who sternly
kept faith with the people, and so doing fought a great battle, not for
a single generation or a few thousand citizens of a sparsely-settled
Territory, but for all time and for the whole Republic.
THE FIRST KANSAS.
Speech delivered at the Reunion of the Society of the First
Regiment, Kansas Volunteers, at Atchison, August 10th, 1881.
FELLOW-SOLDIERS: It is reported that an old Roman once said: “If I were
not a Roman citizen, I would be a Greek.” This is an anniversary of the
First Kansas, and upon such an occasion, and in a similar spirit, I
declare that if I was not an Eighth Kansas man, I would like to be a
First Kansas man.
This is especially a reunion of the First Kansas, but to their festival,
with true soldierly fellowship, they have invited all other soldiers who
care to join in celebrating the anniversary of one of the most desperate
battles of the war, and especially all who have, not exactly “drank from
the same canteen,” but served in the same commands.
With the exception of my own regiment, I had, during the war, a more
familiar acquaintance with the First than with any other body of Kansas
troops. And the First represented, probably more than any other
regiment, that magnificent uplifting of national pride, patriotism and
enthusiasm which succeeded the first shot at Sumter. No man who cannot
remember the spirit of that hour can have any conception of the fierce,
strong, irresistible outburst which flowed over the whole land when the
flash of that gun revealed the Nation’s danger. There was more coolness
and deliberation, and no doubt quite as much sincere patriotism and
noble consecration to a great cause, in the formation of regiments under
subsequent calls. But the men who responded to Abraham Lincoln’s first
call for 75,000 men, represented, more than any others, the passionate
resentment and white-heat enthusiasm of that most startling and
momentous event in American history. To them belonged the soldiers of
the First Kansas.
And the regiment nobly sustained the promise of its rapturous and
wonderful organization. Within two weeks after the Governor had called
for volunteers the regiment had its full complement of companies; in ten
days more it was in Missouri; within a month after it was sworn into
service it had formed a junction with General Lyon at Grand River; and
in but little more than two months it had taken part in one of the most
desperate and bloody battles of the war, losing over one-third of its
effective force, and by its unflinching courage, determination and
coolness, reflecting imperishable honor upon the name of the State.
Its subsequent career was alike creditable and distinguished. It
participated in thirty battles and skirmishes; the tramp of its feet was
heard in eight different States, from the Missouri to the Gulf; it
marched over six thousand miles; it followed the flag it loved during
the revolving seasons of three long, gloomy and eventful years; it made
history wherever it went, and did its full share in the work of
suppressing rebellion and annihilating slavery; and finally, when the
term of its service was concluded, a large number of its soldiers
reënlisted as veterans, to see the war through to the end.
The soldiers who served in its ranks have a just right to be proud of
the record of their regiment, and to unite, on such an occasion as this,
in reviving the incidents and events of their comradeship. Into no
living man’s life, probably, will ever come such a lifting of noble
emotion as that which swept over our land twenty years ago, and sent the
flower of our youth and manhood hurrying off to the war. What eager,
exciting, restless, passionate days those were! Probably not one of you
had the faintest conception of the reality of war. Most of you thought
it would be over in six months or a year. We all forgot that the men
arrayed against us were Americans, and that the war was to be the old,
old story of Greek meeting Greek. Most of you thought, no doubt, as
nearly all volunteers did, that you might be cheated out of a chance to
meet the “insolent foe,” by a sudden collapse of the Confederacy, and
the hanging of a man named Davis on the sourest of sour-apple trees. Few
imagined that the weary months would roll on, until the three years’
term of enlistment should expire, and still another year must elapse
before Appomattox came. But you did your duty through it all, fulfilling
every obligation you had made.
And herein, I have always thought, the American volunteer exhibited the
noblest qualities and the truest heroism. A battle is a terrible ordeal,
but it never lasts long. It is the weary march, the silent vigils of the
picket-line, the cheerless bivouac, the dull monotony of camp duties,
the hard fare, the long procession of days dragging through spring,
summer, autumn and winter—it is all of these, crowded full of
discomfort, and fatigue, and hardship, and exposure, which wear upon the
patience, endurance and courage of a soldier, and are the most severe
tests of true soldierly qualities. There were many regiments in the
volunteer army during the war that lost but few men in battle, but
returned home with ranks as thin as if they had been decimated in many a
fierce contest.
“They need no praise whose deeds are eulogy,” and the men of the First
Kansas—those gathered here to-day, and those sleeping in their lonely
graves throughout the South—have a monument that will endure forever;
the stately monument of a reunited, free, happy and prosperous country.
This was the glad picture which was imprinted upon their hearts when
they consecrated themselves to the cause of Union and Liberty; this is
the reward they won for themselves and their posterity; this is the
inspiration of the gathering here to-day; this will be the theme of
historians and poets centuries hence; and this will be the pride and
consolation of one and all when you hear the bugle sounding “lights out”
for the last time on earth.
THE WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
Address, delivered at a reunion of the surviving officers and
members of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, held at
Wyandotte, Kas., July 29th, 1882.
MR. PRESIDENT: It is often charged that participants in assemblages of
this character are apt to exaggerate the importance of the occasion they
commemorate, and, after the manner of one of our poets, sing in chorus:
“I celebrate myself.” Perhaps I can speak of the Wyandotte Convention
and its work without being accused of this self-gratulation; for I was
more of an observer of its proceedings than a participant in them. I
recorded what was done, but I had no part or lot in the doing. If its
work had been crude or weak, I could not fairly have been held
responsible for the failure. As it was strong, efficient and enduring, I
can felicitate you, the survivors of those who wrought this great
service for Kansas, without a suspicion of self-praise.
KANSAS CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS.
Four Conventions framed Constitutions for this State. The first
assembled at Topeka, on the 23d of October, 1855, and adjourned on the
11th of November, after a session of twenty days. It was composed of
forty-seven members, of whom thirty-one signed the Constitution. On the
15th of December this instrument was submitted to the people for
ratification or rejection. Only 1,777 ballots were cast, all but 46
being favorable. One of its sections, a provision excluding negroes and
mulattoes from the State, was submitted as an independent proposition,
and adopted by an affirmative vote of 1,287, to 453 against it.
The second convention was that held at Lecompton, which met on the 7th
of June, 1857, and after a session of four days, adjourned until the
19th of October, a final adjournment being reached on the 3d of
November. It was composed of sixty-four members, forty-five of whom
signed the organic law it framed, and its session continued twenty days.
No direct vote on this Constitution was provided for. The Schedule
ordered two forms of ballots, one, the “Constitution with Slavery,” the
other, “Constitution with no Slavery.” It was the old turkey-and-buzzard
choice. The Free-State men refused to vote at the election, held on the
21st of December, and only 6,712 ballots were cast, 6,147 being for
Slavery and 569 against Slavery. The Free-State men had, however,
elected a majority of the Territorial Legislature in October, and at a
special session of that body, held in December, a law was passed
providing for a direct vote on the Constitution. This election was held
on the 4th of January, 1858, resulting: Against the Constitution,
10,266; for, 164—the Pro-Slavery men not voting. A third vote on the
Lecompton instrument was taken August 2d, 1858, Congress having ordered
its re-submission under the terms of the English bill. Again it was
rejected, the ballots in its favor being only 1,788, and those against
it, 11,300.
The Leavenworth Convention met at Minneola, March 23d, 1858, and at once
adjourned to Leavenworth, where it reassembled March 25th. It was
composed of ninety-five members, was in session only eleven days, and
the Constitution it framed was signed by eighty-three persons. This
instrument was adopted at an election held May 11th, by a very small
vote, the Pro-Slavery men taking no part in the contest. It was never a
popular organic law, and many Free-State men who supported it did so
under protest. An earnest effort was made, by the Republicans, to secure
the admission of Kansas under the Topeka Constitution, and by the
Democrats, with a few exceptions, to bring the Territory in under the
Lecompton Constitution. But no serious or determined contest was waged,
in Congress, for admission under the Leavenworth Constitution, and in
less than eight months the movement in its behalf was formally
abandoned.
THE WYANDOTTE CONVENTION.
Early in February, 1859, the Territorial Legislature passed an act
submitting to the people the question of calling a Constitutional
Convention. This vote was taken March 28th, and resulted: For, 5,306;
against, 1,425. On the 10th of May, 1859, the Republican party of Kansas
was organized, at Osawatomie, and at the election held on the 7th of
June, for delegates to the Wyandotte Convention, the Republican and
Democratic parties confronted each other in Kansas for the first time.
The Democrats carried the counties of Leavenworth, Doniphan, Jefferson
and Jackson, and elected one of the two delegates from Johnson. The
Republicans were successful in all the other counties voting. The total
vote polled was 14,000. The Republican membership was thirty-five; the
Democratic, seventeen.
The Convention then chosen assembled on the 5th day of July, 1859. In
its composition it was an unusual, not to say remarkable, Kansas
assemblage. Apparently the chiefs of the contending parties had grown
weary of Constitution-making, or regarded this fourth endeavor in that
line as a predestined failure, for they were conspicuous by their
absence. In the Topeka Convention nearly every prominent man of the
Free-State party had a seat. Gen. James H. Lane was its President, and
Charles Robinson, Martin F. Conway, Marcus J. Parrott, Wm. Y. Roberts,
Geo. W. Smith, Philip C. Schuyler, Cyrus K. Holliday, Mark W. Delahay,
and many other recognized Free-State leaders were members. In the
Leavenworth Convention there was a similar gathering of widely-known
Free-State men. Conway was its President, and Lane, Roberts, Thos.
Ewing, Jr., Henry J. Adams, H. P. Johnson, Sam’l N. Wood, T. Dwight
Thacher, Preston B. Plumb, Joel K. Goodin, A. Larzelere, W. F. M. Arny,
Chas. H. Branscomb, John Ritchie, and many other influential Free-State
chiefs or partisans, were among its members.
THE MEMBERSHIP.
In the Wyandotte Convention all the noted Free-State leaders were
conspicuously absent. Its roll-call was made up of names generally new
in Kansas affairs, and largely unknown in either the Free-State or
Pro-Slavery councils. Its President, James M. Winchell, his colleague,
Wm. McCullough, and John Ritchie, of Shawnee, had been members of the
Leavenworth Convention; Col. Caleb May, of Atchison, and William R.
Griffith, of Bourbon, had been members of both the Topeka and the
Leavenworth Conventions; and Jas. M. Arthur, of Linn, had been a member
of the Topeka Convention. But their prominence was largely local. On the
Democratic side, too, appeared men before unnoted in the annals of the
stirring and tremendous conflict that had for years made the young
Territory the cynosure of a Continent’s interest. None of the prominent
Pro-Slavery men who sat in the Lecompton Convention or the Pro-Slavery
Legislature—Calhoun, Stringfellow, Henderson, Elmore, Wilson, Carr, and
others—appeared in this body.
Perhaps the absence of these party leaders was a fortunate thing for the
Convention and the incipient State. For in discriminating intelligence,
in considerate zeal for the welfare of the people, in catholic grasp of
principles, and in capacity for defining theories clearly and compactly,
the members of this body were not wanting. On the other hand, there were
fewer jealousies and far less wrangling than would have been possible
had the envious and aspiring party leaders been present. I think it is
certain that the work was better done, done with more sobriety,
sincerity, prudence and real ability, than would have resulted had the
recognized chiefs of the rival parties been on the floor of the
Convention. The pioneers—the John Baptists—of the Free-State cause were
all at Topeka, and the Constitution they framed is disfigured by some
blotches and much useless verbiage. The leaders were all at Leavenworth,
where they schemed for precedence, and spread traps to catch one
another, and quarreled over non-essentials, and did everything but make
a popular Constitution. Lecompton was the last expression of a beaten,
desperate and wrong-headed, but intellectually vigorous faction, and was
really, barring the mean method of its submission, and its attempt to
perpetuate Slavery, an admirable organic law.
The younger men of the Territory constituted the Convention at
Wyandotte. They came upon the field fresh, enthusiastic, and with a
place in the world of thought and action to conquer. They recognized the
fact that they must do extremely well to secure popular favor, and they
set about their task with industry, intelligence and prudence. They were
not martyrs or reformers, as many of those at Topeka were; nor jealous
politicians or factionists, as most of those at Leavenworth were. They
had no old battles to fight over again, no personal feuds to distract
them, no recollection of former defeats or victories to reverse or
maintain. They were their own prophets. They had had no experience in
Constitution-making, and hence did not look backward. They were not
specialists. A few had hobbies, but the vast majority had no bees
buzzing in their bonnets. A few were dogmatic, but the many were anxious
to discuss, and willing to be convinced. A few were loquacious, but the
majority were thinkers and workers. Some were accomplished scholars, but
the majority were men of ordinary education, whose faculties had been
sharpened and trained by the hard experience of an active and earnest
life. Many were vigorous, direct, intelligent speakers; several were
really eloquent; and a few may justly be ranked with the most versatile
and brilliant men Kansas has ever numbered among her citizens.
Very few were old men. Only fifteen of the fifty-two members were over
forty. Over one-third were under thirty, and nearly two-thirds under
thirty-five. Very few, as I have said, had previously appeared as
representatives of the people in any Territorial assemblage, and this
was especially true of the men whose talents, industry and force soon
approved them leaders. Samuel A. Kingman had been in the Territory only
about eighteen months, and was unknown, outside of Brown county, until
he appeared at Wyandotte. Solon O. Thacher was a young lawyer of
Lawrence, never before prominent in public affairs. John J. Ingalls had
served, the previous winter, as Engrossing Clerk of the Territorial
Council. Samuel A. Stinson was a young attorney, recently from Maine.
William C. McDowell had never been heard of outside of Leavenworth,
Benjamin F. Simpson was a boyish-looking lawyer from Miami county, and
John T. Burris had been practicing, for a year or two, in Justices’
courts in Johnson county. John P. Slough had been a member of the Ohio
Legislature, but was a new-comer in Kansas; and Edmund G. Ross was the
publisher of a weekly newspaper at Topeka.
One-half of the members had been in the Territory less than two years.
Six came in 1854, four in 1855, and twelve in 1856, while Mr. Forman, of
Doniphan, dated his residence from 1843; Mr. Palmer, of Pottawatomie,
from 1854, and Mr. Houston, of Riley, from 1853. Forty-one were from
Northern States, seven from the South, and four were of foreign birth,
England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany each contributing one. It
appears singular that only one of the Western States, Indiana, was
represented in the membership, that State furnishing six delegates.
Twelve hailed from New England, Ohio contributed twelve, Pennsylvania
six, and New York four. Only eighteen belonged to the legal
profession—an unusually small number of lawyers in such a body. Sixteen
were farmers, eight merchants, three physicians, three manufacturers,
one a mechanic, one a printer, one a land agent, and one a surveyor. The
oldest member was Robert Graham, of Atchison, who was 55; the youngest
Benj. F. Simpson, of Lykins county, (now Miami,) who was 23.
A WORKING BODY.
It was a working body, from the first hour of its session until the
last. There is a tradition that the Continental Congress which
promulgated the Declaration of Independence was materially hastened in
its deliberations over that immortal document by swarms of flies that
invaded the hall where it sat, and made the life of its members a
burden. Perhaps the intense heat of the rough-plastered room where the
Convention met, or the knowledge that Territorial scrip would be
received by importunate landlords only at a usurious discount, had
something to do with urging dispatch in business. But certainly the
Convention went to work with an energy and industry I have never seen
paralleled in a Kansas deliberative body since that time. It perfected
its organization, adopted rules for its government, discussed the best
mode of procedure in framing a Constitution, and appointed a Committee
to report upon that subject, during the first day’s session; all the
standing Committees were announced on the third day; and by the close of
the fifth day it had disposed of two very troublesome contested election
cases, decided that the Ohio Constitution should be the model for that
of Kansas, perfected arrangements for reporting and printing its
debates, and instructed its Committees upon a number of disputed
questions. The vote on selecting a model for the Constitution was, on
the second ballot: for the Ohio Constitution, 25 votes; Indiana, 23; and
Kentucky, 1. So our Kansas Constitution was modeled after that of
Ohio—something, I think, as the farmer’s new house was designed after
his old one; it was built upon the old site.
THE COMMITTEES.
The Chairmanships of the different Committees were assigned as follows:
Preamble and Bill of Rights—Wm. Hutchinson, of Lawrence; Executive
Department—John P. Greer, of Shawnee; Legislative Department—Solon O.
Thacher, of Lawrence; Judicial Department—Samuel A. Kingman, of Brown
county; Military—James G. Blunt, of Anderson county; Electors and
Elections—P. H. Townsend, of Douglas; Schedule—John T. Burris, of
Johnson; Apportionment—H. D. Preston, of Shawnee; Corporations and
Banking—Robert Graham, of Atchison; Education and Public Institutions—W.
R. Griffith, of Bourbon county; County and Township Organizations—John
Ritchie, of Topeka; Ordinance and Public Debt—James Blood, of Lawrence;
Finance and Taxation—Benj. F. Simpson, of Lykins; Amendments and
Miscellaneous—S. D. Houston, of Riley county; Federal Relations—T. S.
Wright, of Nemaha county; Phraseology and Arrangement—John J. Ingalls,
of Atchison.
I have studied the composition of these Committees with some interest,
reviewing the work of their members in the Convention, and recalling
their subsequent careers. And it appears to me that in making them up,
President Winchell exhibited phenomenally quick and accurate judgment
of men. He was, indeed, one of the best presiding officers I have ever
known. His imperturbable coolness, never for an instant ruffled by the
most sudden and passionate outbreaks of excitement in the Convention;
his mastery of all the niceties of parliamentary law; his uniform
courtesy and tact; his promptness and clearness in stating his
decisions; and above all, the mingled grace and kindness and firmness
with which he announced to an indignant member an adverse decision,
were really wonderful. But what shall be said of that still more
wonderful prescience with which he made up the Committees? What
induced this calm, gray-eyed, observing little man, whose
brass-buttoned blue coat was first seen by two-thirds of the
Convention on the morning of the 5th of July—what impelled him, within
twenty-four hours, to select an obscure, dull-looking, shock-headed
country doctor as Chairman of the Military Committee, and thus name in
connection with military affairs, for the first time, the only Kansas
soldier who reached a full Major-Generalship? How did he happen to
pass by half a dozen more wide-known lawyers, and appoint as Chairman
of the Judiciary Committee a man who, during more than fifteen years
thereafter, occupied a place on the Supreme Bench of the State, for
the greater portion of this time as the Chief Justice? How came he to
recognize so quickly, in the Engrossing Clerk of the Territorial
Legislature, the ripest scholar and the fittest man in the body for
the Chairmanship of the Committee to which every article of the
Constitution was referred for final revision and amendment? In the
youngest and most boyish-looking member he found the man who was to
form, for this State, a code of Finance and Taxation whose clear
directions and wholesome restrictions have guarded Kansas against the
wasteful extravagance of Legislatures and the curse of a burdensome
public debt, during all the tempting and perilous affairs of its first
quarter of a century. And he named as head of the Committee on
Education, the first State Superintendent of Public Instruction. All
of his appointments were made with rare judgment, but those mentioned
appear notably discerning.
PROGRESS OF WORK.
On the sixth day a resolution favoring biennial sessions of the
Legislature—adopted sixteen years afterward—was submitted and referred.
The first of a long series of resolutions or proposed sections of the
Constitution, prohibiting the settlement of negroes or mulattoes within
the limits of the State, was also introduced. This question, with others
of a kindred nature, such as propositions to prohibit colored children
attending the schools, or to exclude them from the University, or to
forbid the appropriation of any funds for their education, and last, and
meanest of all, to deny to negroes the shelter of county poor-houses
when poor and helpless, was voted upon again and again, first in one
form and then in another; and to the enduring honor of the majority,
always defeated. It seems singular, in this day and generation, that
such theories found persistent and earnest advocates. But it should be
remembered that all this happened before the war, when slavery was still
an “institution” in nearly half the States of the Union. The Pro-Slavery
party was, of course, solidly in favor of excluding free negroes from
the State, and less than four years prior to the meeting of the
Convention, the Free-State party, in voting on the Topeka Constitution,
had given a decided majority in favor of such exclusion. It therefore
required genuine courage and principle to go upon record against each
and every proposition of this character. For very few members who so
voted felt absolutely certain of the indorsement of their constituents.
The first article of the Constitution reported, that on corporations and
banks, was submitted on the sixth day and considered. It was stated by
the President that many other Committees had their reports in the hands
of the printer, and during the next few days they began to come in very
rapidly. The Convention, to expedite work, adopted a resolution
requiring all Committees to report on or before Saturday, the eleventh
day of the session.
THE BOUNDARIES OF THE STATE.
On the seventh day the annexation of that portion of Nebraska lying
south of the Platte river, was formally considered. The then organized
Nebraska counties included in that section of our sister State had
elected delegates to the Convention, who were present earnestly
advocating annexation. This proposition was discussed during several
days, and the debate took a wide range. The Nebraska delegates were
admitted to seats as honorary members, with the privilege of speaking on
this subject. The final determination, however, was to preserve the
original Northern line. Two influences induced this decision, one
political, the other local and material. Many Republicans feared that
the South Platte country was, or would be likely to become, Democratic.
Lawrence and Topeka both aspired to be the State Capital, and their
influence was against annexation, because they feared it would throw the
center of population far north of the Kaw.
The Preamble and Bill of Rights was reported on the tenth day, and
opened the whole question of the State’s boundaries. The Committee
proposed the twenty-third meridian as the western line, and the fortieth
parallel as the line on the north. This would have excluded about ninety
miles of territory within the present limits of the State. The
Committee’s recommendation was, however, adopted, and stood as the
determination of the Convention until the day before the final
adjournment, when Col. May, of Atchison, secured a reconsideration, and
on his motion the twenty-fifth meridian was substituted for the
twenty-third. The northern boundary question was finally settled on the
fifteenth day, when, by a vote of 19 ayes to 29 nays, the Convention
refused to memorialize Congress to include the South Platte country
within the limits of Kansas.
FEATURES OF THE CONSTITUTION.
On the seventh day the Legislative and Judicial Committees reported. The
Legislative article was considered next day. The Committee proposed that
bills might originate in either House, but Mr. Winchell submitted a
novel amendment, which required all laws to originate in the House of
Representatives. This was adopted, notwithstanding the vigorous
opposition of Mr. Thacher, the Chairman of the Committee, by a vote of
37 to 13. It survived the admission of the State only three years, being
amended in 1864.
On the eighth day the Militia article was adopted; on the ninth day the
Judicial article was perfected, and the article on Education and Public
Institutions reported and discussed; and on the tenth day the Committees
on County and Township Organizations, and Schedule, reported. The
deathless pertinacity of a “claim” is illustrated by a petition
presented that day, from one Samuel A. Lowe, a clerk of the so-called
“Bogus Legislature,” who wanted pay for certain work he alleged he had
performed. Only a year ago Mr. Lowe presented the same claim to
Congress, and it was, I believe, allowed by the House. But the Kansas
Senators made such determined war on it that Mr. Lowe can still sing, “A
claim to keep I have.”
I have mentioned the fact that Mr. Winchell was the author of the
section providing that all bills should originate in the House. It
should be stated that Mr. Ingalls was the author of the provision that
“in actions for libel, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury,
and if it shall appear that the alleged libelous matter was published
for justifiable ends, the accused shall be acquitted.” Another original
provision of the Constitution is the Homestead section. This was first
proposed by Mr. Foster, of Leavenworth county, on the sixth day of the
session, and reported by the Committee on Miscellaneous and Amendments,
on the thirteenth day. No other feature of the Constitution, perhaps,
elicited more animated and earnest debate. It was discussed for several
days; amended, referred, and again submitted. As originally reported, it
provided for the exemption of “a homestead of 160 acres of land, or a
house and lot not exceeding $2,000 in value, or real, personal and mixed
property not exceeding $2,000, to any family.” This was adopted by a
vote of 28 ayes to 16 nays. Two days later the vote was reconsidered,
and President Winchell proposed the wording finally adopted: “A
homestead of 160 acres of farming land, or of one acre within the limits
of an incorporated town or city, occupied as a residence by the family
of the owner, together with all the improvements on the same, shall be
exempted from forced sale under any process of law, and shall not be
alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife, where the
relation exists.” Thus perfected, it was adopted by a vote of 33 to 7.
I thought at the time, however, and a review of the proceedings and
debates has confirmed my impression, that favorable action on this
provision was due to the earnest and eloquent advocacy of Judge Kingman,
who was its most zealous, logical and courageous supporter. The
homestead clause of the Kansas Constitution has been severely
criticised, but I believe the people of the State generally regard it as
a most beneficent provision of their organic law. For nearly a quarter
of a century it has been maintained, and it still stands, as Judge
Kingman said it would, guarding “the home, the hearthstone, the fireside
around which a man may gather his family with the certainty of assurance
that neither the hand of the law, nor any nor all of the uncertainties
of life, can eject them from the possession of it.”
The Finance and Taxation and the Executive articles were adopted on the
fourteenth day, and the Miscellaneous article considered. This
originally provided for the election of a Public Printer, but that
section was stricken out, after a vigorous protest by Messrs. Ross and
Ingalls. Nine years later their idea was indorsed by the adoption of an
amendment creating the office of State Printer.
On the seventeenth day the temporary Capital was located at Topeka, the
second ballot resulting: For Topeka, 29; for Lawrence, 14; for Atchison,
6.
THE FIRST “PROHIBITION AMENDMENT.”
On the same day a proposition was made by Mr. Preston, of Shawnee
county, to amend the Miscellaneous article by adding the following
section:
“SEC. ——. The Legislature shall have power to regulate or prohibit the
sale of alcoholic liquors, except for mechanical and medicinal
purposes.”
A motion made to lay this amendment on the table, was defeated by a vote
of 18 ayes to 31 nays. But the anxiety of the members to exclude from
the Constitution any provision that might render its adoption doubtful,
or prevent the admission of the State, finally prevailed, and after a
full interchange of views, Mr. Preston withdrew his amendment. There is,
it is said, nothing new under the sun. Those who imagine that the
prohibition amendment adopted in 1880 was a new departure in
Constitution-making, have never examined the records of the Wyandotte
Convention.
THE LAST OF SLAVERY IN KANSAS.
On the nineteenth day occurred the last struggle over the Slavery
question in Kansas. Sec. 6 of the Bill of Rights, prohibiting Slavery or
involuntary servitude, came up for adoption, and it was moved to add a
proviso suspending the operation of this section for the period of
twelve months after the admission of the State. This proviso received
eleven votes, and twenty-eight were recorded against it. A most exciting
discussion occurred, on the same day, over the apportionment article,
which the Democrats denounced as a “gerrymander.”
THE LAST DAYS.
The work of the Convention was practically completed on the twenty-first
day. The various articles had each been considered and adopted, first in
Committee of the whole, then in Convention, then referred to the
Committee on Phraseology and Arrangement, and, after report of that
Committee, again considered by sections and adopted. But so anxious were
the members that every word used should be the right word, expressing
the idea intended most clearly and directly, that when the reading of
the completed Constitution was finished, on the morning of the 21st day,
it was decided to refer it to a special committee, consisting of Messrs.
Ingalls, Winchell, Ross and Slough, for further revision and
verification. This Committee reported the same afternoon, and again the
Constitution was read by sections, for final revision, with the same
painstaking carefulness and attention to the minutest details. All that
afternoon, and all the next day, with brief interruptions for action on
other closing work, this revision went on, and it was five o’clock in
the afternoon of the 29th before the last section was perfected. Then
occurred one of the most dramatic scenes of the Convention. Mr.
Hutchinson submitted a resolution declaring that “we do now adopt and
proceed to sign the Constitution.”
A SPIRITED DEBATE.
At once Mr. Slough addressed the Chair, and after warmly eulogizing the
general features of the Constitution, pronouncing it “a model
instrument,” he formally announced that political objections impelled
himself and his Democratic associates to decline attaching their
signatures to it. These objections he stated at length. They were,
briefly: The curtailment of the boundaries of the State; the large
Legislative body provided for; the exclusion of Indians made citizens of
the United States, from the privilege of voting; the registry of voters
at the election on the Constitution; the refusal to exclude free negroes
from the State; and the apportionment.
This action of the Democratic members had been foreshadowed for several
days, but it was, nevertheless, something of a surprise. The Republicans
understood that several of the Democrats had earnestly opposed such a
course, and hoped that some of them would be governed by their own
convictions, rather than by the mandate of their caucus. For a few
moments after Mr. Slough concluded, the Convention sat, hushed and
expectant. But no other Democratic member rose. It was evident that the
caucus ruled. Then Judge Thacher, President _pro tem._, addressed the
Chair, and in a speech of remarkable vigor and eloquence, accepted the
gauge of battle thrown down. “Upon this Constitution,” he declared, “we
will meet our opponents in the popular arena. It is a better, a nobler
issue than even the old Free-State issue. They have thrown down the
gauntlet; we joyfully take it up.” He then proceeded to defend, with
great earnestness and power, the features of the Constitution objected
to by Mr. Slough. “The members of the Convention,” he asserted, “have
perfected a work that will be enduring.” The Constitution, he affirmed,
would “commend itself to the true and good everywhere, because through
every line and syllable there glows the generous sunshine of liberty.”
It was and should be, he declared:
“Like some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds shall spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”
Read in the light of subsequent history, these declarations appear
almost prophetic.
SIGNING THE CONSTITUTION.
The twilight shadows were gathering about Wyandotte when this debate
closed, and the Convention proceeded to vote on Mr. Hutchinson’s
resolution, which was adopted by 34 ayes to 13 nays—one Republican and
four Democrats being absent. The roll was then called, and the
Constitution was signed by all the Republican members except one, Mr.
Wright, of Nemaha, who was absent, sick. The work of the Convention was
completed, and after voting thanks to its officers, it adjourned without
date.
TWO MISTAKES.
Each party, I think, was guilty of one blunder it afterwards seriously
regretted—the Republicans in refusing to include the South Platte
country within the boundaries of Kansas; the Democrats in refusing to
sign the Constitution they had labored diligently to perfect. I speak of
what I consider the great mistake of the Republicans with all the more
frankness, because I was at the time in hearty sympathy with their
action; but I feel confident that no Republican member is living to-day
who does not deplore that decision. And I am equally confident that
within a brief time after the Convention adjourned, there were few
Democratic members who did not seriously regret their refusal to sign
the Constitution.
“ADDED TO THE STARS.”
On the 4th of October, 1859, the Constitution was submitted to the
people for ratification or rejection, and, for the first time in the
history of Kansas, all parties cast a full, free and unintimidated vote.
The Republicans favored, and the Democrats generally opposed its
adoption. Nearly 16,000 ballots were polled, of which 10,421 were for,
and 5,530 against the Constitution. The Homestead clause, submitted as
an independent proposition, was ratified by a vote of 8,788 for, to
4,772 against it. Every county in the Territory except two, Johnson and
Morris, gave a majority for the Constitution.
Two months later, December 6th, State and County officers and members of
the Legislature were elected, and the people of Kansas, having exhausted
their authority in State-building, patiently awaited the action of
Congress. On the 11th of April, 1860, the House of Representatives
voted, 134 to 73, to admit Kansas as a State, under the Wyandotte
Constitution. Twice, during the next eight months, the Senate defeated
motions to consider the Kansas bill, but on the 21st of January, 1861,
several Southern Senators having seceded, Mr. Seward “took a pinch of
snuff” and called it up again. It passed by a vote of 36 to 16, and on
the 29th of the same month President Buchanan approved it. Thus young
Kansas, through many difficulties and turmoils, was “added to the
Stars.”
AN ENDURING CONSTITUTION.
During nearly twenty-two of the most eventful and exciting years of
American history, the Constitution thus framed and ratified has defined
the powers and regulated the duties of the government of Kansas. Three
Legislatures have voted down propositions to call a new Constitutional
Convention. Twelve or fifteen amendments have been submitted, but only
eight have been approved by the people. Finally, in 1880, the
Legislature voted to submit a proposal for a new Convention, and at the
regular election held in November of that year, this ballot was taken.
The result was an indorsement of the old Wyandotte Constitution by a
majority far more emphatic and overwhelming than that by which it was
originally adopted, the vote standing 22,870 for, and 146,279 against
the proposed Convention, or nearly seven to one.
It is doubtful whether the organic law of any other State in the Union
has more successfully survived the mutations of time and inconstant
public sentiment, and the no less fluctuating necessities of a
swiftly-developing Commonwealth. Of its seventeen articles, only four,
and of its one hundred and seventy-eight sections, only eight, have ever
been amended. And of the eight amendments adopted, only five have
revoked or modified the principles or policy originally formulated, the
others being changes demanded by the growth of the State, or by the
events of the civil war. The first amendment, ratified in 1861, provides
that no banking institution shall issue circulating notes of a less
denomination than $1—the original limitation being $5. In 1864 the
provision requiring all bills to originate in the House of
Representatives, was repealed; and a section intended to prevent U. S.
soldiers from voting, but which was so worded that it deprived our
volunteers of that right, was also repealed. In 1867 an amendment was
adopted disfranchising all persons who aided the “Lost Cause,” or who
were dishonorably discharged from the army of the United States, or who
had defrauded the United States or any State during the war. In 1868 the
State Printer amendment was ratified. In 1873 the number of Senators and
Representatives, originally limited to 33 and 100, respectively, was
increased to 40 and 125. In 1875 three propositions, each having in view
biennial instead of annual sessions of the Legislature, were adopted.
And in 1880 the Prohibition amendment was ratified. These are all the
changes that have been made in our organic law during nearly a quarter
of a century.
PARTING AT WYANDOTTE.
It would violate the proprieties of such an occasion to comment on the
personal feuds or partisan broils which once or twice marred the general
harmony and orderly progress of the proceedings. These were very few,
indeed, and none of them, I think, outlasted the Convention. The members
parted, when the final adjournment came, with mutual respect and
good-will, and the friendships formed during the session have been
unusually warm and enduring.
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
It seems fitting that, in concluding this sketch of the Convention and
its labors, I should briefly narrate the subsequent history of its
members. It was a small company, that which parted here twenty-three
years ago to-day, and it was made up, as I have said, largely of young
and vigorous men. But when this reunion was first suggested, and I came
to look over the familiar names I had so often called during the long,
hot days of that far-away July, it was painful to note the havoc death
had made. It impressed me something as did a roll-call I once witnessed,
in the red glare of bivouac fires after one of the great battles of the
war, when surviving comrades answered “killed,” or “wounded,” to
one-half the names of a regiment. Ten of the fifty-two members composing
the Convention I have not heard of for many years. Of the remaining
forty-two, twenty rest quietly in
—“The reconciling grave,
Where all alike lie down in peace together.”
The largest delegation was that from Leavenworth county, and only one of
the ten gentlemen comprising it, R. Cole Foster, certainly survives.
Rare Sam Stinson, whose genial wit and brilliant accomplishments won all
hearts, was elected Attorney General in 1861, by a unanimous vote, and
died in his old Maine home in February, 1866. William C. McDowell was
chosen Judge of the First Judicial District at the first election under
the Constitution, served four years, and was killed by a fall from an
omnibus in St. Louis, July 16, 1866. John P. Slough removed to Colorado,
was Colonel of a regiment raised in that State, and later a
Brigadier-General; was appointed, after the war, Chief Justice of New
Mexico, and was killed at Santa Fé. Samuel Hipple removed to Atchison
county; served as Quartermaster during the war; was elected State
Senator in 1867, and died in January, 1876. William Perry removed to
Colorado, where he died. Paschal S. Parks returned to Indiana, and
engaged in journalism and the law until his death, three years ago.
Fred. Brown died in St. Joseph, Mo., and John Wright at his home in
Leavenworth county. Robert Graham, of Atchison county, the oldest
member, died in 1868. Three of the five members from Doniphan county,
Robert J. Porter, Benjamin Wrigley and John Stairwalt, are dead. The
members from Linn, James M. Arthur and Josiah Lamb, are both dead, as
are also N. C. Blood and P. H. Townsend, of Douglas; H. D. Preston, of
Shawnee; Allen Crocker, of Woodson, and T. S. Wright, of Nemaha. W. R.
Griffith, of Bourbon, was elected the first State Superintendent of
Public Instruction, and died February 12, 1862, before the completion of
his term. James G. Blunt, of Anderson, who became a Major-General during
the war, and won renown as a brave and skillful soldier, died, in
Washington, a year or more ago. James Hanway, of Franklin, after a long
life of usefulness, died at his old home only a brief while ago.
President James M. Winchell returned to New York shortly after the
outbreak of the Rebellion, and resumed his connection with the _Times_,
first as war correspondent, and afterwards as an editorial writer. Until
his death, a few years since, he was employed upon that great journal.
SURVIVING MEMBERS.
Of the surviving members, many have attained the highest distinction of
the State, and all, I believe, are useful and honored citizens. At the
first election under the Constitution, Samuel A. Kingman was chosen as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; in 1866 he was elected Chief
Justice, and reëlected in 1872. Benj. F. Simpson was elected the first
Attorney-General of the State, but resigned the position to enter the
army, in which he served throughout the war. He has since been Speaker
of the House of Representatives, several times a State Senator, and is
now serving his second term as U. S. Marshal. Solon O. Thacher was
chosen District Judge at the first election under the Constitution, has
since occupied many positions of honor and responsibility, and is a
member of the present State Senate. J. C. Burnett, S. D. Houston and
Sam’l E. Hoffman were members of the first State Senate, and Geo. H.
Lillie was a member of the first House of Representatives. E. G. Ross
was appointed United States Senator in 1866, and elected in 1867,
serving until 1871. John J. Ingalls was chosen a State Senator in 1861;
was elected United States Senator in 1873, and reëlected in 1879, and is
still occupying that distinguished place. John T. Burris was
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Tenth Kansas, and subsequently District Judge.
Wm. P. Dutton, James Blood, L. R. Palmer, John P. Greer and John Ritchie
have filled many positions of local trust and prominence, with credit
and usefulness. R. C. Foster and John W. Forman are residing in Texas;
William Hutchinson lives in Washington; Ed. Stokes in Arkansas, and C.
B. McClellan, E. Moore and E. M. Hubbard are still prominent and honored
citizens of the counties they represented. My old friend, Col. Caleb
May, sole surviving member of the three Free-State Constitutional
Conventions, lives in Montgomery county. If Dean Swift was right in
saying that “whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of
grass, to grow on a spot of ground where one grew before, would deserve
better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than
the whole race of politicians,” what honor is due this sturdy Kansas
farmer, who, during a residence of twenty-eight years in the State, has
never—not even in the disastrous seasons of 1860 and 1874—failed to
raise a good crop. Even the heroic service he rendered the cause of
Freedom during the darkest days of the struggle in Kansas, was less
valuable to the State than this practical and triumphant vindication of
its soil and climate.
“LOST TO SIGHT.”
Stalwart, quiet Wm. McCullough I have not heard of for many years. John
A. Middleton, of Marshall county, was a soldier in the Seventh Kansas,
removed to Montana in 1864, and I have learned nothing of him since. R.
L. Williams, of Douglas; A. D. McCune, of Leavenworth; J. H. Signor, of
Allen, and J. T. Barton, of Johnson, have all disappeared and left no
sign. I know not whether they are living or dead.
THE OFFICERS.
Of the officers of the Convention, queer old George Warren,
Sergeant-at-Arms of nearly all the early Kansas Legislatures and
Conventions, died many years ago. Ed. S. Nash, the Journal Clerk, was
Adjutant of the first Kansas, and died some years since in Chicago.
Robt. St. Clair Graham, one of the Enrolling Clerks, was elected Judge
of the Second Judicial District in 1866, and died in 1880. Richard J.
Hinton, also an Enrolling Clerk, is the editor of the Washington (D. C.)
_Gazette_, and a widely known journalist. Werter R. Davis, the Chaplain,
was a member of the first State Legislature; was Chaplain of the Twelfth
and Colonel of the Sixteenth Kansas regiments during the war, and is one
of the most prominent clergymen of his denomination in the State. S. D.
McDonald, printer to the Convention, is still engaged in journalism. J.
M. Funk, the Doorkeeper, and J. L. Blanchard, the Assistant Secretary, I
have not heard from or of for many years.
CONCLUSION.
I wish I could sketch more in detail the work and history of the members
of the Convention. But this paper is, I know, already too long. I have
tried to tell how our Constitution was made. I could not narrate, within
reasonable limits,
“What workman wrought its ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of its hope.”
It is enough to say that the work has proved strong and enduring.
Through the groping inexperience of our State’s childhood and the still
more perilous ambitions of its youth, through the storm of civil war and
the calm of prosperous peace, the Wyandotte Constitution has justified
the confident hopes of its early friends. The most marvelous changes
have been wrought in this country since it was framed. The huge brick
building in which the Convention held its sessions, long ago crumbled
and fell. The distracted, dependent and turbulent Territory has grown to
be a peaceful, powerful and prosperous State. Its hundred thousand
people have multiplied to a million. Upon its vast and solitary
prairies, where then bloomed a wild and unprofitable vegetation,
“wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves
his bosom,” miles of green meadows now glisten with morning dew, and
thousands of golden wheat-fields shimmer in the noonday sun, and
millions of acres of tasseling corn, rustling in the sweet twilight air,
tell of harvests so bountiful that they would feed a continent. Every
quiet valley and prairie swell is dotted with pleasant homes, where
happy children laugh and play and men and women go their busy ways in
prosperous content. Eager learners throng eight thousand school houses.
Church bells ring in nearly every county from the Missouri to the
Colorado line. More than four thousand miles of railway bind town and
country, factory and farm and store, into one community. And over all
the institutions and activities of this great, intelligent and orderly
Commonwealth, broods the genius and spirit of the Wyandotte
Constitution. Under its ample authority and direction, just and generous
laws have maintained the rights of citizenship, given protection to
labor and property, stimulated enterprise, multiplied industries, opened
to every child and youth the door of school and college, encouraged
morality, fostered temperance, protected the weak, restrained the
strong, and sternly punished outbreaking crime. And still the sunshine
of popular confidence and favor falls upon the Constitution. It has
outlived half of its framers, and when, a quarter of a century hence,
the last surviving member of the Convention awaits the inevitable hour,
the Wyandotte Constitution may yet be the chart and compass ordering and
guiding the destinies of a State whose imperial manhood is foreshadowed
by its stalwart and stately youth.
EIGHTH KANSAS VETERAN VOLUNTEERS.
Address, delivered at the reunion of the Eighth Kansas Veteran
Volunteer Infantry, held at Fort Leavenworth, October 10th, 11th
and 12th, 1883.
Surviving members of the Eighth Kansas Veteran Volunteer Infantry, to
the number of about one hundred, assembled at Camp Pope, on the Fort
Leavenworth reservation, on the 10th, 11th and 12th of October, 1883.
The headquarters of the “Society of the Eighth Kansas” were established
in a tent opposite the general headquarters for the soldiers’ reunion,
designated by a banner bearing the following inscription:
HEADQUARTERS
EIGHTH KANSAS VOL. INFANTRY.
3d Brigade, 1st Division, 20th Army Corps,
1st Brigade, 3d Division, 4th Army Corps,
ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.
Beneath this was painted the badge of the Third Division, Fourth Army
Corps—to which the regiment was longest attached—a blue triangle,
bearing the names of the most prominent engagements in which the Eighth
took part, viz.:
PERRYVILLE.
LANCASTER.
BRENTWOOD PIKE.
TULLAHOMA.
CAPERTON’S FERRY.
CHICAMAUGA.
CHATTANOOGA.
ORCHARD KNOB.
MISSION RIDGE.
KNOXVILLE CAMPAIGN.
DANDRIDGE.
KENNESAW MOUNTAIN.
PEACH TREE CREEK.
CHATTAHOOCHIE.
ATLANTA.
LOVEJOY STATION.
NASHVILLE.
On the afternoon of October 10th the roll was called by companies, and
the day was spent in social greetings, in revisiting Fort Leavenworth,
and in reviving recollections of the campaigns in which the command took
part.
The Society elected the following officers for the ensuing year, viz.:
_President_—Colonel John A. Martin.
_Vice-President_—Lieutenant-Colonel John Conover.
_Secretary_—Sergeant Chas. W. Rust.
_Treasurer_—Lieutenant David Baker.
At the conclusion of the exercises in the “big tent,” the President,
Colonel John A. Martin, delivered the following address, which was
ordered printed in pamphlet form, together with the proceedings of the
reunion and the names of those in attendance:
COMRADES OF THE EIGHTH KANSAS: There is always a charm in revisiting
once familiar places after a long absence, and to a Kansas soldier this
reservation will ever possess a fascinating interest. Here nearly all
the troops young Kansas sent to the war were organized or equipped. And
to those who were mustered here; who slept for the first time under
canvas in the old blue-grass pasture, and there ate for the first time a
soldier’s fare, Fort Leavenworth will always be holy ground.
I have paid many visits to this Post since the far-away days of ’61, but
never have the scenes and incidents of that period been so vividly
recalled as during the present occasion. The white tents, the trampled
grass, the groups of men, half uniformed, half in citizens’ dress; the
straggling stacks of arms, the marching columns, the orderlies coming
and going, the notes of bugles and the music of fife and drum—these
scenes and sounds seem to belong to the turbulent past rather than to
the peaceful and prosperous present. The alien and unfamiliar feature is
this great tent, and the speech-making within its canvas walls. The days
of ’61 were not distinguished for talk. They were days of action. The
speech-maker did his work then, as now, but not here on this reserve. I
fancy that if “Old Prince,” that terror of the Kansas recruits, had
caught a man making a speech on the reservation, he would have organized
a drumhead court-martial at once, for his prompt trial and execution.
The place and the surroundings, as I have said, are familiar. And yet
how vast the changes that have been wrought since the mustering here
twenty-two years ago! It is doubtful if the adult male population of
Kansas at that time greatly exceeded the numbers present at this
reunion. The poor, harassed and feeble Territory has grown to be one of
the greatest States in the Union, rich in all the elements of
substantial prosperity; richer still in the imperial manhood of a
citizenship which includes representatives of every regiment in the
Union army. Plodding along in all the walks and ways of our now peaceful
and quiet Kansas life are men who have fought on every battle-field of
the civil war; men who were active participants in all the events of the
greatest and most stirring drama of the world’s history; men whose
personal recollections embrace the story of every march, camp, bivouac,
skirmish and battle in which the armies of the Union engaged; men whose
blood has been poured out in every combat where patriotism maintained
the supremacy of our flag.
Is it any wonder that Kansas has, in the nearly two decades that have
elapsed since the war closed, grown to be one of the greatest, most
intelligent, and most prosperous of the States? Of what achievements, in
the enterprises of civil life requiring courage, energy and resourceful
vigor, is such blood and bone, and heart and brain, as make up her
population, not capable? From the most sterile and reluctant soil a
manhood of this order would wrest plenty. Is it wonderful that, when
earth and air combine to aid its labors, this population should have
made Kansas one of the greatest and most prosperous States in the Union?
I need not say how glad and proud I am, my dear old comrades, to meet
and greet you, one and all, once more. It seems but a brief time since
the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry pitched its tents in the blue-grass
of this reserve and was mustered into the service of the United States,
“for three years or during the war.” But the whitening locks of many of
its survivors, gathered here to-day, tell the story of time’s flight.
The youngest soldiers in its ranks have reached middle age; the oldest
are now old men, nearing the sunsets of their lives. The hardships and
privations of march and camp, and the casualties of battle, decimated
its ranks again and again during its long term of service; very many
have since died, their lives shortened by wounds, or by the wasting
effects of the campaigns in which they participated; and the survivors,
scattered all over the country, probably do not number one-third of the
1,081 men who have answered “here” at its roll-calls.
It is no vain-glorious or empty boasting to declare, as I do, that to
have served in the Eighth Kansas is a fact of which any man has a just
right to be proud. No regiment in the army of the Union during the civil
war can cite participation in campaigns of greater magnitude, events of
more romantic and exciting interest, or marches over a vaster scope of
country. Nor did any regiment more conspicuously illustrate, in camp or
field, a loftier devotion to duty, a more unselfish patriotism, or a
more constant courage.
The Eighth Kansas served in four of the great armies of the Union. Its
service began in what was afterwards known as the “Army of the
Frontier;” thence, early in 1862, it was transferred to the “Army of the
Mississippi;” in the summer of the same year it joined the “Army of the
Ohio;” and in November became a part of the “Army of the Cumberland.”
With this military division it served until its final muster-out, in
January, 1866.
Its organization was commenced in August, 1861, and its first company
was mustered in on the 28th of that month. By the 12th of October, eight
companies had been recruited and mustered; in December, the ninth was
added; and early in January the regiment had its full complement. In
February, however, a reorganization of Kansas regiments was made.
Companies D and H, of the Eighth, which were cavalry, were transferred
to the Ninth Kansas; Companies F and K were consolidated, and three
companies of Colonel Graham’s battalion were transferred to the Eighth,
making it a full regiment of infantry.
From the date of its organization, in September, 1861, until May, 1862,
four companies of the regiment did duty along the Missouri border, in
Southern Kansas; others formed part of the post garrisons at Forts
Leavenworth, Riley, Kearney, and Laramie. Early in May five companies
were ordered to Corinth, Mississippi, and proceeding to Columbus,
Kentucky, by steamer, they marched thence along the line of the Mobile &
Ohio Railroad to Corinth. After a service of two months in that army,
the Division to which the Eighth was attached was ordered to reinforce
General Buell. By rapid marches through Eastport, Mississippi, and
Florence, Alabama, it joined the “Army of the Ohio” at Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, and took part in the extraordinary campaign which ended at
Louisville, Kentucky. Thence it moved southward again, with the command
to which it was attached, through Perryville and Lancaster to Crab
Orchard, and thence to Nashville. There it remained nearly six months,
doing provost duty, and there, in February and March, 1863, the five
companies left in Kansas joined headquarters, and for the first time in
its history the regiment was united.
Early in June, 1863, the Eighth rejoined its Division at Murfreesboro.
It participated, during that summer, in the campaign against Tullahoma,
and, late in August, forming the advance guard of the Twentieth Corps,
crossed the Tennessee river at Caperton’s ferry, in pontoon boats. It
took an active part in all the movements of the campaign which followed,
ending with the battle of Chicamauga and the siege of Chattanooga. On
the 23d of November, covering the front of its brigade as skirmishers,
the Eighth captured Orchard Knob, the headquarters of Generals Grant and
Thomas during the battles of the succeeding two days. On the 25th it
participated in the storming of Mission Ridge, and its flag was one of
the first, if not the first, planted on the summit.
Two days later the Eighth marched, with its corps, to the relief of
Burnside, at Knoxville; took part in all the movements of that dreadful
winter campaign, and formed a portion of the rear guard on the retreat
from Dandridge.
Early in January, 1864, at Strawberry Plains, East Tennessee,
four-fifths of all the members of the Eighth then present reënlisted as
veterans. Returning home in February, the regiment received a furlough
for thirty days. Reassembling at this Post, early in April, it returned
to the South, and took part in the campaign against Atlanta. Thence,
with its corps, it moved back to Nashville, and participated in the
battle which ground the Rebel army of the West to atoms.
During the first six months of the year 1865, the Eighth was stationed
at various points in Alabama and Tennessee, but late in July it was
ordered to Texas, where it remained until the 29th of November, when it
was mustered out, and ordered home for final discharge. It reached Fort
Leavenworth on the 6th of January, 1866, and on the 9th was formally
disbanded.
Its career, it will thus be seen, commenced at a very early period of
the civil war, and terminated long after the last hostile shot had been
fired. From the date of its organization until its final muster-out,
there were 1,081 names on its rolls. But its largest numerical strength
at any one time was 877, in March, 1862. The largest aggregate force,
“present for duty,” was 656, at about the same date.
The records of its service show that it traveled 10,750 miles;
participated in fifteen battles and many skirmishes; and lost in battle
three commissioned officers and sixty-seven enlisted men killed;
thirteen commissioned officers and two hundred and seventy-six enlisted
men wounded; and one commissioned officer and twenty enlisted men
missing; or a total of seventy killed, two hundred and eighty-nine
wounded, and twenty-one missing; and an aggregate of three hundred and
eighty killed, wounded and missing. Of the missing, nearly all were
killed, and of the wounded about one-fifth died of their wounds. The
regiment’s loss by the casualties of battle, it will thus be seen, was
nearly sixty per cent. of the greatest number it ever had present for
duty.
In addition to these losses three commissioned officers and ninety-two
enlisted men died of disease; one hundred and ninety-two were discharged
for disabilities resulting from wounds or disease; and fifty-three died
of wounds. The total loss by death, including the seventy killed in
battle, was two hundred and eighteen, and by discharge because of wounds
and disease, one hundred and ninety-two, making a total loss, by death
or disability, of four hundred and ten.
The regiment brought back to the State, and deposited at Topeka, three
flags. Under the first, carried until it returned home on veteran
furlough, in February, 1864, it marched 3,681 miles, and lost three
commissioned officers and forty-nine enlisted men killed, ten
commissioned officers and two hundred and eighteen enlisted men wounded,
and twenty enlisted men missing. Under the second, carried until after
the battle of Nashville, it marched 2,660 miles, and lost three
commissioned officers wounded and one captured, and eighteen enlisted
men killed and fifty-eight wounded. Under the third it traveled 4,409
miles, but sustained no loss in battle.
The largest loss the Eighth sustained in a single engagement was at
Chicamauga, where out of a total of four hundred and six officers and
men present, its killed, wounded and missing numbered two hundred and
forty-three, or sixty per cent. of all engaged.
A brief, dull sketch this is of the services of the Eighth Kansas, I
know. But I am anxious to condense it into as brief a space as possible;
and dull as it is, it will revive in your memory a thousand thrilling
recollections; meager as it is, it will give any soldier or any
intelligent civilian who was an interested observer of the events of the
war, a fairly comprehensive idea of the part the regiment bore in that
great struggle. This is all I have sought to do. It would require
volumes to tell the story in full. For this regiment not only saw all
“the pomp and circumstance of war,” but all its ghastly desolation,
misery and despair as well. It sounded all the notes alike of war’s pæan
and of its dirge. The tramp of its swift and steady march echoed in the
highways of twelve different States. Its bayonets flashed from Fort
Laramie to the Gulf, and from Kansas to North Carolina. At Nashville it
did duty in white gloves; at Strawberry Plains it was shirtless,
shoeless, and in rags. It was feasted in Kansas and starved in
Chattanooga. It hunted guerrillas in Missouri, combatted Longstreet’s
veterans at Chicamauga, stormed the blazing heights of Mission Ridge,
fought a continuous battle from Kennesaw Mountain to Atlanta, and broke
the lines of Hood at Nashville. It built roads, bridged rivers, convoyed
trains, destroyed railroads, operated mills, policed cities, gathered
crops, and made history. And wherever it was, or whatsoever it was
doing, the calm and patient endurance, the magnificent courage, the
splendid discipline, and the unfaltering patriotism of its soldiers
could always be relied on.
It is pleasant to remember, too, and I am sure there is no true soldier
of the Eighth who will not proudly recall the fact, that on many
different occasions the drill, discipline and military appearance of the
regiment were complimented in official orders, issued from corps and
army headquarters. At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in June, 1863, the
following order was published:
INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
MURFREESBORO, June 19th, 1863. }
I take pleasure in reporting to you the following extract from the
report of the Inspector of the First Division, especially as the
same regiments have attracted the notice of the Corps Inspector:
_Extract_—“The drill, military appearance and dress of the Eighth
Kansas is the best observed in the Division; that of the
Twenty-fifth Illinois next.
(Signed) H. W. HALL,
_Captain, and Inspector First Division_.”
Very respectfully, HORACE N. FISHER,
_Lieutenant-Colonel, and Inspector-General_.
HEADQUARTERS, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
June 20th, 1863. }
Respectfully referred to Colonel Heg, commanding Third Brigade,
First Division, who will have this creditable compliment conveyed to
the above-mentioned regiments.
By command of Major-General McCook.
A. C. MCCLURG,
_Capt. and A. A. G._
On the 15th of July, 1863, the following order was issued:
HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, }
INSPECTOR-GENERAL’S OFFICE, Tullahoma, July 15, 1863. }
COLONEL: I have the honor to make the following extract from the
semi-monthly inspection report of Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. Fisher,
Assistant Inspector-General 20th Army Corps:
_Extract_—“The Eighth Kansas, lately attached to this corps, is
splendidly equipped and well cared for. Its long stay in Nashville
has enabled it to attain a polish to a certain degree impracticable
in the field, but its example is valuable to the corps.”
Very respectfully, A. S. BURT, _Capt. and A. A. G._
To Lieutenant-Colonel Goddard, A. A. G.
HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, }
TULLAHOMA, July 19, 1863. }
Respectfully referred to the commanding officer of the Eighth
Kansas.
By command of Major-General Rosecrans.
WM. MCMICHAEL, _Major and A. A. G._
A few weeks later the following order was issued:
HEADQUARTERS, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
INSPECTOR-GENERAL’S OFFICE, WINCHESTER, TENN., July 31, 1863. }
COLONEL: I have the honor to call your attention to the following
extract from the report of Captain H. W. Hall, A. I. G. First
Division, on the camps of the Third Brigade:
_Extract_—“The camps of the Eighth Kansas and Twenty-fifth Illinois
are the best in the Division. These regiments vie with each other in
excellence in every respect, and are models worthy of imitation for
any troops with which it has been my fortune to associate.”
Very respectfully, HORACE N. FISHER, _Lieut.-Col. and A. I. G._
HEADQUARTERS 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
July 31, 1863. }
Respectfully referred to the commanding officer, Third Brigade,
First Division. The General commanding the corps is pleased to hear
so favorable a report of the regiments of this Brigade.
By command of Major-General Sheridan.
G. P. THURSTON, _A. A. G. and Chief of Staff_.
With these extracts I may fitly close this brief story of a regiment
whose career was alike creditable to the State it represented and to the
men who served in its ranks. I do not claim for the Eighth higher
soldierly qualities than belonged to many other regiments. I simply
assert that, having great opportunities to serve its country, it was
always equal to them, and that wherever it was placed it did its whole
duty. It was the only Kansas regiment that served in the great “Army of
the Cumberland.” Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and
many other States had scores of splendid regiments in that grand army,
but the Eighth alone represented the martial spirit of Kansas in its
ranks. It would not be fair to say that the regiment was ever treated
unjustly because of this fact; but it is true that when it first joined
the army the Eighth was regarded with some suspicion and a great deal of
curiosity. Whatsoever respect it won, whatsoever reputation it made,
whatsoever fame it afterward enjoyed in that great army as a
well-disciplined, brave and patriotic body of soldiers, was squarely and
fairly earned by honest deserving, for it had neither original good
repute nor the kindly aid of other regiments bearing the name of the
same State, to promote its fortunes and its reputation. Alone in a great
army of two hundred thousand, this little body of seven hundred men kept
stainless the honor and added luster to the fame of Kansas. In less than
six months after it joined the Army of the Cumberland, no regiment was
better or more favorably known; and until its final muster-out it
steadily held the respect and confidence of its commanding generals and
of the troops with which it was most intimately associated.
In the noisy and distracting political feuds which were so numerous in
Kansas at that day, the Eighth had no part nor lot. It was so far away
as to be beyond even their echo. No man who belonged to it ever made
money out of the war. One and all, officers and men, they came out of
the army as poor in purse as when they entered it; but they brought back
and deposited in the State House at Topeka three torn and tattered flags
that all the wealth of this year’s harvest could not buy. Kansas will
preserve among her priceless treasures, as long as her government shall
endure, these ragged and faded flags—all that remain of the Eighth
Kansas Volunteer Infantry except its few hundred scattered survivors and
the history with which it glorified the name of the State.
SPEECH
Accepting the Republican Nomination for Governor, before the
Republican State Convention, July 17th, 1884.
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: I am profoundly sensible of the
distinguished honor you have conferred upon me. To be selected for the
Chief Magistracy of such a State as this, by even a bare majority of
such a Convention as this, would be a distinction of which any citizen
might justly be proud. To be nominated for that position, as I have
been, with such unprecedented unanimity, and to know that your
preference fairly voiced that of the great party you represent, is an
honor which not only fills the measure of my ambition, but overwhelms me
with anxiety. For how shall I deserve such generous confidence? How can
I make return for your kindness, your trust, your friendship?
I can only say, at this time, that I accept your nomination with sincere
gratitude, and that the duties and responsibilities it imposes on me I
shall endeavor to discharge faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my
ability, conscious that I have behind me, to guide, counsel and assist
me, the best brain, the best thought, the highest and most enlightened
intelligence, the purest and bravest purpose—in short, the Republican
party of Kansas.
This State has been my home for nearly twenty-eight years. With its
growth, its interests, its thoughts, my whole life, since boyhood, has
been identified. I have watched, with anxious solicitude, every step and
stage of its wonderful development, and every year my pride and
confidence in its great future have been more than justified. I have,
too, during all of that period, given my conscientious adherence to the
Republican party. Doubt or question as to what party my allegiance was
due, has never entered my mind. From the date of its admission into the
Union until the present time, the Republican party has steadily
controlled the destinies of this State. Can anyone truthfully assert
that it has not governed wisely and well? Let the results of its
rule—the abounding prosperity that fills the homes of Kansas; the peace,
order and sobriety prevailing throughout its borders; its marvelous
growth, unparalleled in the growth of any other American State—let these
accomplished facts make answer. In its infancy the Republican party of
Kansas enriched the history of a dark and troubled period with a record
of duties bravely and humanely discharged. In its youth, when war-drums
were throbbing and battle-flags were waving, the government it
inaugurated not only protected the borders of the State against hostile
invasion, but sent more men to the war, in proportion to population,
than any other State of the Union. In its manhood it has given to the
people an honest, economical, stable administration; has dotted every
hill-top with schools; has made generous provision for the unfortunate;
has sternly repressed outbreaking crime; and has made life and property
as secure as they are anywhere under the shining stars. This is, briefly
stated, the record of Republican administration in Kansas. Match it, if
you can, with the history of any party in any other State.
This is not the time for a discussion of the broader issues of national
politics. Blaine and Logan need no eulogy. For a quarter of a century,
in war and in peace, their career has been inseparably associated with
the grandest and most beneficent achievements of the Nation. The people
know them, and love them, and propose to elect them.
And now, gentlemen, before you, the delegated representatives of the
Republican party of Kansas, I renew my allegiance to Republicanism, to
Kansas; to her constitution, her laws, and to the platform here adopted,
which speaks for each and all of them.
SPEECH
Made before the Republican Convention of Atchison County, October 8,
1884.
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: Twenty-five years ago, on the 7th of the
month of May, I called to order the first Republican convention ever
held in this county. It was a mass convention, yet those in attendance
hardly exceeded in number the delegates assembled here to-day,
representing the Republican voters of Atchison county. It was called to
organize the Republican party of the county, and to elect delegates to
the first Republican Territorial convention, held at Osawatomie eleven
days later. The Republican party of Atchison county and of Kansas has,
therefore, just passed its twenty-fifth birthday. And to those who have
been identified with its history during that long, eventful period, this
rounding of a full quarter of a century of party life is an occasion of
more than ordinary interest.
Our political opponents now and then sneer at the fact that Republicans
“point with pride to the past.” But surely if the Republican party is to
survive for another quarter of a century, its most ardent friends could
wish for it no nobler record, no prouder history, no more beneficent and
useful career, than that of the past twenty-five years. Kansas was, in
1859, a poor, weak, distracted, oppressed Territory. What a great,
prosperous, imperial commonwealth it now is! A million and a quarter of
people, living in the richest and most prosperous State of the Union—a
State gridironed by railways, dotted with school-houses and churches,
and growing steadily, not only in wealth and power and influence, but in
all the elements of the most advanced civilization—the Kansas of to-day
is alike the pride of her own citizens, and the wonder and admiration of
the whole civilized world.
And why should not a political party, like an individual, proudly point
to an honorable record of noble endeavors and great achievements? It is
something to belong to a party that can be pointed to without blushing.
It is something to have a record that does not have to be explained,
denied, or lied about. When a man can say that he belongs to a party
which crushed the Rebellion, abolished Slavery, preserved the Union, and
made this a great Nation; a party that has dotted the land with
school-houses; a party that gave to the people the Homestead Law, and
established the best financial system the world ever knew, it is
something to be proud of. And when he can add that he belongs to a party
which intends to see that the civil rights of every American citizen are
protected at home or abroad; that every legal voter shall have a right
to cast one free, unintimidated ballot, and to have that ballot honestly
counted; that the debt of gratitude the country owes to the soldiers and
sailors of the Union shall be honestly remembered and repaid; that the
people shall be protected against unjust extortions or discriminations
by corporate power; and that laws enacted by the people, for the people,
shall be respected and enforced—all this is also something to be proud
of.
For twenty-five years I have annually, except during the period of the
war and for about two years thereafter, called to order the Republican
conventions of Atchison county. During all of that time I have been
Chairman of your County Central Committee. To-day, probably for the last
time, I discharge this pleasant duty, and I avail myself of the
opportunity to return my sincere thanks to the Republicans of this
county for their constant confidence and devoted friendship—a confidence
and friendship that has never been denied me; that has never wavered or
faltered during all the lights and shadows of twenty-five revolving
years. Before I was a voter you made me the Chairman of your County
Executive Committee, and annually, ever since, except during the years
when I was absent in the army, you have reëlected me to this place. The
measure of my gratitude to you, fellow-Republicans of Atchison county,
cannot be expressed in words. I have tried to express it by ardent
devotion to Republican principles, and by the most constant and
enthusiastic efforts to promote and secure the triumph of the Republican
party.
I want to add, as I think I can with entire truthfulness, that during
all of this period I have never attempted to act the part of a political
“boss.” I have avoided, rather than sought, authority or power to
dictate nominations, or to control the action of conventions. No man can
truthfully say that I have ever attempted to thwart a fair expression of
Republican sentiment, or to force upon the party an unwelcome or an
unworthy candidate, or to prevent the nomination of any man who was
clearly the choice of the Republican voters. No man can truthfully say
that I have ever provoked or encouraged factional feuds, or stirred up
personal strife, in the party ranks. No man can truthfully say that I
have ever refused to subordinate my personal interests, or my individual
preferences or prejudices, in order to promote or secure Republican
success. On the contrary, it has been my constant, earnest endeavor to
harmonize, consolidate and strengthen the Republican party; to preserve
peace in its ranks; and to make it a united, vigorous, and victorious
party. To this end, and for these objects, I have often endured, without
complaint, undeserved censure, and have preferred to be misunderstood
and even misrepresented rather than to imperil Republican success by
quarreling with those who misunderstood me. Time at last sets all things
right, and I have always been content to await the just judgment of its
final awards.
And now, gentlemen of the convention, invoking upon your deliberations
the blessings of harmony and the saving grace of Republican common
sense, and appealing to you to remember that your opponents alone
rejoice over and are benefited by personal and factional feuds in your
ranks, I await your pleasure.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Speech delivered at Washington, Kansas, October 24, 1884.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I must beg the charity alike of your silence and
of your patient forbearance. I am not an orator. I make no pretensions
as a public speaker. For while I have been talking to my fellow-citizens
of Kansas for more than a quarter of a century, it has been through the
medium of printed words, and not from the platform or on the stump. Only
because I have been nominated by the Republican party of the State for
an official position, and am thus, by the customs and usages of partisan
politics, expected to attend and address such assemblages as this, do I
appear before you. But I know the people of Kansas are as generous as
they are intelligent, and hence, although fully conscious of my own
deficiencies, I trust implicitly in their kindness, and shall endeavor
as best I can to explain to you the reasons why I am a Republican, and
why I think every good citizen should give his influence and his vote to
secure the triumph to that party.
I am a Republican, first, because I believe the Republican party to be
the most intelligent, progressive and beneficent political organization
ever known in this or any other country. Its whole existence has been a
blessing to the American people. It has enriched our history with a long
record of splendid achievements. It preserved the Union. It abolished
slavery. It enfranchised a race. It enacted the homestead law; and it
has girded the continent with railways. It has given the people a sound
currency, and it has protected, elevated and dignified American
industries and American labor. It has glorified the history of the age
with a long list of imperishable names—the names of Lincoln, and Seward,
and Grant, and Sherman, and Sumner, and Garfield, and Blaine, and Logan,
and a host of others, which will never fade from the recollections of a
grateful people. In twenty-three years it has raised this Nation to the
foremost place among the Nations of the earth, and made the American
name respected all around the globe. It has elevated, improved and
purified the civil service, and systematized all departments of the
Government. It has collected the public revenue at a less percentage of
cost than ever before, and handled the money of the Government at a far
less percentage of loss than ever before. It has generously cared for
the disabled soldiers of the Union, and for the widows and orphans of
our dead heroes. The true Republican glories in his party’s history. He
asks no man to forget a line or word of it.
I am a Republican because I am a KANSAN. I came to this State when it
was a Territory governed by the Democratic party. I learned something of
Democratic methods, policies and principles during those years. I saw a
free people denied their dearest political rights. I saw all the power
and authority of the National Administration exerted to fasten slavery
upon this State, against the will of a large majority of its citizens. I
know the history of that period by heart, and there is no record so
stained with usurpations, so crowded with wrong, injustice and tyranny,
so sullied with crime, as is the record of the years from 1855 to 1861,
when the Democratic party controlled the affairs of Kansas. Contrast
that period with the Republican administration of the past twenty-three
years, and the development, the enterprise, the prosperity, the
world-wide fame, that have gone hand in hand with it. I have seen Kansas
grow from a half-tilled, forlorn strip along the west bank of the
Missouri, into a splendid, imperial State, with nearly a million and a
quarter of inhabitants—a State with nearly eighteen million acres
occupied as farms, with over four thousand miles of railway, seven
thousand school-houses and a thousand churches, and with property
aggregating in value nearly five hundred million dollars. All this
growth, all this enterprise, all this marvelous prosperity, began with
and has continued under Republican rule—clean, healthy, intelligent
rule, worthily representing the brain and heart and energy of a
Republican constituency.
I am a Republican because I was a Union soldier. I know that there were
loyal Democrats, and I shall never fail to do full justice to their
patriotism. I have served side by side with them, in camp, and march,
and battle, and I honor their courage and their devotion to the flag of
the Republic. But I know, also, that while thousands of Democrats proved
themselves true patriots during the war, the Democratic party, as a
political organization, was persistently and consistently disloyal. At
the outbreak of the war, it denied the right of the Government to
“coerce a sovereign State,” and from the first flash of the gun at
Sumter until the last shot at Bentonville, it never ceased to predict
failure for the Union arms, and to strive to make its prophecy a
reality. It discouraged enlistments, resisted the draft, and denounced
and slandered the patient, suffering, great-souled President, upon whom
the sorrows of a stricken Nation hung so heavily. It encouraged foreign
countries to interfere in our affairs; it assailed the greenback
currency, issued to meet the expenses of the war, as “worthless rags;”
and it did all in its power to break down the credit of the Government.
And finally, just on the eve of our complete triumph, when Grant was
slowly tightening his grasp around the throat of the Rebellion, at
Richmond, and Sherman’s invincible army was preparing to enter Atlanta,
and the guns of Farragut were thundering victory in Mobile Bay, the
Democratic party, assembled in national convention at Chicago, formally
resolved that the war was “a failure,” and clamored for a dishonorable
peace.
This is the record, briefly told, of the Democratic party during the
civil war, when the fate of the Republic, and of human liberty the world
over, were trembling in the balance. I am a Republican, as I have said,
because of these facts. And while I honor the Democrat who, severing all
party ties, cast his lot with the Union during the war, I shall never
forgive, and never cease to execrate, the man who, during that dark
period, was, in his sympathies and his actions, that meanest of all
created beings, a “Copperhead.”
A generation has grown up since the close of the Rebellion, and there
are those in this audience, I have no doubt, who do not understand the
full meaning of this detested name. For their instruction, I want to add
a few words concerning it. The underlying cause of the civil war was the
affirmation of the right of secession. The Southern idea—and it was one
that had been taught for generations—was that the States were sovereign;
that a citizen’s first allegiance was due to his State; that the Union
was a mere compact of agreeing States, from which any one or more had a
right to withdraw whenever longer association was not desirable to it or
them. The Northern idea was that the Union of the States constituted a
Nation; that the Republic could not be broken up by one or more of the
States; that a citizen’s first allegiance was due to the Nation; and
that the interests of all the States were so indissolubly associated
that the Republic had a sovereign right to protect them against attack
by one or more of the States.
Educated for generations to believe in the right of secession, it is not
strange that Southern men who did not believe any real cause for a
dissolution of the Union existed, went with their States when they
determined to secede. Taught, from infancy, that their first allegiance
was due to the State, it was not singular that they rallied to its
standard when it called on them, and that, during four years of
desperate war, they fought, with a courage and steadfastness that
challenges the admiration of all men, for the idea, the principle, they
had been educated to believe was right.
But the men of the Northern States who sympathized with the Rebellion,
and did everything in their power to promote its success, had no such
excuse. Their conduct cannot be palliated or defended on any possible
ground. If they believed in the Northern idea, that a citizen’s
allegiance was due to the Nation, it was their plain duty to support the
Union cause. If they believed in the Southern idea, that a citizen’s
allegiance was due to his State, it was equally their plain duty to
stand by and defend their own State and the cause it maintained.
The most loyal man can, therefore, respect the motives of the men of
Southern birth who followed their States. But what man, Northern or
Southern, Union or Confederate, can respect the motives and actions of
those malignant, crawling, venomous human reptiles known as
“Copperheads”—the men of Northern birth and education who kept up a
constant “fire in the rear” upon the soldiers from their own States, and
whose conduct prolonged the war for years, made thousands of graves in
the Southern valleys, and filled thousands of Northern homes—the homes
of their neighbors and townsmen—with a grief whose shadow has never been
lifted, even to this day.
I am a Republican because I am in favor of an honest ballot and a fair
count. No right-thinking, rightly-educated American citizen will ever
grumble at the adverse decision of an honest majority. But if our form
of government is to endure, the right of every legal voter to cast one
vote for which party he pleases to cast it, and to have that vote
counted as it was cast, must be placed beyond doubt or dispute. For
nearly ten years past, in no less than eight States of this Union,
popular elections have been a cheat and a farce. The shot-gun or
tissue-ballots have made the decisions recorded at the polls. In at
least five States, Mississippi, Louisiana, South and North Carolina and
Florida, there has not been even the pretense of a fair, free vote for
ten years past. Each one of these States is Republican by as large and
as reliable a majority as is Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas. But the voice of
their legal voters is systematically and regularly stifled, either by
force or fraud. There is no issue in politics, no question before the
American people, so momentous in the consequences of its decision as is
this one of a fair, free, honest ballot-box. Because its settlement
involves all other questions that the ballot-box should settle. If I am
prevented from voting by terrorism; or if my vote, when cast, is not
counted, or is swamped by two other ballots fraudulently put into the
ballot-box, I am absolutely deprived of the highest privilege of
American citizenship—the constitutional right of aiding to choose the
men who make laws for my government and expend the money I pay in the
form of taxes. I shall never cease voting the Republican ticket until
there is a final end put to terrorism, and tissue-ballots, and false
counting, in the States lately in rebellion. All other questions, in my
judgment, are dwarfed in the presence of this all-embracing,
all-controlling question of a free, pure ballot-box. For that is the
very foundation-stone, not only of popular government, but of human
rights. On its proper settlement depends the intelligent, rightful
decision of all other questions, social, moral, economic, or
political—more than that, the very existence of the Government itself.
If elections are a cheat, the rule of the minority is substituted for
that of the majority. Majorities do not cheat at the polls. Ballot-box
frauds are always the work of minorities. And if they are successful and
long continued, what results follow? First, and inevitably, contempt for
the decision of elections; then a refusal to acquiesce in the results so
obtained; then social turmoil, rebellion, and civil war.
I am a Republican because I am opposed to the domination of the “solid
South.” For fifty years the Southern States dominated this country. They
were feebler in numbers, in wealth, in enterprise, in commerce, in all
the elements that make a nation strong and great, than were the Northern
States. Yet until the outbreak of the war, they governed the country
absolutely. They made a frantic appeal to arms when their domination was
at last challenged, and were crushed by arms. They have for the past
eight years been kept “solid” by the most atrocious crimes that ever
disgraced a civilized nation—by terrorism, by the Ku-Klux Klans, by
midnight murder, by tissue ballots, by wholesale cheating and false
counting. A South made “solid” by such methods is a standing menace to
free government, and should be confronted by a North made “solid” by
love of justice, peace, fair play, and a free and unintimidated ballot.
The Republican party should remain in power until a Republican is as
safe and as free in Mississippi as a Democrat is in Kansas; until every
citizen, white or black, can cast his vote without fear, and have it
honestly counted; and until the South consents to accept the idea of
political toleration, and gives up the idea that it can ever again be
the master of this Government.
I am a Republican because the Republican party is not ashamed of its
past. No Republican is afraid or ashamed to have his children read the
history of the past quarter of a century. The Democratic party, when
anything is said of its past history, pleads for the mercy of oblivion
and forgetfulness. If the false disciple was to come back to earth, he
would probably say: “What, are you fellows still harping about those
thirty pieces of silver?” In very much the same mournful, injured tone,
the Democrats say to the Republicans: “What, are you still flaunting the
bloody shirt?” The faithful Republican has a right to be proud of his
party’s history. It has never abandoned a position it has once taken,
and it has never taken a position not in harmony with the greatest good
of the greatest number. No Republican ever tore down his country’s flag,
and spat upon it. No Republican ever called the soldiers of the Union
“Lincoln hirelings” and “lop-eared Dutch.” No Republican ever mounted
guard around the prison hell at Andersonville. No Republican ever
rejoiced when the armies of the Union suffered a defeat, or grieved when
the hosts of the Rebellion were driven from fields of battle. No
Republican was ever a member of those traitorous, sneaking, cowardly
Copperhead organizations, the “Knights of the Golden Circle” and the
“Sons of Liberty.” No Republican belonged to Quantrill’s brutal gang of
ruffians and assassins, who burned defenseless Lawrence, and murdered
her unarmed citizens. No Republican ever rode at night with the bloody
Ku-Klux. No Republican ever took part in such brutal massacres as those
at Hamburg and New Orleans. No Republican ever attempted to win a
National election by forging a letter, or blackguarding a good wife and
mother, or defacing the tombstone of a little child. No Republican ever
voted to disfranchise the soldiers of the Union while they were absent
fighting the battles of the country. No Republican ever called Abraham
Lincoln a “baboon and an ape,” or denounced Ulysses S. Grant as a
“drunken tanner” and a “brutal butcher,” or was caught, at midnight,
scrawling “329” on his neighbor’s doorstep. There is a splendid anthem
which, during the war, was sung in every camp, and to whose majestic
music a million soldiers marched—the Song of Old John Brown. There is
another, no less thrilling in its glorious chorus, which warms and stirs
the hearts of patriotic Americans whenever they hear its splendid
music—the song which tells the story of the great March to the Sea. No
Democratic Convention ever sang, no Democratic Convention can sing or
dares to sing, either of these songs.
Twenty-one years ago this fall a regiment of Kansas soldiers was
engaged, for two days, in a desperate conflict with the armed hosts of
treason, in the tangled underbrush at Chicamagua. Two years before, they
had marched away from the State, proud, happy, hopeful, each with the
glad picture of a country saved imprinted upon his heart and lighting up
the future of his imagination. Life was as dear and love as sweet to
those Kansas boys as to any of you assembled here to-day. But when the
sun went down on the second day of that fierce battle, over sixty per
cent. of those Kansas boys—sixty out of every hundred—were lying, dead
or wounded, on the blood-stained field. They had been, for more than two
years, my comrades, my friends, my “boys,” and I loved them, one and
all. Not a shot fired at them, not a bullet that laid one of them low,
was fired by a Republican.
These are things which, for one, I never intend to forget. I don’t want
to forget them. I take pride, as a Republican, in remembering that no
Republican has to apologize for any such wrongs, or crimes, or outrages
as these.
The Democrats sneer at this kind of talk as “waving the bloody shirt.”
But this insulting sneer only illustrates the character of that party.
The “bloody shirt” that is thus derided is the old gray army shirt that
covered the breasts of patriot soldiers, and was torn and stained by
bullets aimed at the life of the Republic. That old gray army shirt went
over the Rebel works at Donelson, through the cedars at Stone River,
into the tangled forest at Chicamauga, and up the blazing heights of
Mission Ridge. That old gray army shirt was torn and stained at Corinth
and Antietam, and sanctified at Prairie Grove, Gettysburg, and Atlanta.
That old gray army shirt is as full of glory, and as beautiful, in every
true patriot’s eyes, as are the stars and stripes of our splendid flag,
because it typifies the loyalty, the heroism, and the sacrifices of the
glorious men who wore it, and with whose patriotic blood it was
reddened. This is “the bloody shirt” that is made, in every campaign,
the stale joke of every Democratic orator and the cheap catch-word of
every Democratic journal.
I am a Republican because I am opposed to a “change” merely for the sake
of change. This restless, senseless clamor is the very essence of
stupidity. A demand for a change should have back of it some substantial
reasons. There are absolutely none in the present condition of the
National Government. The country is substantially prosperous. Labor is
in demand, and commands good prices; capital is busy and secure. The
party in power has justified the confidence of the people. Money is as
plenty now as it has ever been, and it has a steady value. The man who
has a dollar in his pocket knows that speculators and gold-gamblers
cannot, by some juggle, take five cents or ten cents from its value, in
twenty-four hours, as they could a few years ago. The public burdens
have been largely reduced. Our exports far exceed our imports, and our
balance-sheet with the world shows an immense sum in our favor. The boom
of business is heard in the land. The preachers of calamity are out of
date. Commerce, industry, enterprise, capital, labor, all feel the
impulse of substantial prosperity running through every artery of public
and private activities. These are the evidences, on every hand, of the
wisdom of Republican administration. And what are we offered as an
inducement for “a change”? Absolutely nothing save the cheap
protestations of cheap and hungry Democratic orators and newspapers
that, should their party be returned to power, it does not intend, as it
threatened a few years ago, to destroy the public credit, cripple
manufacturing industries, debase the currency, and destroy our banking
system. Only this, and nothing more.
I am a Republican because I am in favor of protecting American
industries and American labor. The population of the United States is
increasing at the rate of a million a year; the wealth of our country is
augmenting at the rate of two hundred millions annually; its coal area
is more than six times as great as that of all Europe; its iron mines
are capable of supporting a prodigious manufacturing population; its
railways aggregate nearly a hundred thousand miles; its agricultural and
mineral resources are incalculable; and it can produce, within its own
territorial limits, almost everything produced in any other country of
the habitable globe. Such a country as this, with such vast and varied
productions and resources, must legislate, not for the world, but for
itself. During the twenty-four years of Republican rule it has had an
unexampled growth. Its population has increased over sixty per cent.;
its agricultural exports over six hundred per cent.; and its foreign
trade from seven hundred millions to nearly twelve hundred millions of
dollars annually. Under Republican administration opportunities for
employment have enormously multiplied, and consumers and producers have
constantly been brought nearer to one another, through the vast increase
of manufacturing industries. At the same time nearly every manufactured
article is cheaper, to-day, in the United States than it was thirty
years ago, when ninety per cent. of our manufactured goods were made
abroad, instead of only ten per cent., as now. The Republican policy of
protection to home industries is making this a self-sustaining,
self-relying country. It is giving muscle an equal chance with money. It
is developing and enlarging all the sources of National prosperity. It
has made all the people happier, healthier, and more contented than they
ever were before, or could be under any other policy. Millions of men,
who win their bread by the labor of their hands or brain, know this, and
they are swelling the ranks of the great party that has always been the
advocate and protector of American labor. The black banners of industry
that float in the morning air from countless factories all over the
land; the clangor of a hundred thousand trailing trains; the whirling
clatter of a million wheels and spindles—these are the sign-manuals
which the Republican policy of protection has written, in indelible
letters, on the face of the busy land.
And now, having given you the reasons for “the faith that is in
me”—having told you why I am a Republican, and why, in my judgment,
every good citizen ought to be a Republican—I want to add a few words of
personal import. I am the candidate of this great party for the highest
executive office in the gift of the people of Kansas. I was nominated by
the unanimous vote of the largest delegate convention ever held in the
State; by a Convention representing every county, city and township in
the State; by a Convention whose proceedings were distinguished for
fairness, decorum, intelligence, and sobriety; by a Convention whose
delegates were chosen with almost unprecedented unanimity, and who
fairly, I think I have good reason for saying, voiced the preference of
a vast majority of the Republicans of Kansas. I was nominated by this
great Convention, not only with entire unanimity, but without pledges or
promises from me, and without trades, combinations, or any manner of
political trickery. I was nominated on a platform which any honest,
self-respecting, law-respecting, law-obeying Republican can indorse, and
ought to indorse. Yet I am told that there are men, claiming to be
Republicans, who say they are going to vote against me, and vote for my
opponent, because they don’t like the platform.
To this class of men, and to all others, I want to say a few words. All
State officers are required to make solemn oath that they will support
the Constitution of the State, and the Constitution specifically sets
forth that the Governor “shall see that the laws are faithfully
executed.” The Republican party, in its platform, simply affirms this
plain Constitutional duty. The people of the State, in their sovereign
capacity, and without distinction of party, have adopted a
Constitutional provision known as the prohibitory amendment. It was
voted for by nearly one hundred thousand citizens; it received a
majority of nearly eight thousand of the votes cast on the question; and
it received the support of nearly nine thousand more voters than cast
their ballots for the present Governor, whose election has never been
challenged. The Supreme Court of the State has affirmed the validity of
this amendment, and of all the forms by which it was adopted. Yet it is
asserted that because the Republican party recognizes, in its platform,
these unchallenged, unquestionable facts, and demands that State
officers shall faithfully and honestly discharge the duties imposed upon
them by the Constitution and by their oath of office, I am to be opposed
by men calling themselves Republicans.
If this be true, I shall make no complaint. I want to be fairly,
explicitly understood. If I am elected Governor, when, in the presence
of Almighty God and the sovereign people of Kansas, I raise my hand to
take the oath of office, I shall not do so with falsehood on my lips and
perjury in my heart. I will not equivocate. I will do my duty, under the
Constitution and laws I have sworn to see faithfully executed. I make no
apology to any person under the shining stars for holding this faith. I
am grateful—sincerely grateful—to the Republicans of Kansas for the
distinguished honor they have conferred upon me. I appreciate their
confidence, their esteem, their friendship, and I shall try, earnestly
try, to deserve it. But I should feel that I had dishonored the great
party to secure whose triumph I have devoted all the years of my
manhood; that I had brought deserved reproach upon myself, and the wife
and little children who bear my name, if, having been honored by an
election as the Chief Executive of this splendid, prosperous,
intelligent Commonwealth, I should, by any act, or word, or deed, prove
false to my oath of office, or to the duties I voluntarily assumed.
I did not vote for the prohibitory amendment. But I accept, as a
law-respecting citizen, the decision of the majority on this question.
Ours is a people’s government, a Republican government, in which the
majority rule and ought to rule. And he is neither a good Republican nor
a true American who refuses to subordinate his own opinions, his own
preferences or prejudices, to the decision of the majority. This is the
very foundation-stone on which the whole fabric of our government rests.
Destroy it, remove it, and lawlessness, anarchy, civil war, are the
natural and inevitable consequences. I believe in the right of the
people to rule. I am for peace, for order, for liberty regulated by law,
and for the conservators of all of them—popular education, intelligence,
sobriety, and a Constitutional government which the chosen officers of
the people administer in accordance with the expressed will of the
people, for the people, and to promote the people’s interests.
If there is a Republican, here or anywhere in the State—a Republican who
glories in his party’s glorious record, as I do; who is proud of the
splendid achievements with which it has illuminated the brightest pages
of the world’s progress, as I am; who believes it is the party of
intelligence, of social order, of law, as I do—if there is a man here
who is, or ever has been, a Republican of this order, and who is going
to vote against this great, intelligent, beneficent, law-respecting
party, in the present contest in Kansas, because it sustains the
Constitution of the State, and demands that sworn officers shall
faithfully and honestly execute the laws of the State, I should like to
see him. If there is such a man here, I should like to see him stand up
and be counted.
Such a man—if there is one—is not, and never was, a true Republican. He
may have voted the Republican ticket now and then, and called himself a
Republican; but he has never had, he has not now, the real grace of true
Republicanism in his heart. More than this, he is not even a true
American. The genuine American respects the decisions of majorities, and
bows in humble submission to the majesty of law. He loves the flag of
his country, not because it is red, white, and blue, but because it is
the symbol of the people’s government, of social order, of the
Constitution and laws of the land. When the soldier saw it, among the
tangled underbrush at Chicamauga, or moving up the embattled heights of
Mission Ridge, or half enshrouded in the sulphurous smoke at Gettysburg,
or planted amid the dead and dying on the ramparts of Vicksburg, it was
not a piece of striped cloth he saw, but his country’s body and
blood—her education, her progress, her moral, social, commercial, and
political systems, her Constitution and her laws—and this was why he was
ready to follow the flag, and fight for it, and die for it if need be,
that all it symbolized might be preserved, a priceless heritage for all
the generations of men.
Alike as a citizen or as a public officer I shall at all times maintain
and uphold these ideas of private and public duty, because the whole
fabric of our American system of government rests upon them.
Now, my friends, I shall not detain you longer. In telling you why I am
a Republican, I have stated the reasons why, in my judgment, every man
who loves his country, every citizen who values good government, every
citizen who appreciates the blessings of liberty regulated by law,
should be a Republican. And a Republican, my friends, is a man who votes
the Republican ticket. This little fact ought to be understood. The man
who says he is a Republican, and in the same breath declares that he is
going to vote the Democratic ticket, or for Democratic candidates,
is—well, he need not be surprised if everybody mistakes him for a
Democrat. As the old colored woman said: “It’s ’stonishin’ how dem
pickanninies look like one anoder—’speshully Pomp!” If you are a
Republican, stand by your party and its candidates. “Kicking” is the
characteristic of a mule, but I never heard that it added either to the
value of the animal or to the esteem in which he is held. The horse that
has a habit of “bolting” when the race is on, may be a good-enough
horse, but he never wins either confidence, cheers, or purses. The brood
of “kickers” and “bolters” is not one that should be emulated. Stand up
for your party, wholly, completely, or not at all. Keep in its ranks, or
go over to the enemy. A beautiful spectacle—a spectacle for gods and
men—is the Republican who says he is going to march through this
campaign that is just opening, shouting for Blaine and Logan, but will
march with a crowd that regards no slander too vile, no abuse too low,
no denunciation too vulgar or too bitter to apply to Blaine and Logan!
Just think of a Democratic procession with these “kickers” in its
ranks—before them an old-fashioned Democratic banner, inscribed: “Do you
want your daughter to marry a nigger?” And behind them other banners,
bearing such inscriptions as: “Jim Blaine, the Tattooed Man—Read the
Mulligan Letters;” or, “Jack Logan Enlisting Men for the Rebel Army;”
or, “The Republican Party Must Go that Free Whisky May Come!” Don’t you
think it would stir the heart and warm the blood of a true Republican to
march with such a crowd? Could any genuine Republican do it?
With such a record as it can point to, the Republican party has a right
to expect the continued devotion of the best minds and hearts of the
country. It has a right to more than this. It has a right to expect of
its members and friends that unity, concord and tolerance so essential
to its success. It has a right to demand of its members that they shall
not indulge in useless quarrels over differences which only the lapse of
time can finally adjust and reconcile. Every soldier who followed the
old flag will, I think, call to mind occasions when he firmly believed
that the war was not conducted as it should be, and when the gravest
differences of opinion concerning the methods and policy of his
commanders were widely prevalent. But if he was a true soldier, he
remembers also, and with justifiable pride, that while he occasionally
indulged a soldier’s privilege, and did a little wholesome private
growling, he never for an instant forgot his duty to his country, and
abated no jot of his enthusiastic devotion to her cause. During the war
there was only one Fitz John Porter. The Republican who thinks Porter
was justly punished, should not, in politics, emulate his example. The
true soldier was for his country, no matter how his commanders conducted
the war; the true Republican, animated by the same spirit, aims his guns
at the common enemy, and never at the soldiers of the Republican ranks.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884.
Speech delivered at Manhattan, Kansas, November 21st, 1884.
MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF MANHATTAN: I came to your jubilee, as
some of you know, with grave reluctance. This was not because I failed
to appreciate your generous kindness in desiring to celebrate my
election. It was not because I was not sincerely thankful to you for
your earnest support in the canvass just closed. It was not because I
was not deeply and profoundly sensible of the great honor done me by the
people of this intelligent and prosperous State. Nor was it because I
would not willingly and gladly meet with the people of this
enterprising, beautiful and growing city—the seat of one of the most
important of our great institutions of learning—on the occasion of any
social or political celebration to which their partiality and kindness
might summon me.
But when I first received your invitation, the result of the great
quadrennial struggle between the opposing and enduring forces of
Loyalty, Liberty and Progress was not yet determined. And it seemed to
me that no gratulation personal to myself, no celebration of a victory
that embraced only the narrow confines of a State, was allowable while
the tremendous issues of the National contest were involved in doubt.
I come now, in response to your summons, with a heavy heart. The
Republican victory in Kansas was, I know, complete. The largest vote
ever polled in the State shows the largest Republican majority, and the
vote cast for me exceeds the wildest anticipations of my most sanguine
friends. To receive nearly double the votes cast for the Republican
nominee two years ago; to turn a minority of nearly ten thousand into a
majority of nearly forty thousand; to be indorsed by a majority of the
votes cast in all but about half a dozen counties of the State; to
receive over twenty-five thousand more votes than were cast for the
Republican candidate for President four years ago; and notwithstanding
the fact that the whole force of the enemy’s attack was massed against
me, to fall only a little more than six thousand votes behind the poll
for James G. Blaine, who for ten years past has been the idol of the
people of Kansas—this is indeed a victory, a triumph, of which any man
would have a just right to feel proud.
And I certainly am proud of it, and as grateful as I am proud. I am
grateful to the generous Republicans of the State, who, after nominating
me with unprecedented unanimity, supported me with unparalleled
earnestness and enthusiasm. I am grateful to the eloquent and vigorous
speakers, who, in city, town, village and school-house, pleaded my cause
with the people, defended me against unjust assault, and did far more
than justice to my services or my deserving. I am grateful, especially,
to the thousands of earnest, enthusiastic young men whose torches, for
weeks, turned night into day from Doniphan to Barber, and from Cherokee
to Cheyenne, and who, with flashing flambeaux, blazing rockets and loud
hurrahs, often did what neither the logic, the eloquence nor the wit of
orators could do, to arouse the sluggish and convert the doubtful. I am
grateful to the bright, enterprising, enthusiastic journalists of
Kansas—and no State in the Union can boast of brighter or better
newspapers than can Kansas—who so ardently and intelligently supported
me. I am grateful to hundreds of Democrats and Greenbackers in the
State, who, believing that I stood for obedience to law, voted for me. I
am grateful even to the opposition, who, as a general rule, treated me
courteously and fairly. The exceptions to this rule only emphasized it.
There is in me, therefore, no lack of gratitude for the signal honor
conferred upon me by the people of Kansas. Indeed, the measure of my
gratitude is so full and overflowing that it weighs upon me. I feel
under obligations to so many people, I am profoundly grateful to so
many, that when I think of it all, and of how I am to testify my
gratitude or requite the obligations I am under, I am overwhelmed with a
sense of the poverty of my vocabulary of thankfulness, and of the vain
aspiration of my desire to return even a tithe of my multitudinous
obligations.
But, grateful as I am to the Republicans of Kansas for the signal honor
they have conferred upon me—an honor which fills the full measure of my
ambition—and proud as I am of the magnificent victory won in Kansas, I
cannot forget that the Republican banner of the Nation is, for the first
time in twenty-five years, trailing in defeat. If I loved the party
merely for its gifts of honor and of office; if I cared nothing for its
principles, and had no faith in their power to benefit and bless the
people of America; if I regarded the contest between the Democratic and
the Republican parties as a mere scramble for the spoils of office, I
would be content with my own personal victory, and accept it as all that
I was interested in. But I am a Republican, not only in name, but in
fact. I am a Republican because I sincerely believe that the Republican
party is the purest, the most intelligent, the most progressive, the
most beneficent organization the world has ever known. I am a Republican
because the Republican party saved the Union; because it abolished
slavery; because it enfranchised the slaves; because it has made this
Nation great, free, prosperous, and self-sustaining.
I am a Republican because the Republican party advocates the protection
of American industries and labor; because it is the party of
school-houses, of education, of social order, of liberty regulated by
law; and because it is a party that has never feared to attack vice,
however strongly entrenched it might be.
I am a Republican because the Republican party would be ashamed to
prefer a Northern Copperhead to a Union soldier.
I am a Republican because the Republican party does not, for
expediency’s sake, ignore its greatest and bravest advocates and
statesmen, while it sits upon a pedestal, like a Gessler’s hat in the
market-place, a preposterous political accident, who had lived
throughout the tremendous events of the past quarter of a century,
utterly unknown outside of the small place wherein he resided.
The Republican party has enriched the history of the age with a long
list of imperishable names, and among them all no one shines with a more
brilliant luster than that of its brave and glorious leader in the late
campaign, James G. Blaine.
Is it strange, then, that even in the midst of our rejoicing over our
victory in Kansas my heart turns to the man who should have been the
central thought and figure of this jubilee—to the defeated leader—but
still the leader of the Republican hosts, as much to-day as a month ago;
to the Greatheart of the party, who never sulked in his tent when others
were preferred; and who never treacherously stabbed his party in order
to defeat a political rival.
There are to-day, all over the land, men who proudly boast that they
voted for Henry Clay, who, in his day and generation, was the greatest,
bravest and noblest of American statesmen, and who will be remembered
and revered a thousand years after the eleventh President of the United
States is forgotten. And so, a quarter of a century hence, the young
Americans who this year cast their first votes for James G. Blaine and
John A. Logan, the greatest statesman and the greatest volunteer soldier
of this age, will boast of it as the proudest act of their lives.
The great West presented, in the contest just closed, a stainless record
of unfaltering devotion to Republican principles. Here in the West, the
land of freedom and loyalty, the home of school-houses and of soldiers,
the Republican candidates received a support that was as enthusiastic as
it was overwhelming. The best blood and brain and energy of America
abide in the West. It is the bright boy of the family who leaves the old
homestead to make a name and a fortune for himself. It is the mother of
bright and energetic children who, when her husband talks of removing to
a new and broader country, gives a brave and willing consent. These are
the men and women who have peopled this goodly Western land and
transformed it by the magic touch of industry, energy and intelligence
into the granary of the world. And this is the land, the broad, rich,
prosperous land, where a big-hearted, big-brained people gave the
greatest and most brilliant of living Americans his largest and
heartiest support. We can at least rejoice over this result of the
campaign, and point with pride to the fact that Kansas, in her
Republican majority, leads all the other States.
The Republican party has lost a battle. It lost some during the civil
war. It is neither disheartened, dismayed, nor panic-stricken. It will
rally its forces, form its lines, and prepare for the contest of 1888.
It embraces within its ranks the best heart and brain of the American
people. It is the party of proud memories and glorious aspirations. It
has never done anything it has to apologize for or feel ashamed of. It
has governed the country wisely, honestly, bravely. It is as great a
party to-day as it was when Abraham Lincoln led it to victory, or when
Ulysses S. Grant was its commander, or when James A. Garfield was its
chosen candidate. Alike in fields of war, or finance, or administration,
it has justified the highest expectations of the loyalty, the honesty
and the intelligence of the Nation. Pharisees revile, demagogues
denounce, cranks rail at, and traitors hate it. But it is the party of
the honest, sensible, practical, logical people of the country, and to
them it can safely trust for vindication and final victory. Four years
of Democratic stupidity, dishonesty, arrogance and disloyalty, will
nauseate the Republic, and the people will turn to the Republican party
as the needle does to the pole, and gladly and proudly restore it to the
public confidence it has done nothing to forfeit, and to the power it
has never abused.
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Inaugural Address, delivered in the Hall of the House of
Representatives, January 12, 1885.
MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Many thousands of years ago it
was said, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself, as he
that putteth it off.” And upon an occasion of this character, such an
admonition is peculiarly pertinent.
My predecessors can tell of duties performed, of purposes accomplished,
of deeds and words that are now a part of the history of Kansas. I stand
on the threshold of two years of official labor and responsibility, and
look into the unknown future with grave anxiety and apprehension. A
great State has signally honored me. A brave, intelligent and generous
people have given me their confidence. How can I deserve this kindness
and partiality? How may I acceptably fill a place so worthily occupied
by a long line of able and eminent men? These are the questions to which
I must make answer, not here and now, in the presence of this vast
audience, but in the days that are to come, each bringing its new cares,
duties, and responsibilities.
I have known all the Governors of this State, many of them intimately,
and I take this occasion to say that I believe Kansas has, in the past,
been fortunate in the choice of her chief Executive officers. First on
the list, in eminence and usefulness as well as date of service, is the
name of Charles Robinson. Long before Kansas was admitted into the
Union, his splendid courage and comprehensive ability had made him the
leader of the Free-State men. He enjoys the distinction of having been
elected Governor under two Constitutions, and of having guided the State
through the darkest and stormiest years of its history. The old War
Governor is still hale and hearty, and as honored in private life as he
was in public station.
Following him came Thomas Carney, a trained man of business, who, in a
critical period of our history, performed the part that Robert Morris
did in the infancy of the Republic—pledged his private fortune to save
the financial credit of the State.
Samuel J. Crawford, a gallant and enterprising soldier, succeeded
Carney. He served the State creditably, and is still in its service,
employed as its Agent at Washington.
Then came James M. Harvey, a steadfast and sturdy soldier, plain and
unpretentious, but of sterling honesty. Assuming high station without
pride, he resigned it without murmuring. Yet he alone of our Governors
reached the goal at which so many of them have aimed—the United States
Senate.
Thomas J. Osborn, the most adroit and skillful politician of them all,
followed Harvey. He stepped out of the Executive office into the
diplomatic service of the country, in which he has grown gray and
handsome.
George T. Anthony, a man of imposing presence, an eloquent and forcible
speaker, and a thorough man of affairs, succeeded Osborn. He has, since
retiring from office, borne a conspicuous part in the construction of a
great National thoroughfare connecting the Republics of the United
States and Mexico. Now, returned home, he is again in the service of the
State, representing his district in the Legislature.
Then came John P. St. John. A ready and impressive speaker, he has since
achieved a National reputation as an advocate of the temperance cause.
Last on the list is the name of my townsman and neighbor, George W.
Glick, the first member of his party to be elected Governor of Kansas. A
capable lawyer and an experienced legislator, always energetic and
industrious, I think I may say, here in his presence, that even his
political opponents will credit him with a sincere desire to promote the
welfare of the State, however much they may disagree with him concerning
the methods or policy by which such a result is best attained.
With the example, the experience, the precedents established by these,
my predecessors, I enter upon the duties of the office to which I have
been elected. And if, at the close of my term, I can surrender to my
successor the trusts I now assume, and know that my administration has
been marred by as few faults and failures, and distinguished by such a
record of duties honestly, faithfully and intelligently discharged, as
are the records of my predecessors generally, I shall certainly feel
that I “have kept the faith.”
THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.
Speech at the opening of the “Soldiers’ Fair and Festival,” Topeka,
January 28, 1885.
“_Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, these three; but the greatest
of these is Charity._”
In no age, and among no other people, have these virtues been so
signally illustrated as they have been in our own age and by the people
of the United States.
Faith in the Republic, in the grandeur of its power, in the beneficence
of its institutions, and in the freedom, humanity and justice of its
rule—this sentiment animated and inspired the soldiers of the Union
during the long and dreadful years of the late civil war.
The glad picture of a country saved, disenthralled and enfranchised—this
was the hope, imprinted on their hearts, that made their long marches
less wearisome, that shortened the lonely hours of the night watch, and
that nerved their arms amid the smoke of battle.
And the greatest of these virtues has been illustrated, during the two
decades since the war, by the quick, unfailing and generous response of
the people to every appeal made in behalf of those who thus risked
health and life that the Republic might be preserved.
The inspiration that prompts and organizes such a charity as this, in
which you, ladies and gentlemen of Topeka, have engaged, is in every
sense honorable to the Capital City. Kindly consideration of the needs
and sufferings of the poor or unfortunate is always a gracious
sentiment. But it is doubly so when it has for its object the relief of
men who once periled their lives for their country, and I am honored by
the part you have allotted me, to formally open this fair and festival.
In the bustle, rush and interest of personal and public activities, the
people sometimes forget how immeasurable is the debt of gratitude the
Republic owes to the soldiers. I have, now and then, heard good citizens
bewailing the burden of our pension list, and thoughtlessly declaring
that Congress was extravagantly generous in the pensions given those who
were disabled in the service. It is probably true that in some instances
the generosity of the Government has been imposed upon. But would any
young man in this assemblage consent to lose an arm for thirteen dollars
a month, or a leg for thirty-two dollars a month, or to go through life
blind and helpless for seventy-two dollars a month? Measure the
sacrifice with the pension, and no true-hearted, right-thinking man or
woman will say that the Government has done more than justice to its
disabled soldiers.
Nor should it be forgotten, in considering the obligation of the people
and the Government to the soldiers, that there was a time, not many
years ago, when everything in this country—its Government, its lands,
its money—was absolutely at the mercy of the army. When, at the close of
the late civil war, the men who had followed Grant, and Sherman, and
Thomas, and Meade, marched in review down Pennsylvania avenue, in
Washington, on their bayonets rested all control, all law, all public
authority. They had only to say to Congress, “These States we have
conquered are ours; divide their territory and give us patents for it,”
and it would have been done. They had only to say to the President,
Congress, and people: “We have each earned pensions of one hundred
dollars a month—enact such a law,” and it would have been enacted. Or if
they had declared, “Give every soldier’s widow or orphan one thousand
dollars a year,” where was the power to say nay? The Government? It was
their strong and steady columns. The Congress? They could have sent a
Corporal with his guard and brushed it away as you would a fly from your
hand. The Constitution? It was a mere faded parchment, as dry and
useless as a last year’s bird’s nest, if these men in faded blue
uniforms, marching with their tattered flags—these men who had looked
death in the face on dozens of battle-fields—had so decreed. But they
used their great power with the chivalry of heroes and the unselfishness
of patriots. They demanded nothing of the country they had saved.
Quietly and modestly they returned to the peaceful homes and walks they
had left, and took up again the broken threads of their old life.
Thousands of these soldiers contracted, during their service, the seeds
of diseases that were only developed years afterward. The surgeon of my
own Regiment, an old and capable physician, once told me that every man
in the army marching to Atlanta under Sherman, would sooner or later
suffer from the effects of the exposures and hardships of that trying
campaign.
And for unfortunates of this character, whose disabilities were
developed long after the war, the Government provides no pensions. Death
may result, but the widows and orphans of such soldiers can claim no
bounty from the country. For the relief of these soldiers, their widows
and orphans, private benevolence must be appealed to. And this is the
purpose of your organization. It is an object that should enlist the
sympathies of all, and I sincerely trust that the largest measure of
success may reward your efforts, and that a fund, ample for the purposes
indicated, may be provided.
A WAR-TIME PICTURE.
Speech, at a Grand Army Camp-Fire, held in Topeka, February 13,
1885.
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY: The Chairman of your committee called on me,
on Wednesday evening last, and asked me to occupy five or six minutes,
this evening, in a talk to you. I could not well refuse, though it
seemed to me I had nothing of interest to say. But after he had gone,
and the task I had assumed began to press itself upon my attention, my
mind drifted back to the war period, with its fierce strifes and
passionate excitement, and vivid pictures of many scenes presented
themselves, some in keeping with the time, others more akin to the
present era of peaceful prosperity and development. Then I thought that
others who were to address you to-night would talk of war, and I might
entertain you, for a few moments at least, with a picture of peace and
good-will in the midst of war.
As vividly as if it was an event of yesterday, there is photographed on
my memory a scene presented in the early autumn of 1862. Buell’s army
was moving from Louisville to the battle-field of Perryville, and early
one evening our corps went into camp on a beautiful farm in one of the
loveliest regions of Kentucky. A clear, sparkling brook wound through a
charming valley, from the hills to the west, and blue-grass pastures
climbed gentle slopes on either side of the stream. As a background,
south, north and west, were heavy forests of noble trees, while eastward
an extended landscape, embracing a range of finely cultivated farms,
stretched far away.
The evening shadows fell slowly upon the camp; so slowly you could
scarce tell when day ended and the night began. Supper was over, and the
soldiers, lying at full length on the luxuriant grass, or sitting around
in groups, were lazily resting or chatting, after the day’s long and
dusty march. Thousands of smouldering camp-fires dotted the hillsides
and valleys in every direction; the wide firmament, cloudless and
peaceful, glittered with stars; and the air, mild and balmy, had in it
that indefinable and delicate perfume which belongs alone to trodden
pastures or to meadows freshly mown. All the noise and bustle of the day
and evening gradually died away. The camp-guards paced their posts
slowly and noiselessly; the hum of conversation was faint and low; the
rude mirth of the soldiers was hushed; the jokes, and gibes, and
laughter of the camp had faded into silence; and a peaceful calm,
resembling that of a quiet Sabbath, had fallen like a benediction over
all the scene. Save the stacks of burnished guns, from which the light
of the camp-fires fitfully glinted, and the parked cannon, and the
groups of uniformed men, the picture presented was as peaceful and calm
as it had been before war swept into this pastoral paradise.
But suddenly, from the edge of the woods across the intervening valley,
half a mile away, a band began playing “Home, Sweet Home,” and as the
touching chords of that familiar melody flooded all the camp, the hush
grew deeper, and I know, though the darkness concealed their emotion,
that moisture welled up in all eyes, and tender thoughts of far-away
scenes filled all hearts in that great host of bronzed and stalwart men.
For when the music at last ceased a silence so deep that it was almost
oppressive succeeded; and then a mighty cheer, echoing and resounding
for miles away, went up from 20,000 throats. Those who have heard the
Union army hurrah know what it could do in that line, when it put its
heart into its lungs and throat.
When the cheer ended, another band, far down the valley, made the
hillsides echo with the patriotic strains of the “Star-Spangled Banner,”
and again followed the great shout of applause, like the mingling roar
of many winds. Then from the hill-tops, far off to the west, was wafted
the music, low and sweet, of “Annie Laurie,” and again the hush of an
almost oppressive silence fell upon the camp. But no cheer followed its
rendering. Into the hearts of the listening soldiers had stolen thoughts
of Annies who were christened with all sorts of names. This Scottish
lassie represented all womankind, and the notes of the song which
celebrated her beauty and her virtues had touched hidden founts of
emotion in thousands of men.
The deep silence that followed was broken by the majestic music of “John
Brown.” Then how the camp did cheer, and shout, and howl.
So, for hours, one after another, the bands filled the air with music,
and the soldiers sat, rapt and thrilled, listening and cheering
alternately. The camp-fires faded out, but the concert went on, and it
seems to me I never heard such music, before or since. At least, I have
never so appreciated music; never known it to exercise such a spell over
listeners; never so appreciated its power to thrill and melt and sway
men, as on that far-away autumn night, when the army rested in the
blue-grass meadows of Kentucky, under the silent stars.
Others who speak to-night will, I have no doubt, tell you of marches and
battles, of hardships patiently endured, and of dangers fearlessly
faced. The life of a soldier had many phases. It was not devoid of
pleasure. And this little picture of a delightful camp scene will, I
know, recall memories of hundreds of others, equally entrancing, in the
minds of my auditors.
RESPONSE.
At a banquet to the Press and Modoc Clubs, Topeka, February 28,
1885, in response to the toast, “Behold how Judicious Advertising
has created a great and prosperous Commonwealth.”
MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not know that the sentiment I am called upon to
respond to, does full justice to Kansas. Judicious advertising is a wise
thing, as the most sagacious and successful business men know. It draws
public attention, and thus multiplies customers. It may even attract
patronage to a humbug, for a brief while. But even advertising is not
able to make a humbug a permanent success.
Kansas has been in the advertising business for thirty years. With
Kansas, everything in the advertising line goes. Kansas, for three
decades past, has been the best advertised spot on the continent. The
border troubles, the civil war, the Price and Quantrill Raids, the
drouths of 1860 and 1874, the grasshopper invasions of the same years,
John Brown, Jim Lane, Indian raids, the Benders, the Centennial
Exposition, prize exhibits at horticultural shows, the railroads, our
flambeaux clubs, the Modocs, Tom Anderson, our newspapers, cyclones,
political and otherwise; the St. John-Legate-Clarkson controversy;
Charley Jones’s banner at Chicago, the Oklahoma boomers, prohibition,
the new judicial districts, the New Orleans exhibit—all these, and a
hundred other things, have contributed their share toward advertising
Kansas.
But behind and above all these inspiring and ephemeral incidents,
wonders, troubles, excitements and personages, there is Kansas, growing
always, not because of these things, but often in spite of them;
prospering, not by their influence entirely, but because Kansas has
nothing that is unsubstantial in her makeup. A fertile soil, a healthful
climate, an intelligent, enterprising and brave people—these are the
enduring foundations on which has been built our great and prosperous
Commonwealth. Kansas is, so to speak, “all wool and a yard wide.” Kansas
is sound in wind and limb. Kansas is the electric light of the Union.
Kansas is the State of great crops, great herds, great flocks, great
railroads, great school-houses, great development and great prosperity.
There is nothing small about Kansas except her rivers, and these were
probably made small because Providence, in fashioning the State, created
a land so rich and goodly that it was deemed extravagant to waste much
of it in big water-courses.
There was a time, years ago, when it was necessary to do a great deal of
advertising for Kansas. But the reputation of the State is now fixed.
First in corn, first in wheat, first in school-houses, and central, not
only in the heart of the continent, but in the hearts of its citizens,
the Kansas man, wheresoever he may wander, is proud of his State, and
advertises, judiciously or in any other way, its attractions and
advantages.
BIRTHDAY OF GENERAL GRANT.
Address, at Topeka, April 27, 1885, at a celebration held in honor
of the birthday of General Grant.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: The felicitous concurrence of the
birthday of a great American soldier and a great American civic society
at the same date, has, perhaps for the first time, been generally noted
within the past week or so. But hereafter, and especially in the distant
future, it will afford a happy opportunity for a blending of military
and civil celebrations.
The very general and spontaneous celebration of the birthday of a living
man—of a man, too, who occupies no high office, but is simply one of
fifty-five million American citizens—is something unique and remarkable
in this country, if, indeed, it is not in the history of the civilized
world.
But everything in the career of Ulysses S. Grant has been phenomenal.
For years, during the war, thousands doubted whether he had any military
genius. Yet in every position in which he was placed, he succeeded where
others had failed. From Donelson to Vicksburg, from Vicksburg to
Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to the Potomac, and from the Potomac to
Appomattox—everywhere that this grave, silent, self-controlled man went,
he inspired confidence and organized victory.
He is the only man of our day and generation—perhaps the only man of any
age—who has lived to read the judgment of impartial history concerning
his career and achievements. The receptions given him, the great honors
paid him by princes, potentates and people in every civilized country
during his voyage around the world, voiced the verdict, not alone of the
present, but of the future, concerning Ulysses S. Grant. What the
historian of a hundred years hence may say of Thomas, or Sherman, or
Sheridan, or Meade, we cannot predict; but what he will say of Grant is
determined already by the universal assent of the civilized world.
I have now and then heard the cynical sneer, “There is nothing so
successful as success,” applied to the achievements of General Grant. It
was fashionable in some quarters, a few years ago, to refer to him as
“an accident of the war.” But I believe that to act with common sense at
all times and under all circumstances, is the very highest and grandest
development of human genius. And this was what Grant, as a soldier,
always did. Read his dispatches, his orders, his directions to his
subordinates, and through them all, in a strong and steady current, runs
the force of an inflexible, well-balanced purpose, of lofty devotion to
duty, of unconquerable courage, of unselfish patriotism, of dignity
without arrogance, of patience, confidence, and conviction. If this is
not greatness, where has there been a clearer development of the results
of greatness?
It is fitting and appropriate, therefore, that this great American
citizen should receive, during his life, such honors and such kindly
remembrance as the celebrations that are taking place to-day throughout
the length and breadth of the land, give expression to. He has outlived
detraction and survived partisan malice and sectional hate. For weeks
the whole country has watched, with moistening eyes, the bulletins from
his sick-room. And now, when a gleam of hope survives, and there seems
to be a chance that the great soldier may live for years, his countrymen
gather by thousands in every hamlet, town and city throughout the land,
and the universal hope and prayer that goes up from their hearts is:
“Long live Ulysses S. Grant.”
THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
Response to the sentiment, “The University—The Child of the State;”
delivered at the banquet of the Alumni of the State University,
Lawrence, June 9th, 1885.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It probably did not occur to your Committee, when
it selected the sentiment just announced, that the “Child” has just come
of age. But this is the fact. On the 20th of February, 1863, the
Legislature passed an act to establish a State University, to be located
at Lawrence, provided the city gave a site of forty acres of land and
$15,000. In November following, the Governor issued a proclamation
announcing that these conditions had been complied with. But it was not
until the first of March, 1864, that an act was passed organizing the
State University. Hence, as I have said, this “Child of the State” has
just come of age.
In the long, exciting and momentous contest waged by two civilizations
for the fair Territory of Kansas, four Constitutions were framed—three
by the champions of Free Soil; one by the advocates of Slavery. If the
students of the University will examine that admirable compendium of
Kansas history, “Wilder’s Annals,” they can read these old organic laws,
on each of which, for a brief season,
“Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,”
was hanging. And I think a reading of just one article of each—that on
education—will largely explain why the one civilization triumphed over
the other, first in Kansas and then throughout the Union. In each of the
three Constitutions which represent the aspirations, ideas and purposes
of the Free-State men, the Legislature is required to make the most
ample provisions for public education. The old Topeka Constitution,
framed in 1855, declared that “the Legislature shall secure a thorough
and efficient system of common schools, and establish a University.” The
Leavenworth Constitution, framed in 1858, makes it the duty of the State
to establish “a system of free schools, in which every child of the
State shall receive a good common-school education,” and also
educational institutions of higher grade, including a University. And
the Wyandotte Constitution, framed in 1859, makes it the duty of the
Legislature to establish “a uniform system of common schools, and
schools of higher grade, embracing normal, preparatory, collegiate and
university departments;” and, in another section, requires the
establishment of a State University “for the promotion of literature and
the arts and sciences.”
It is noticeable, too, that these three Constitutions indicate a growing
sentiment in favor of public education, that of 1858 embodying far more
definite and mandatory requirements than the one framed in 1855, and
that of 1859 being even more specific, exacting and peremptory than the
Constitution of 1858. The educational article of the Topeka Constitution
includes four sections, and occupies only fifteen lines in the “Annals;”
the same article in the Leavenworth Constitution embraces nine sections,
occupying thirty-three lines; and in the Wyandotte Constitution the
educational article includes nine sections, occupying forty-seven lines.
On the other hand, the article on education in the Lecompton
Constitution—the only organic law framed by the advocates of Slavery—is
ambiguous in language and feeble in direction. It is permissive rather
than mandatory. Its five sections occupy but seventeen lines, and
require only that “schools and the means of education” shall be
“encouraged by the State,” and that the Legislature shall establish “one
common school in each township”—that is, one for every 23,240 acres of
land! This would give the county of Douglas fourteen schools! It now has
nearly one hundred. No requirement for schools of higher grade, nor for
a University, is embodied in the article.
It is not strange that the contest between these two civilizations
resulted as it did. Although the one was sustained by all the power and
authority of the National Government, the other had Education as its
ally, and made Intelligence the most important stone in the foundation
of the State. The men who brought Freedom to Kansas brought in her train
the school and the printing press. Fighting Slavery, they fought
Ignorance also; upholding Liberty, they upheld her true friend and ally,
Learning.
The crowning glory of Kansas, from that day to this, has been her
schools, embracing those of every grade, from the rude dug-out on the
lonely frontier to the stately buildings on Mount Oread. These bright
children of the State are her jewels, and she can point to them with a
pride equaling that of the Roman mother. For they are worthy of her, as
she is of them—worthy of her love and fostering care, as well as of her
pride.
There is, occasionally, complaint that the State is not liberal in the
appropriations made for the University. But the figures, I think, will
not justify this assertion. In 1866 they amounted to $7,000; in 1876
they aggregated $22,519; while for the year 1886 they reach a total of
$63,000. Kansas is young, and has not yet accumulated vast wealth. But
surely such allowances as these do not indicate indifference to the
welfare of her Child. It is not yet nineteen years since the first
building for the University was completed, and the Institution, at that
time, had only four students enrolled. Less than thirteen years ago the
present main building was occupied, and 239 students were in attendance.
During the year just closed, 521 students were enrolled. The growth of
the University, it will thus be seen, has kept pace with that of the
State. So it will continue in the future. And as Kansas is destined to
be the greatest of American States, the University, her Child, will in
time rank first among American institutions of learning.
I can fairly and truly say, too, that this Child of the State has a
pretty large family of bright, intelligent children-young men and women
who proudly hail it as their Alma Mater. One meets them, now, in nearly
every section of the State, engaged in almost every honorable
calling—the law, journalism, medicine, commerce, education. One of the
graduates of the University is, for the first time, a member of its
Board of Regents. During a rather extended tour I made through the
State, last year, I found them scattered far and wide, and I am glad to
say that wherever I met them I heard good reports of their conduct. The
air on Mount Oread is pure; the winds here are strong and free; and the
young Kansans who have marched down from these heights to engage in the
battle of life are active, stirring citizens, not only doing honor to
their Alma Mater, but contributing their full share to the good work of
making Kansas a strong, pure, liberty-loving, law-respecting, and
preeminently intelligent American commonwealth.
If this good record is maintained as the years go by, no friend of the
University need fear that it will not continue to grow in the helpful
esteem and confidence of a generous people. For after all, the rank and
value of this Institution will be measured, not by the size of its
buildings, nor by its collection of books and apparatus, nor even by the
eminence of its Faculty, but by the conduct and careers of those whose
intellects and characters have been trained and formed under its
direction and discipline. And if each year adds to the number of young
men and women who, going from these halls into the every-day walks and
ways of human endeavor and duty, win for themselves honorable and
respected names, the reflected lustre of their usefulness and exaltation
will shine upon this building as does the sun in his daily journey—the
glad morning of their triumphs bathing it with brightness, the full
noontide of their worth and renown flooding it with warmth and splendor,
and the majesty of their declining years shedding upon it the gratitude
of a reverent benediction.
THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.
Address to the graduating class of the State Normal School,
delivered at Emporia, June 11, 1885.
MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In one sense, at least, the
State Normal School is the most important of our higher educational
institutions. The others educate, each year, a number of individuals,
and necessarily a limited number, who are, individually, to fill various
positions on life’s battle-field. The State Normal educates the
educators, and thus by its influence, its system, its method and
thought, reaches and shapes the minds of many thousands. There were,
last year, 8,342 teachers in the public schools of Kansas, and they
controlled and instructed an army of 308,600 children—an army larger
than Grant, or Napoleon, or Wellington ever commanded; an army far more
difficult to direct than were theirs; an army whose drill, discipline
and instruction will exercise, through all the coming years, a larger
and a far more important influence over the material and intellectual
well-being of humanity than did the victories of these great commanders.
The office of teacher has not, until late years, been regarded as other
vocations are. Men were educated in law, or medicine, or theology, or
learned the trades of craftsmen, because they expected to make practical
use, during their life-time, of the knowledge and skill they acquired.
But men and women drifted into the school-room as teachers—and in too
many cases still do so—not because they expected to make teaching their
business, but because, for the time being, they could find nothing else
to do. Many of these teachers were and are, undoubtedly, well qualified
for educational work; many of them have achieved marked success in this
work, and, growing to like it, have continued in it. But many others,
and far the largest number, I fear, of those who engage in teaching as a
mere temporary make-shift, do not fairly earn even the poor salaries
they are paid. No one can succeed at anything if he does not put his
heart and mind into his work. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might,” is a lesson which the teacher must take to heart, or
his or her teaching will come to naught.
And surely there can be no more important work than that of an educator
in the schools. Year by year this fact is strengthening in the public
mind, and as a result the teacher is growing in public appreciation and
pecuniary value.
The underlying spirit, the clear purpose of the State Normal, is not to
educate lawyers, or doctors, or ministers, or tradesmen, but to educate,
train and fit men and women for the profession of public educators. They
who enter this Institution with any other purpose in view, are guilty of
a fraud on the generosity of the State. The General Government educates
young men, at West Point and Annapolis, for the army and navy. There is
no law which compels them, after graduation, to enter either branch of
the service. But there is an unwritten code which, appealing to their
personal honor, is stronger than any statute, and which compels these
graduates of the Nation’s schools to serve two years in its army or
navy. They may then resign, but in the event of war, they must promptly
tender their services to the Government.
Some such code of ethics should govern graduates of the State Normal.
They are educated by the State, as teachers, for the purpose of
elevating the standard and qualifications of its public educators, and
they should feel in honor bound to fulfill this implied personal
obligation.
And surely there can be no nobler ambition than to be a really great
teacher—such a teacher, for example, as Arnold of Rugby, or Horace Mann.
To rule and shape human minds, to mould and fashion children and youth
for the highest and noblest duties of life—is not this a work which
should enlist in its service the best heart and brain of all the land?
Last year, in a quiet hamlet in Pennsylvania, an old man died. For more
than sixty years he had been a teacher. He had taught in nearly every
district of the county where his long and useful life was spent, and
half the men of that county, under sixty years of age, have been his
pupils. More fully than any other person I have ever known, he was my
ideal of what a school master should be—the controlling spirit of a
school; its master literally, as well as in name; a firm, strong, just
man, encouraging the diffident, punishing the vicious, and inspiring
all. Fully six feet in stature, angular, with immense reach of arms,
large hands, a noble height and breadth of forehead, and steel-gray eyes
sparkling under bristling eye-brows, the heaviest that ever adorned a
human face—he was, in the school-room, a formidable figure. Even the
later-day “hoodlum,” with his reckless impudence, would have regarded
him with awe. He was a strict disciplinarian. He had no mawkish
sentimentality about corporal punishment. He delighted, I think, to deal
with a vicious, disobedient boy—one of the half-animal and wholly
perverse kind, as full of cruelty and meanness as an egg is of meat.
When one of this class was enrolled among his pupils, it was wonderful
how soon all the perversity of his nature was reduced to subjection.
Yet this old master was not a school-room tyrant. The well-disposed
among his pupils held him in affectionate regard, and even the turbulent
respected the justice of his decisions and the firmness and sincerity of
his rule. He did not take pleasure in inflicting pain. He “trounced” a
bad or unruly boy because he regarded trouncing as a necessary and
wholesome discipline, which would make him a better man and a better
citizen. And the punishments he inflicted were rarely, if ever,
undeserved. He was as just as he was stern.
As an instructor, he had mastered the branches he taught. He rarely held
a book in his hand while hearing a class. With the range of text-books
then in use, he was thoroughly familiar. Every rule or principle or fact
they contained was at his tongue’s end. He had a real love for his work,
and an affectionate interest in the progress of his pupils. The old,
weather-beaten brick school house on the “Commons,” with its rude pine
desks and benches, whittled by the jack-knives of more than one
generation of boys, and its painted black-board on the wall, was the
soul of his earthly interests and ambition.
Amid such surroundings he lived for more than sixty years, engaged in a
laborious, often perplexing and wearisome, but always useful work. He
sent out into the world thousands of men, disciplined, instructed and
moulded by his firm but kindly hands—men who are scattered, to-day, from
ocean to ocean, and many of whom have achieved the most distinguished
success in life. For among his pupils were James G. Blaine, Senator
McMillan, of Minnesota, ex-Congressman Townsend, of Ohio, and a host of
others eminent in law, in medicine, in literature, and in business.
He reached a venerable age, dying at eighty-four. And I am sure that his
pupils, wheresoever they had wandered, received the news of his death
with profound sorrow. For the mention of his name would call up a
thousand recollections of him—of his tall, athletic person, of his
massive head and shaggy eye-brows, of his homely but intellectual face
and his keen and kindly eyes, of his quick, firm, dominating voice, and
of his relish for every physical as well as mental enjoyment. For the
stern master of the school-room was, on the “Commons,” a boy with the
boys—the surest catch, the strongest hand at the bat, and the swiftest
runner of them all. Remembering Master Joshua V. Gibbons thus, is it
strange that his old pupils, grown to manhood and scattered far and
wide, should hold his memory in reverent and tender recollection?
I sincerely hope and trust that the Normal will send out hundreds of
teachers who, though they may lack the ample physical powers of Master
Gibbons, will possess, in full measure, his strong will and just
judgment, his admirable perspicuity and precision as an instructor, his
wide range of information, and, above all, his ardent, inspiring,
never-flagging love for his work. The influence of even a dozen such
teachers, scattered throughout Kansas, would amply repay the State for
all the expenditures it has ever made in behalf of this Institution, and
spread far and wide the reputation of the Normal as a deserving and
useful training school for educators.
GENERAL GRANT—MEMORIAL ADDRESS.
[At Atchison, Kansas, on Saturday, August 8, 1885, the memorial
exercises in honor of General Grant were participated in by all
the civic societies, including the Grand Army of the Republic,
Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of United Workmen, Catholic
Knights of America, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of
Labor, Irish Benevolent Society, and others. After the funeral
parade, fully five thousand people gathered at Turner Hall Garden.
Mayor Samuel H. Kelsey presided, and addresses were delivered by
Gov. John A. Martin, and Col. Aaron S. Averest. The address of
Gov. Martin is as follows:]
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before this audience
with more than ordinary distrust and solicitude. Keenly sensible, at all
times, of my deficiencies as a speaker, this consciousness is
intensified by the reflection that I am to speak, to-day, of one who is
enshrined in the hearts of the American people as no other man, except
Washington or Lincoln, ever was; of one whose fame, like the sunlight,
flooded all the world, and whose example will warm patriotic hearts and
stimulate noble ambitions until the end of recorded time.
And how can I describe, as all men knew him, the great soldier who was
to-day borne to his last resting-place with a great Nation as his
sorrowful mourners, and the funeral bells of the civilized world tolling
the universal sympathy of the brotherhood of men? How can I fittingly
testify the tender affection, the reverent respect in which the loyal
people of Kansas held Ulysses S. Grant? How can I give expression to the
feeling of bereavement which shadows every home and hearth in this great
Commonwealth, where live a hundred thousand men who, during the dark
days of the civil war, gladly and proudly hailed him as their commander,
and made him heir to the honor and glory their valor and patriotism,
directed by his consummate ability, had won for the Nation?
The North, at the outbreak of the civil war, was like a blind giant. Its
strength was at once revealed. Never before, in any age or country, had
there been such a magnificent uprising as was that following the attack
on Sumter. From country fields and city workshops, from schools,
offices, and marts of commerce, a great host—the very blossom and flower
of the youth and manhood of the land—swarmed to the recruiting stations,
eager to dare and suffer all things for the cause of the Republic. But
leaders were lacking. Engrossed in business, and devoting all its
energies to the arts and industries of peace, the loyal North had drawn
many of its trained soldiers into civil pursuits, where they had been
swallowed up in the rush and clangor of commerce. The South had kept
many of its brightest intellects in the army, where such men as Albert
Sidney Johnson, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and many others
equally brilliant, held high positions. These men at once cast their lot
against the Nation that had educated them. And the Republic, thus
deserted by the soldiers it had trained, groped blindly through many
months of sore disaster, waiting for the leaders who were to direct its
heroic armies to final victory.
How slow and torturing the waiting was. How many popular heroes were
discovered, and worshipped with passionate devotion for a brief time,
only to be revealed, at last, as common clay. But through all these
dreadful days, the men who were to lead the Nation to complete triumph
were making their way, slowly but surely, to their destined places. At
Belmont, in November, 1861, a silent, modest man, just promoted to a
Brigadier-Generalship, had fought a battle which gave confidence and
courage to the troubled country. At Mill Springs, two months later,
another quiet, manly soldier, had won a signal victory over a superior
force. In Kentucky, still another soldier was winning confidence and
respect by the energy and sagacity of his operations; and a fourth,
unknown and unnoted, was looking after the commissary wagons of an army
in Arkansas.
It is a notable fact that these four men, who were destined, at the
close of the war, to be its recognized leaders, began their service in
the West, and that they severally represented the cosmopolitan blood of
the American people—Grant being of Scotch ancestry, Sherman of Saxon
origin, Thomas springing from the Welsh race, and Sheridan coming of
Irish stock. Differing widely in characteristics and temperaments, they
not only supplemented each other admirably, but each had the firmest
confidence in the resources, skill and courage of all the others. Envy
or jealousy never distracted them. The same resolute purpose, the same
ardent patriotism, the same devotion to duty, animated them all, and
each could confidently rely on the support of all the others.
I do not intend, however, to draw comparisons of their several careers,
nor of their personal characteristics. I mention their association
because it happened that he who was the chief of this group of great
soldiers was, perhaps, the first to clearly recognize the greatness of
his associates, and to assign them to the positions in which they filled
the continent with the splendor of their achievements. For it was
Ulysses S. Grant who designated William T. Sherman as commander of the
Army of the Tennessee, placed George H. Thomas at the head of the Army
of the Cumberland, and selected Philip H. Sheridan as chief of cavalry
of the Army of the Potomac.
Two of these great soldiers yet survive; two have answered their last
roll-call on earth. And here, as in every city, town and hamlet
throughout the land, the people have assembled to honor the memory of
the most distinguished of this group—Ulysses S. Grant.
“There are a few characters,” says Macaulay, “which have stood the
closest scrutiny and the severest tests; which have been tried in the
furnace and have proved pure; which have been weighed in the balance and
not found wanting; which have been declared sterling by the general
consent of mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and
superscription of the Most High.” Such a character, it seems to me, was
Ulysses S. Grant. From the day he won his first victory at Belmont until
he sank to rest at Mt. McGregor, he lived in a light as fierce as that
which beats upon a throne. For eight years, he was a soldier; for eight
years, the President; and ever since, until the day of his death, the
First Citizen of the Republic. What he said or left unsaid, what he did
or left undone, during all those years, was noted by busy tongues and
pens, many of them envious, many of them hostile, and many more,
inspired by that strange perversity of human nature which rejoices to
find some weakness, or flaw, or stain in a great man, anxious and eager
to catch him doing something mean or unworthy.
And through it all—through the fierce and dangerous fields of war,
through the still more perplexing and dangerous fields of politics, and
through the trials and temptations of a citizenship so elevated that its
very height was dazzling—he moved on, serene, patient, inflexible,
unstained. He disarmed partisan malice at last as he had disarmed
Pemberton at Vicksburg; he triumphed over the rancor and enmity of civil
life as he had routed Bragg at Mission Ridge; and finally, and before
his death, all the warring factions of the land, North and South, East
and West, surrendered to him their willing allegiance, as did Lee at
Appomattox.
The changes in the popular estimate of Grant’s character and abilities
were as remarkable as everything else in his wonderful career. It was
years before the carping military critics of the world would concede
that he was a great soldier. He won his victories by accident, they
said; he was a butcher; he was a drunkard; he was a figure-head for
Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan, who planned his campaigns. All this they
said, as he swung across the continent from Donelson to Vicksburg, from
Vicksburg to Chattanooga, from Chattanooga to Appomattox, conquering, in
turn, every great soldier of the Confederacy; leaving behind him,
everywhere, campaigns and victories as brilliant and complete as any
Napoleon ever planned or won; always equal to the greatest emergencies,
always ready for any contingency, and always master of every occasion.
Suddenly, from the army he was transferred to another and an untried
field, and became the head of the civil government of the country. The
critics derided, the cavilers sneered, the weeping Jeremiahs of politics
bewailed. This was monstrous, they said. This “sashed Sphinx” knew
nothing of civil affairs; this “man on horseback” was dangerous to the
liberties of the country; this “ambitious Cæsar” meditated an empire.
But the people trusted Grant in civil life, as his army had trusted him
in war. Their faith in his integrity, in his patriotism, in the strong,
clean fiber of his sturdy manhood and his sterling honesty, never for
one moment hesitated or wavered. And it was never disappointed. He
justified their faith by his works. The triumphs he won in the field of
political economy were as conspicuous and complete as those he won in
war. Upon the civil history of the country he left a record as brilliant
and as lasting as was the record of his services as a soldier.
I know that there are some who still insist that he was not a statesman.
But statesmanship, I take it, is nothing more or less than the genius of
common sense applied in civil government. It is illustrated by what the
Americans call “level-headedness” in emergencies; by the judicial
quality of seeing both sides, or all sides, of any question, and doing
the right and the just thing in dealing with it; by clear comprehension
of the ultimate effects of any policy; by courage in withstanding
popular clamor, and even in braving public distrust and denunciation,
when such clamor, distrust or denunciation is inspired by ill-regulated
zeal for a good cause, or unreasoning devotion to a bad one, or by the
arts of selfish and ambitious demagogues.
And surely Grant was endowed, in full measure, with these qualities of
statesmanship. He was called to the Presidency during one of the
stormiest and most perplexing epochs in the history of our government.
The honest payment of the public debt; that strange but contagious
delusion, the inflation of our paper currency; the settlement of the
claims of this country on Great Britain, for damages inflicted by
privateers sent out from English ports during the war; the
enfranchisement of the Freedmen, and their protection in the enjoyment
of the rights conferred upon them by the Constitution; the
reorganization of the States lately in the Rebellion; the policy of
Indian control and management; the resumption of specie payments—all
these great questions, vitally affecting not only the peace and
prosperity of the Nation, but the happiness and welfare of all classes
of its citizens, Grant was called upon, as the Executive head of the
civil government, to discuss and to decide.
Did he falter, or fail, or blunder in dealing with any of them? Read his
messages to Congress, and his State papers, in the light of subsequent
results, and make answer. His opinions were not only maintained with
vigor and courage, but they were defended with logical directness. His
insight was as penetrating and his judgment as comprehensive, as his
courage was exalted; and time and events have demonstrated not only the
honesty and purity of his purposes, but the clearness and sagacity of
his mind.
Retiring from the Presidency, he made a tour around the world, and was
received everywhere with such honors and enthusiasm as had never before
greeted a private citizen. Emperors and kings, great statesmen and great
soldiers, were proud to do him homage, and the peoples of every race and
tongue, thronging to see him, testified their appreciation of his
exalted services in behalf of human liberty and popular government. And
in every presence, under all circumstances, he remained the same
unostentatious, sincere and modest man, as undazzled by his eminence as
he had been patient in his obscurity.
But the firm fiber of his manhood, it seems to me, had never been so
clearly revealed as it was during the last year of his life. Suddenly,
and in his old age, his competency was swept away, and an insidious
disease fastened upon him. Trusting, with characteristic confidence—for
he was so incapable of guile or hypocrisy that he never suspected it in
others—he was betrayed, and reduced to penury. Without a murmur he gave
up everything, not even reserving the trophies and mementoes presented
to him by the people of this and other countries. Then, slowly dying,
and knowing that death was inevitable, he calmly measured every moment
of his ebbing life, and set about his last work. Like Sir Walter Scott,
but under many more and far greater difficulties, he became an author in
order to repair the wreck of his fortune, and has left behind him a book
which will be read by more people than any other volume, except the
Bible, that has ever been printed. That his Memoirs will be worthy of
his fame, the brief extracts already published conclusively prove. In
the field of literature as well as in those of war and of statecraft, he
was unconsciously great. He wrote pure, compact, direct and vigorous
English. He had the rare faculty of condensing a volume of meaning in a
sentence, and of presenting scenes and events with masterly completeness
of detail and richness of color.
His book completed, he calmly and patiently awaited the inevitable hour.
His last days were as serene as those of his most prosperous years. His
courage never faltered. He was patient, gentle, thoughtful of others.
“Let no one be distressed on my account,” seemed to be the burden of his
thoughts, as it was of the last words his feeble fingers traced on
paper. He sent messages of thankfulness and good-will to all. He looked
death in the face and did not quail. And so, preserving to the end the
simple manhood of his life, his brain unclouded and his heart filled
only with loving-kindness and serene content, he drifted away, quietly
and peacefully, into the unknown sea that flows round all the world.
The lesson of his life is a lesson for all the generations of men, for
it is a lesson of encouragement to the poor, of hope to the unknown, of
comfort to the despairing, and of inspiration to the brave, the loyal,
the honest and the true-hearted. He had risen from obscurity to the
sun-bright heights of fame. He knew the bitterness of want, and the
despair of friendlessness. He became the commander of the greatest army
ever mustered on the earth, the executive head of the Nation, the
familiar associate of the great and powerful of every land. But he never
lost his poise, his self-control, his modest dignity, or his manly
worth. He lived down, during his lifetime, every calumny and every hate.
The party that had denounced, assailed and opposed him, became at last
his eulogist. The foemen he had conquered in war became his friends and
mourners. And to-day, with reverent sorrow, the civilized world stands
uncovered around his grave.
The impress he left upon the age in which he lived can never be effaced.
He wrought, during his life, without a thought of dramatic effect, yet
his career was crowded with the most dramatic events. There was little
of romantic feeling in his nature, yet his life was so wonderful that
the story of it will have all the charm of a romance. His bulletins and
orders, as a soldier, were never rhetorical, yet they have in them the
thunder of cannon and the shouting of the captains. He was never noisily
self-assertive; he accepted his appointed place, whether high or low,
with equal complacency, and there did his whole duty. In the purity of
his life, in the unselfishness of his patriotism, and in the firmness of
his action, he resembled George H. Thomas, and to these qualities he
added the prompt, bold and resourceful perceptions of William T. Sherman
and the energy and dash of Phil. Sheridan.
To do honor to the memory of such a man ought to be a sacred duty. For
in honoring him, the Nation honors those qualities of manhood upon which
its stability, its glory and its power must forever rest, and which good
men and women, the world over, will lovingly teach their children to
emulate. The lesson of his life, to millions yet unborn, will be a
beacon-light, an inspiration and an example, to guide, to animate and to
instruct. Thus, until time shall be no more, the career of Ulysses S.
Grant will be a monument, more enduring than any of bronze or of stone,
to the worth and glory of free institutions and to the dignity and honor
of American citizenship.
KANSAS FARMS AND FARM INTERESTS.
Address delivered at the Smith County Fair, Smith Centre, September
24, 1885.
It has always seemed to me singular, not to say inappropriate, that
lawyers, journalists, ministers, physicians and other men having no
practical knowledge of farming, should be invited to deliver addresses
at agricultural fairs. About plowing, planting, or harvesting; about
soils and their treatment; or about any of the every-day work of
farmers, such men have little or no practical knowledge. Yet it seems to
be the rule to invite them to deliver the addresses on occasions of this
character; and, in appearing before you to-day, I plead this custom as
my excuse. I came, not because I hoped or believed that I could instruct
you in the work or duties of your vocation, but because your committee
gave me an invitation so courteous and so kindly, yet so urgent, that I
could not, without seeming rudeness, refuse to accept it.
At the beginning, therefore, I desire to say that I am neither a
practical nor a theoretical farmer. It occasionally happens, that a
man living in town or city has a real love for farm life. Such a man,
if he cannot gratify his bent, delights to study the literature of
farming, and thus accumulates a great harvest of theory, which, if
practically applied, would probably result in the production of
enormous cabbages and potatoes, and large crops of cereals, all
costing their producer three or four times their market value. A
Kansas friend of mine who has this sort of a penchant for farming, and
wealth which enables him to gratify it, owns a large farm in one of
the eastern counties of the State. Some years ago a number of his
friends from the Eastern States came to visit him, and he took them
out to see his farm. After they had admired its finely-cultivated
fields, its blooded stock, and other attractions, the proud owner
escorted the party to the farm-house, where an elaborate luncheon had
been prepared for his guests. The bill of fare included delicious milk
and—this was before the era of prohibition—sparkling champagne. When
the company had assembled, the host said: “Now, gentlemen, here is
milk and here is champagne; help yourselves to either; it makes no
difference to me—they both cost the same!”
I cannot, however, claim to have even such knowledge of farming as these
city farmers may be possessed of. My whole life, except some years of my
boyhood, has been passed in towns or cities, where my work and my duties
have happened to be. I have never even attempted to conduct a farm. I
have, of course, indulged in that universal day-dream of the dwellers in
cities or towns—the aspiration for a country home. The merchant in his
counting room, the professional man at his desk, the artisan in his
workshop, all indulge in this dream of a quiet, peaceful home in the
country; a home embowered in trees, where the birds sing, and the breath
of the morning is sweet with the perfume of flowers; where the horizon
is broad, and the view over meadows, woods and fields is as restful as
it is beautiful; and where the roar and clangor and fury of city life
are shut out. There is something in the nature of the whole human
race—in the blood from our first parents, perhaps, or that of our not
far distant progenitors who wandered over the fresh earth, living in
tents and pasturing their flocks—that whispers of the green fields and
the quiet woods, and fills all our hearts with longing for their beauty
and their repose.
Very few, however, realize this dream: I have never been able to. It
would be absurd for me, therefore, to talk to practical farmers about
the business of their lives, or to assume to instruct them concerning
the best methods of farming. You need have no fear that I will attempt
to do this.
But there are some things connected with farm life about which I may be
able to present suggestions of interest, if not of value. First, then,
it seems to me that too many Kansas farmers fail to appreciate the cash
value of pleasant surroundings at home, the real worth of farm
adornments, the dollars and cents that multiply in flowers and shrubbery
on well-kept lawns, and especially the wealth that is accumulating in
trees that are growing while they are sleeping.
There is a material and pecuniary side to this question of home
adornments, as well as an æsthetic side. The value of a farm—its cash
value, I mean—cannot be measured entirely by the fertility of its soil,
nor by the crops it produces, nor by the springs and streams that rise
or flow upon it. Its market value is affected, far more than many
farmers imagine, by the surroundings of its owner’s home. If these
resemble the environments of a wretched hovel on the outskirts of a
town; if the front door-yard is a pig-sty, and the back door-yard a
cattle-pen; if the farm-house stands, bare and desolate, like a brown
rock in a desert, beaten upon by sun and storms, by rain and wind, do
you think the value of the farm is not impaired? To say nothing of the
personal discomfort of such surroundings, do they not involve, also, a
cash depreciation of the land?
I am not talking of the homes of farmers who, lately arrived, and
possessed of limited means, have located on quarter-sections of raw
prairie, and are devoting all of their energies to the work of producing
crops. The patient heroism, the true nobility that has been illustrated
in the daily lives of thousands of Kansas farmers and Kansas farmers’
wives—men and women who, coming here with hardly a dollar, live in rude
dug-outs or cabins, in cruel isolation and bitter poverty, toiling,
saving, and enduring patiently the most trying privations, in order that
they may at last own a farm and a home—this sort of Kansas heroism, so
common and yet so splendid, may justly challenge the applause and
admiration of the world. I am speaking of and criticising, not this
class of farmers, but the farmer who, having secured a good farm and a
fair competency, goes on living his old life of monotonous drudgery, and
compels the faithful wife, who has been the companion of his toils and
his struggles, to live it with him.
Of what benefit is money, if it does not purchase some of the comforts
of life? Of what value are expanding acres and luxuriant crops, if they
do not bring in their train the delights of a pleasant and cheerful
home?
I know farmers in this State—men abundantly able to build comfortable
homes, and to surround them with all that makes life opulent and
happy—who seem content to exist amid the meanest and most squalid
surroundings. The charm and glory of a beautiful land is all about them,
but it touches no responsive chord in their hearts. Their houses are not
homes—they are simply places in which to eat and sleep. Summer suns and
winter winds blaze and beat upon them. No overhanging trees throw around
them the refreshing coolness of their shade. No verdure of grass or
perfume of flowers encircles them. No birds make the air about them
vocal with music. There they stand, lonely and desolate, avoided by
every sweet and beautiful thing in nature; and even the fresh breath of
the morning and the gentle breeze of twilight come to them tainted and
impure. Every burden and trial of human life must be multiplied and
intensified by such dreary surroundings. Yet I know, and all of you
probably know, farmers’ homes like unto this I have described.
There is, as I have said, no excuse for the farmer who, after a
residence of four or five years in Kansas, continues to live amid such
surroundings. He may not be able to build a fine house, but he can at
least plant a few trees around his home, and let the rich grass and the
lovely flowers of our prairies grow and blossom about his door-yard. All
these beautiful things can be had, by every son and daughter of Kansas,
without wealth to buy them; and with them will come the music of singing
birds, and shelter against sun and wind, and comfort, rest, and a larger
and broader view of the beauty of life and the bounty of God.
I have noticed, too, that the farmers who continue to live amid such
squalid surroundings at home, are those most likely to indulge in
prodigal extravagance, or, more properly, reckless waste, in other
directions. They buy expensive reapers, and leave them in the fields
where they were last used, to be consumed by rust and rot. Their
wagons are never housed, and their plows and harrows are consigned to
the first convenient fence-corner. Their horses and cattle shiver in
the wintry winds, or find shelter only by gnawing holes in
straw-stacks. They have no granaries for their wheat, no cribs for
their corn, and so are compelled to sell their products at once,
generally at the lowest prices of the year. And having thus invited
poverty by waste or carelessness, they call it bad luck, or attribute
their misfortunes to the contraction of the currency, or to railroad
monopolies, or to any other cause except the real cause—their own lack
of order, system, and intelligently-directed energy.
The question of selling farm products, or rather the problem of selling
them at the right time, is one of vast importance to farmers. Every
farmer ought to study carefully and intelligently, not only the current
market reports, but the reports and statistics of the food products of
the world—their probable supply, their probable demand. He should know
when to sell, and he should have a place in which to store his grain
until the right time to sell it comes. Kansas is to-day the most
prosperous state in the Union. I make this statement deliberately, and
am confident that statistical and census reports will sustain it. But
Kansas would be far more prosperous if the barns of her farmers were as
creditable to Kansas agriculture as our school houses are to Kansas
intelligence. Kansas will never be as prosperous as the State ought to
be, until every prairie slope within her borders is adorned with a
Pennsylvania barn. You all know what a Pennsylvania barn is, I suppose.
I mean one of the great double-decker barns, built on the side of a
hill, the first story capacious enough to stable all the horses and
cattle belonging on a section of land; the second story—on a level with
the ground on the upper side—vast enough to take in all the hay and
grain of the farm, and furnish, also, storage room for all its vehicles
and implements. A noble barn is the old Keystone double-decker, and the
Kansas farmer who has one of them is fully armed and equipped, not only
against the elements, but against the “bears” of the grain markets.
Forehanded, and with such a barn, he can wait until he gets his price
for his grain or his stock. He is not compelled to accept the prices
fixed by the gamblers in options. With such barns scattered all over the
prairies of Kansas, the Kansas farmers would rule the markets, would
make the price of their own products.
Another thing the farmers of Kansas want to pay greater attention to, is
road-making. Years ago, when the farms were scattered, and the roads ran
along the divides, we had, without cost or labor, the best natural
highways on the continent. But the occupancy of the country, and the
fences or the herd law, have diverted the roads to the section lines,
and, as a result, our highways are generally execrable. The losses
entailed upon the farmers of Kansas, growing out of these wretched
roads, are enormous. They foot up in a dozen different directions—in
loss of valuable time, in injury of horses, in breakage of vehicles, in
destruction of harness, in a multiplication of trips, and in many other
ways. Above all other men, the farmers of Kansas require good roads.
Increased tax levies for public highways, and an intelligent expenditure
of these levies, is one of the great needs of Kansas. A marked decrease
of the prevalent Kansas mania for new railroads, and an equally marked
increase of public interest in the construction of decent country roads,
would be a wholesome reform of incalculable advantage to the farmers of
Kansas. The law most needed in this State is a good road law—an act that
will put the building or repairing of our public highways under
competent direction, and furnish ample means for such work, and thus
give to Kansas a system of durable roads, macadamized wherever the
ground is soggy, and with solid stone culverts or bridges wherever these
are necessary.
The four questions I have thus discussed—the pecuniary value of home
adornments, the exposure of farm implements to the mercy of the
elements, the importance of commodious barns, and the necessity of
improved roads—are of direct personal and practical interest to every
Kansas farmer. And what interests the farmers of Kansas, must be of
moment to every citizen. For Kansas is an agricultural country. The
prosperity of this State is based upon its farm products. Our mineral
resources are, in comparison with our agricultural productions, small
and unimportant. We have some lead in the southeast; we have coal in
many sections, and the supply is equal to the wants of our people; we
have salt and gypsum in abundance. But the wealth of Kansas lies in our
harvest fields. Our prosperity is based, primarily, upon the plow.
Kansas embraces over fifty-two million acres of land. Fully fifty
million acres of this vast area of country is capable of producing
luxuriant crops. Only a little over thirteen million acres—less than
one-fourth of the entire area—is now under cultivation, and the land
classed as “under cultivation” includes nearly five million acres of
prairie grass. Practically, therefore, only about seven million acres of
Kansas soil have been touched by the plow. Yet the products this year
will aggregate fully ten million bushels of wheat, two hundred million
bushels of corn, six million bushels of rye, three million bushels of
oats, and seven million bushels of Irish potatoes—making two hundred and
twenty-six million bushels of these five crops.
It is not possible, as yet, to estimate the value of the field crops of
Kansas, including grasses, for the year 1885; but their value for the
previous year aggregated $104,945,773.
Kansas had last year 5,444,391 head of stock, valued at $115,645,050.
We have planted nearly twenty-two million fruit trees, and have over one
hundred and thirty thousand acres of artificial forest trees.
The assessed valuation of the property of the State, for the year 1885,
aggregates $248,820,262, an increase over last year of $11,806,505. The
real estate aggregates in value $123,000,000, an increase of nearly six
millions over the valuation of last year. The railroad property of the
State is valued at $30,367,820, an increase of $1,911,912; and we have
4,180 miles of completed railway within our borders.
This is all the growth of thirty years. I could, perhaps, more
accurately say of twenty years; for Kansas hardly began to grow until
the spring of 1865, when the home-returning soldiers and the railroads
came together. The development of Kansas during these two decades
challenges comparison with that of any country in the world. An
irresistible impulse seems to have brought hither the best blood and
brain of all the nations of the world. Our schools, colleges,
universities and churches rival those of the oldest countries, and
railways, traversing nearly every organized county, bring a market to
every farmer’s granary.
It is asked now and then, Can this wonderful growth continue? Why should
it not continue? Less than one-fourth of the entire area of Kansas, as I
have stated, is under cultivation; there are millions of acres yet
unoccupied; the immigration to Kansas this year is unprecedented; and
the human energy which is assembling here with such unprecedented
rapidity, must produce results even more remarkable than those wrought
during the past two decades. The development of the present is only the
dawn of that which is to be. The Kansas of to-day only foreshadows the
Kansas of the future.
I make this statement with a full realization of its meaning. I know
there are many, even of our own people, who believe that a very large
section of the western third of our State can never be successfully
tilled. But actual experiment is shattering this theory. The line
marking the western boundary of agricultural productiveness is a myth.
It goes westward with the settlements. The rain-belt travels with the
plow. It has been located on half a dozen degrees of longitude. It was
on the Blue river when I came to the State, nearly thirty years ago. The
valleys of the Republican, the Arkansas and the Solomon were then
regarded as rainless deserts. But the line moved westward, year by year,
until it reached the hundredth meridian. Beyond this, by almost
universal assent, it was declared that successful farming was not
possible. Yet in the northern tier, three counties lying west of that
line, and running through to Colorado, are teeming with a busy and
aggressive population; and these people point to crops of wheat and corn
equaling any ever grown elsewhere, as the most convincing answer that
can be made to the assertion that western Kansas is sterile and
rainless. On the far southwestern line the development and the harvests
produced are equally astonishing and convincing. The same wide and
beautiful valleys, the same rich uplands, the same deep and productive
soil, the same luxuriant vegetation, are the characteristics of these
far-western counties, as they are of the counties watered by the
Delaware, the Kansas, and the Neosho; and the same blue sky and pure air
bends over and envelops the whole of this great State of ours, from the
Missouri to the Colorado line.
With this fair land as his home, with this productive soil as his
workshop, and with the rare and healthful atmosphere of Kansas to
stimulate his energy, the farmer of this State ought to be contented and
prosperous. Certainly, in no other State have the opportunities for
securing pleasant homes and productive farms been so favorable and so
numerous as here in Kansas. Certainly, in no other land has so much
material wealth been dug out of the earth in so brief a time, as here in
Kansas. Certainly, in no other country under the shining stars have so
many poor and struggling men won modest fortunes by honest industry, as
here in Kansas. And certainly, the future of Kansas promises a growth
and development as rapid, and as substantial, as that of the past.
I speak of the future thus confidently, because, after all, the richest
heritage of Kansas is the imperial manhood of its citizenship. No State
in the Union, no country in the world, can boast of a braver or more
intelligent, enterprising, liberty-loving, and law-respecting
population. From the date of its organization up to the present time,
Kansas has been receiving the best blood and brain of the civilized
world. Hither, thirty years ago, came thronging a host of bright and
generous men, to protect this fair land against the aggressions of
slavery. Here, six years before Mr. Lincoln issued his first call for
volunteers, the war which was to strike from the slave his shackles,
began; and here, defying alike the power and blandishments of the
National Administration, the opponents of slavery won their first
victory. Hither, the Union saved and freedom nationalized, thronged a
great army of soldiers—men who had fought on every battle-field of the
late war, and who, during four years of peril and of hardship, had
illustrated by calm and patient endurance, and by the most magnificent
courage and patriotism, the grandest virtues of American manhood. Here
is a people who have wiped a desert from the map of the continent, and
replaced it with a garden. Here are the men who have pushed the plains
to the foot-hills of the mountains; who have dotted the treeless
prairies with forests; and who have made the solitudes of the bison the
home of the plow.
Of what achievements or conquests in the arts or industries of peace is
such a population not capable? Where are the limits that bound the
progress and development of a State having such a citizenship?
I do not believe that anyone now living can guess or gauge the
possibilities of this great State of ours. A century hence Kansas may
reach the full stature of its material growth; but not during our
lifetime will this maturity of development be witnessed; not during our
day and generation will this young commonwealth reach a point where
further advance is no longer possible. The Kansan of the future can say
of his State, as does the Kansan of to-day:
“This is the land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o’er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age and love-exalted youth.
This is the spot of earth supremely blest—
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.”
AMERICAN SOLDIERS.
Address of welcome, delivered at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Reunion,
Topeka, Kansas, September 29, 1885.
COMMANDER STEWART, COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY, AND SOLDIERS OF THE
UNION: To me has been assigned the delightful duty of welcoming to the
Capital this great multitude of patriot heroes. Yet it seems to me that
words of welcome are unnecessary. There is no town or city within the
boundaries of Kansas where the soldiers of the Union would not be
greeted as friends or comrades, and honored as guests; and I know that
the loyal people of the Capital, one and all, will welcome you with a
hand-clasp far more eloquent than speech.
They will welcome you as men who brought from the gloom of the past the
lights of the present and the hopes of the future. They will welcome you
as soldiers who rescued the Republic from anarchy; as heroes who brought
Union, Liberty and Peace out of the smoke and flames of civil war. They
will welcome you as fellow-citizens whose energy, enterprise and
industry are building up, here in the heart of the Continent, the
greatest and most prosperous State in the Union. One and all, they will
welcome and salute you.
You are survivors of the greatest war the world has ever known. You were
prominent actors in the grandest epoch of history. You fought for the
noblest cause that ever warmed the hearts and nerved the arms of heroes.
You have lived to witness the grandeur of your triumph, and the growth
and prosperity it has brought in its train. You are here to meet old
comrades; to revive recollections of scenes and events that should never
be forgotten; to sing the old songs; to touch elbows again in the
steadily dwindling line that once reached from the Rocky Mountains to
the Atlantic. And I am glad and proud to say to you: “All hail! and
welcome, thrice welcome, to the Capital!”
I know that dyspeptic, envious and small-souled people regard the fact
that soldiers’ reunions are steadily increasing in interest, with
ill-concealed distrust. Some years ago, following a meeting similar to
this, a gentleman said to me: “The boys have had a pleasant time, no
doubt. But of what practical benefit are these great gatherings of
soldiers? They keep alive, it seems to me, recollections of a period of
strife and bloodshed, and what good does that do?”
I replied: “My friend, did you ever object to the celebration of the
Fourth of July? That keeps alive memories of a period of strife and
bloodshed. Yet we have been celebrating the ‘Glorious Fourth’ for over a
hundred years, and nobody has ever objected that it did no good to
celebrate it.”
Similar objections are sometimes made to the “Grand Army of the
Republic.” It is said that such an organization not only keeps alive the
memories of the war, but perpetuates the feelings and prejudices of a
period when the land was aflame with passion; and that there is
something of egotism in these associations and assemblages of men to
celebrate events in which they were actors.
For one, acknowledging that soldiers’ reunions and the Grand Army
organization do all this, and are all this, I make no apologies for
them. On the contrary, I rejoice that the Grand Army is growing more
popular with the men who wore the blue, and that soldiers’ reunions and
camp-fires are held with more and more frequency. When the people cease
to remember that there have been times when men cheerfully periled
health and life for a good cause, they cease to believe in such a thing
as patriotism. There is something in example, and these organizations of
old soldiers, these reunions of old soldiers, reviving recollections of
the old days, when nearly three million men stepped out of the monotony
of commonplace lives, and glorified a glorious cause by patient
endurance of hardships and privations, and the heroism of death—this
example cannot be without its uses in teaching the younger generations
of Americans, enjoying the birthright won at Yorktown and preserved at
Appomattox, that love of country, courage, and devotion to duty should
endure forever.
And why should not the memories of the late war be kept alive? Was there
ever, since the morning stars first sang together, a more patriotic, a
holier, a greater war than that waged for the Union? We have been
celebrating the Declaration of Independence, as I have said, for over a
century. Yet the total free population of the American Colonies, at the
outbreak of the Revolutionary war, was, in round numbers, 369,000 less
than the number of Union soldiers mustered into service during the late
civil war. The Continental army, during the Revolutionary war, never
exceeded 76,000 men, present and absent; our army, during the war of
1812, aggregated only 38,186; and the total force of the United States
during the war with Mexico was only 116,321. During the war of the
Rebellion, 2,772,408 men enlisted in the Union army, and from January
1st, 1863, to May 1st, 1865, our army numbered, at all times, nearly
1,000,000 trained soldiers. Kansas alone furnished nearly half as many
men for the Union army as were present for duty during any year of the
Revolutionary struggle, under Washington.
There were more Union soldiers killed in battle during the war of the
Rebellion, and more died of wounds received in battle, than were present
for duty during any previous war in which the United States has been
engaged. In the National Cemeteries, 318,870 soldiers of the Union are
buried—more than four times as many as were enlisted during the
Revolutionary war. The latest and most accurate statements show that
44,238 Union soldiers were killed in battle; 49,205 died of wounds
received in battle; 9,058 were drowned or accidentally killed; 184 were
executed by the enemy; 224,899 died of disease, and 14,155 of causes not
stated—making a total of 341,719.
There were 49 engagements, large and small, during the eight years of
the Revolution. There were 2,261 during the four years of the Rebellion.
And in each of 149 of these the Union loss exceeded 500 men killed and
wounded; in each of eighty-eight it was over 1,000; in fifty-two, over
2,000; in twenty-three, over 5,000; in fourteen, over 10,000; and in
each of four, over 20,000.
The engagements of the war of 1812 numbered only 89, and the casualties
aggregated 1,877 killed, and 3,737 wounded—a total of 5,614.
In the Mexican war there were only twenty-one engagements, in which the
Americans lost 1,049 killed and 3,420 wounded—a total of 4,469. At the
famous battle of Palo Alto, the American loss, in killed and wounded,
aggregated only 174; at Monterey, 488; at Buena Vista, 723; at Cerro
Gordo, 250; and at Molino del Rey, 787.
The aggregate casualties of the American troops in all previous wars
were less than those of the Union army at each of the great battles of
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chicamauga or Spottsylvania, and hardly
reached one-half the casualties of Grant’s campaign through the
Wilderness, or Sherman’s campaign against Atlanta.
I am not citing these facts to depreciate the importance of previous
wars, and certainly I would be the last person to depreciate the
patriotism and valor of the soldiers who took part in them. I reverence
the memory of the “embattled farmers” who, on the village green at
Lexington, “fired the shot heard round the world;” I honor the soldiers
who, from behind the cotton-bales at New Orleans, taught the trained
soldiers of Great Britain a new lesson of war; and I glory in the fame
which our little army won on the red fields of Mexico. But I want to
make plain and clear the fact that the war for the Union was
immeasurably greater than any struggle of modern times, not only in the
vast armies it called into being, but in the heroism and patriotism it
inspired, and the momentous results depending on its issue.
Why, too, should not the sentiments and prejudices of the late civil war
be perpetuated? The war saved the Union and emancipated a race. And in
that single sentence what volumes of precious history, what glorious
records of heroism, sacrifices and patriotism are condensed! What a
noble lifting of all that is exalting in human nature, what a splendid
record of patient devotion to duty, what self-forgetfulness and
magnificent courage does it stand for! What centuries of human progress
does it typify! It was a war for Freedom and National Unity. It was not
waged for conquest, nor glory, nor ambition. It was a war to preserve,
for all the generations of men, the priceless heritage of
self-government. It was a war to vindicate the majesty of outraged law.
It was a war to maintain this Republic as a beacon-light for all the
world. It was a war, as the greatest of its martyrs said, waged “that a
government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not
perish from the earth.”
For the existence of the Grand Army, and for the reunions in which it
delights to take part, no apology is, therefore, necessary. They should
be kept up because they _do_ preserve the memories of the war; because
they _do_ perpetuate the sentiments, the emotions, and even the
prejudices of that glorious struggle. They were noble sentiments, pure
emotions, honest and patriotic prejudices, those born of the country’s
great peril and happy deliverance, and no true soldier, no true
American, should be ashamed of them.
Let us, then, keep up the Grand Army, and our camp-fires, our reunions,
our social gatherings. They typify a comradeship that should touch and
warm every soldier’s heart. In all the years since the final muster-out,
there have been no such friendships formed as were those cemented in the
early mornings long ago, when the boys fell in and answered “Here” to
the orderly’s call; or during the dusty and exhausting marches when the
white pikes stretched so wearily long, and the evening camp-fires were
so near and yet so far; or amid the sulphurous smoke of battle, when
they “closed up on the colors” as the line dwindled away before the hot
and furious fire of the enemy. The comradeship that springs from such
associations and scenes as these, is worth preserving.
This is the great “Soldier State” of the Union—the State which began the
civil war six years before any other State had enlisted a regiment.
Kansas sent more men to swell the ranks of the Union army, in proportion
to population, than any other State; it had a larger percentage of its
soldiers killed or wounded in battle than any other State. One-twelfth
of its present total population served in the ranks of the Union army.
For Kansas was not only the first cause of the war, but the new home to
which the veterans turned their footsteps when their marches and battles
were over. Every regiment that served in the army of the Republic has
contributed its quota to swell this magnificent population, and there
are men sitting around quiet hearthstones in every county of the State
who can give personal recollections of every march, every campaign,
every battle of the war, from Bull Run to Bentonville. In this audience,
I have no doubt, are men who have been participants in every great
battle of the Rebellion.
Here in Kansas, too, is a generation of young men and women who have in
their veins the blood of heroes and patriots. In this audience are
hundreds of young men and women whose baby eyes witnessed sad partings,
when their fathers hurried away to join the company mustering in the
village square. Here are matrons who were young wives, sweethearts or
sisters then, and who, busy with household cares, heard the faint
throbbing of the far-away drum, and days and weeks before a word was
spoken, read in the troubled but resolute eyes of husbands, lovers, and
brothers the thought that was busy in their brains—the thought of a
stricken country, sadly needing men. They knew, these patient, loving
women, what was coming, and in the silence of their rooms, in loneliness
and bitter tears, they prayed that, if possible, the shadow of this
great grief might be lifted from their home; and that those nearest and
dearest to them might remain, to lighten their cares and brighten their
daily life. But when at last the word was spoken, a race of
self-sacrificing and heroic women stood side by side in patriotic
devotion with a race of heroic men, and the whole world learned, as the
long procession of weary months and years went by, that the men and
women of ’76 had worthy successors in the men and women of ’61 and ’65.
The “boys” of twenty-three years ago are men of mature age; the men of
that day are growing old. The faded and tattered battle-flags they
followed are preserved in the State-houses. The old sword or musket
hanging over the mantel is rusty with age. Every year the ranks are
thinning. Wounds and disease, the legacy of battle-field, march and
bivouac, are doing their sure work. The glad picture they saw, looking
forward through the lurid smoke and flame of battle, as the reward of
all their toils and sacrifices—the picture of a mighty Nation, compact,
prosperous, free, and respected by all the Nations of the earth—has been
fully realized. There is no limit to the power, no measure to the
wealth, of the redeemed and enfranchised Republic. Only the memories of
a heroic struggle are left us. But until the last survivors of the Grand
Army that marched and fought with Lyon, Blunt, McClellan, Rosecrans,
Meade, Sheridan, Thomas, Sherman, and Grant, are finally mustered out,
let them preserve their comradeship, and keep forever fresh and fair in
their hearts the glorious recollections and still more glorious
principles of the far-away days when they were soldiers of the Republic.
_Soldiers of the Union!_ again I bid you welcome. I welcome you, as
citizens of this great State, to its Capital. I welcome you as patriot
heroes, who, during the darkest days the Republic has ever known, gladly
and proudly periled health and life to save it from destruction. I
welcome you as the men whose strong arms and brave hearts gave Freedom
to the Slave, and made this land, in fact as well as in name, a land of
Liberty. And with my whole heart I salute you in Fraternity, Charity,
and Loyalty, and welcome you as comrades.
THE KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD.
Address of welcome, delivered to the Kansas National Guard, at
Topeka, September 29, 1885.
SOLDIERS OF THE KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD: In a recent story by a well-known
American author, the characters engage in an after-dinner discussion
concerning the war of the Rebellion, and one of them remarks that the
astonishing fact connected with it was the superabundance of heroism it
revealed. Then he asks his son: “How many young men do you know who
would think it sweet to die for their country?” Very modestly the young
man replies: “I can’t think of a great many at the moment, sir.”
Whereupon, his uncle, a gallant soldier during the war, says: “Nor could
I in 1861; nevertheless they were there.”
The occasion is wanting now, but as “they were there” in 1861, so I have
faith to believe that any great cause would find them now. I can
remember hearing dolorous orators, in the years just preceding the
outbreak of the Rebellion, bewailing the degeneracy of the times, and
declaring that heroism and patriotism were things of the past. The flash
of the gun at Sumter revealed not only the Nation’s peril, but its
strength and glory. In a month, farms and workshops were deserted, and
the peaceful North, transfigured by the splendor of its passion, became
a Nation of warriors.
In the story to which I have already referred, one of the characters,
after quietly telling an incident of a desperate battle, in which his
regiment sustained a severe loss, says, with intense feeling: “I don’t
want to see any more men killed in my time.” This sentiment will, I feel
confident, be approved by every soldier of the late war. Certainly, I
hope that no occasion for calling the “Kansas National Guard” into
active service may ever arise. But I am sure that if such an occasion
did come, you would be equal to its duties and its responsibilities.
Some of you know what war is. You learned it on fields where the earth
trembled with the shock of contending hosts. Most, if not all of you,
have in your veins the blood of men who were soldiers and heroes. And I
am confident that, if you were called upon in any emergency demanding an
illustration of true soldierly qualities, you would prove yourselves
worthy successors of the men of 1861–5.
I hope you will continue to maintain an efficient organization. I
congratulate you on the proficiency you have already attained in drill
and discipline. This year, for the first time, the State has made some
provision for maintaining a well-organized military force, and this
encouragement ought to increase your interest in the organizations to
which you belong, and your activity in discharging your duties as
members of the Kansas National Guard. The instruction you receive as
soldiers, the drill and discipline to which you subject yourselves, are
not without their uses, even in times of profound peace. Every man who
has been drilled as a soldier is physically benefited by such exercise;
and the lessons of obedience, of respect for law, of promptness in the
discharge of duty, of faithfulness, patriotism and courage, that are the
inspiration of soldierly conduct—these lessons will be of value to you
in every relation of life.
It gives me pleasure to meet you. I trust your brief sojourn in camp
will be not only instructive, but pleasant, to one and all of you. Your
general officers are all trained and experienced soldiers, who served
their country faithfully and honorably in time of war, and your Major
General left a leg on one of the battle-fields of the late civil war.
Many of your field and line officers are also experienced soldiers. They
are thus thoroughly qualified, by habits and education, to instruct you
in your duties, and I have no doubt they will take pride and pleasure in
doing so.
And now, soldiers of the National Guard, remember that you are here on
duty. Be prompt in responding to every order; preserve discipline in
your camp; and so conduct yourselves, when absent from it, as to bring
no reproach on the uniform you wear. You voluntarily put it on. Try to
honor it by the manliness of sobriety; by the grace and pride of duty
faithfully performed; and by the walk and conduct of a true soldier,
who, honoring the badge of his service, never fails to honor himself.
WELCOMING ADDRESS.
Address of welcome, to the Select Knights, A. O. U. W., at Topeka,
October 13, 1885.
GENTLEMEN: When requested by the local committee, some weeks ago, to
welcome to Kansas the Select Knights of the A. O. U. W., I very
willingly assented. For, although not a member of your organization, I
knew enough of its purposes, and of the principles on which it is
founded, to assure me not only that it was worthy of the respect of all
good citizens, but that it worthily represented, in its membership, the
best citizenship of the United States and Canada.
The ceremonial addresses of this occasion are, however, only the outward
manifestation of the cordial welcome with which the people of Kansas
will greet you. The real welcome will be extended in the outstretched
hands, in the open doors, in the generous hearts of your friends and
brothers throughout this Commonwealth.
Human nature demands society and friendship. The impulses which lead men
to band themselves together in associations, are far deeper than any
tendencies to individualism and isolation. Out of this craving for
fellowship has grown your Order, and all other societies of similar
structure. It is not a very “Ancient” organization, unless, as I have
heard it said, this country of ours has lived a full century during the
past twenty-five years. But it has grown and prospered until its lodges
are scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and its membership is
over 150,000. This is the best possible evidence that the Order of
United Workmen deserves to live. The American people, fond as they are
of organized fellowship and society, are intelligent, discriminating and
practical, and no organization having unworthy aims or ideas, can long
survive among them.
I congratulate you, heartily, upon the prosperous condition of your
Order. I congratulate you on the harmony and enthusiasm prevailing in
your ranks, and on the manifest interest and pride that is felt, by all
of your members, in the preservation and growth of your organization.
And I welcome you, sincerely and cordially, to Kansas.
A quarter of a century ago William H. Seward said that in the future
“men will go up to Kansas as they go up to Jerusalem.” Whether you came
here in this spirit or not, you feel something of its inspiration before
you go away from our borders. I warn you, here and now, that there is
irresistible fascination in the atmosphere of Kansas. The history, the
growth, the prosperity of this State are all exceptional. Not yet
twenty-five years of age, Kansas has outstripped, in population, wealth
and all the elements of an advanced civilization, more than half the
States of the Union. This State has carried off the first prizes at the
International Expositions at Philadelphia and New Orleans. It leads the
procession in the reports of the National Agricultural Department. It
has built nearly five thousand miles of railway to carry to market the
largest crops ever grown on American soil. It has assailed ignorance
with seven thousand school-houses. Of its 270,000 voters, at least
110,000 were soldiers during the civil war. The map of the Continent was
disfigured by a desert—these people touched it with the magic wand of
industry and enterprise, and lo! a garden blossoms in its stead. To
populate a county thirty miles square within six months, and round out
the half-year with a fight over the county seat between six towns, or to
build a fair-sized city within a twelvemonth—these achievements may seem
like a fiction, but they have been realities in Kansas. Beware, I say to
you again, lest you catch the contagious enthusiasm of Kansas, and,
telegraphing for your wives and children to come by the next train,
return to your old homes no more. I don’t want to break up the A. O. U.
W. in other States, by transferring you at once to Kansas, and so I give
you this friendly warning.
But whether you come as visitors, to enjoy, for a brief time, our
hospitality, or as immigrants to become permanent citizens, I bid you
welcome, thrice welcome to Kansas. I know you will like Kansas, and I am
equally certain that Kansas will like you. We are all glad that you came
here to hold your biennial conclave, and, speaking not only for your
special hosts, the United Workmen of Topeka, but for the large-hearted
people of Kansas, I can say:
“Sirs, you are very welcome to our house;
It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.”
THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE.
Address, on taking the Chair, at a meeting of the Irish National
League, held at Topeka, November 5, 1885.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I accepted the invitation given me by your
Committee, to preside at this meeting, not because I have any fitness
for or experience in the discharge of such duties, but because I wished
to testify, by my presence here, my hearty sympathy with the cause of
good government for Ireland.
I wish to say, however, frankly and with emphasis, that I do not agree
with all those who, in this country, profess devotion to Ireland. I hold
in unspeakable abhorrence any man, or association of men, who, either in
Ireland, America, or any other land, perpetrate revolting crimes in the
sacred name of Liberty, or who believe, or pretend to believe, that any
good cause or noble purpose can be promoted by assassination, or by that
weapon of cowardly hate and brutality—dynamite.
But if I understand the purposes and principles for which Charles
Stewart Parnell and his followers are contending, in Ireland, they are
those which, in America, have enlisted all the zeal and energy of my
youth, and all the devotion of my manhood. The Irish leader is seeking
to facilitate the ownership of the soil by its occupants. The first
political campaign in which I was old enough to take an interest, was
waged to open the public domain to the people under the beneficent
provisions of the Homestead act. The Irish leader is contending for the
right of every man to vote for those who are to make laws for his
government, and this right, in America, I have advocated and defended
with unfaltering devotion. The Irish leader is contending, in Ireland,
for protection to home industries, and this policy, in America, has
commanded my ardent support. The same ideas and principles that have
controlled my action in America would make me, if in Ireland, a
Nationalist. And surely the Irish people, who have fought so gallantly
for Liberty in every land, have a just right to expect the sympathy of
liberty-loving people, the world over, in their struggle for just laws
and better government.
The American people, too, have a personal interest in the Irish leader.
For more than half a century his grandfather was one of the most
distinguished officers of our navy. He was at Tripoli, with Decatur; and
he commanded, during some of her most famous battles, the renowned
frigate Constitution, “Old Ironsides.”
The grandson of Rear Admiral Charles Stewart has established his right
to leadership in Ireland by his courage, his energy, his ability, and,
above all, by his patience and moderation. A greater Irishman than he
once said that “the only Liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected
with order.” This truth Parnell has kept steadily in view. To temper the
hot blood and restrain the fiery zeal of the Irish people, and at the
same time to retain their confidence, to command their devotion, and
wisely direct their struggle for justice—this has indeed been a delicate
and difficult task. But Parnell has been equal to it. His sobriety, his
self-command, his clearness and soundness of judgment, have been
conspicuously illustrated at every stage of the contest he has waged,
and these qualities have been supplemented by ardent public spirit, and
a courage and constancy no danger could daunt, no disaster could turn
from its purpose.
Many years ago the greatest of Irish orators, Daniel O’Connell, in a
speech in Exeter Hall, London, said: “Americans, I send my voice
careering like the thunder-storm across the Atlantic, to tell South
Carolina that God’s thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the negro that
the dawn of his redemption is drawing near.”
In the same spirit, with equal earnestness, and, let us hope, with
something of O’Connell’s prophetic vision, let this meeting send across
the Atlantic its greeting to Charles Stewart Parnell, and to all those
who, with him, are striving to secure justice, good government, and a
fair chance in the battle of life for the Irish people.
THE SCHOOL TEACHER.
Address before the State Teachers’ Association, held at Topeka,
December 28th, 1885.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: During my school days I
frequently heard, and occasionally took part in, animated debates as to
the relative influence and usefulness of the pen or the sword, the
lawyer, the doctor, or the minister. I do not remember that the labor of
the teacher was ever discussed in these eager, if somewhat callow,
controversies. Yet, if any thoughtful, intelligent man were asked to
pass judgment upon the comparative value of human activities, I am sure
he would make answer that the public educator leads all the rest.
I do not say this, teachers of Kansas, because I am in your presence.
Nor do I say it in any spirit of flattery. I am speaking of the duties,
responsibilities and opportunities of your profession, rather than of
the individuals who are engaged in teaching. For, I regret to say, I
have known teachers who were no better qualified to guide, instruct and
inspire the boys and girls in their charge than a painted Indian is
fitted to illustrate the virtues and graces of true Christian life and
character. But the incompetency or unworthiness of individual teachers
does not detract in the least degree from the statement I make, that
there is no occupation so important in the economy of the State, no
profession so far-reaching and universal in its influence on society, as
that of the public educator.
Some one has said that there is nothing on this earth so pure and
plastic as a human soul and mind fresh from the hands of its Creator.
Guileless, questioning, impressionable, its bright young eyes looking
fearlessly into the unfathomable future, the child comes to the teacher
to be armed and trained for the hard, stern duties of this busy,
care-burdened, practical world. How shall it be developed to true
manhood and womanhood? How shall the ideals of its fresh, unconscious
childhood be conformed to the real in humanity without making the child
either a pert, superficial prig, a carping, sneering, skeptical pedant,
or a visionary, incapable theorist? These are the questions to which the
teacher must make reply.
I do not assume that I can aid you in solving these problems. I wish
only to present to you, as clearly and as earnestly as possible, the
grave responsibilities you have assumed. The wisest and greatest men in
all ages and countries have exalted the profession of the teacher.
“Public education,” said Napoleon, “should be the first object of
government.” Burke declared that “education is the chief defense of
nations.” Edward Everett affirmed that “education is a better safeguard
of liberty than a standing army.” Horace Mann said that “school-houses
are the republican line of fortifications.” Emerson defined education as
“the arming of the man.” These declarations are self-evident truths. No
intelligent persons will dispute them. And you, teachers of Kansas,
realizing the importance of your responsibilities, as I have no doubt
you do, ought to realize also the necessity of fitting yourselves for
the work you have undertaken.
In the charming stories of that great master of English fiction, Charles
Dickens, there are sketches of schools, scholars and teachers that every
public educator might read with profit. I am confident we have no
Yorkshire schools and schoolmasters in Kansas—schools in which every
young affection, every kindly sympathy, every hopeful aspiration, was
flogged and starved to death. I hope, too, that we have no schools like
that in which poor little Paul Dombey was crammed to an untimely
grave—schools in which the studies “went round like a mighty wheel, and
the young gentlemen were stretched upon it.” But I fear that mechanical
schoolmasters of the Bradley Headstone class, and schools like that of
David Copperfield, with its unwholesome smells, its dirty floors and its
ink-stained walls, are not wholly unknown in this country. Let us hope
they are very few, and growing fewer as the years go on. Kansas people
take just pride in saying that the best building in every town, village
or neighborhood in the State is the school-house, and it is pleasant to
believe that the young life within them all is as sweet, as happy and as
healthful as the flowers, the birds, and the air of our prairies. In the
“Old Curiosity Shop” there is a picture, homely but delightful, of a
school whose influences would run like a golden thread through the life
of every child brought within their scope. You remember it, I am
sure—the picture of the simple-hearted, kindly old teacher, whose
thoughts went wandering across the fields to the bedside of the scholar
he loved; the patient, faithful old master whose rollicking boys were
one and all the children of his heart and hopes; the shrewd and
sympathetic old man who, when the forbidden shouts and laughter of his
pupils on the playground jarred upon his mournful thoughts, said: “It’s
natural, thank Heaven, and I’m very glad they didn’t mind me.”
The way to the heart of a child is not difficult to find, and the
teacher who is at once friend, confidant, sympathizer and instructor,
has found it, and thus lightened not only his own burdens but those of
his pupils. The true teacher, the successful educator, the really great
master, is one who stimulates the ambition of his scholars, and, with
ready tact and helpful sympathy, awakens and develops all that is best
and brightest in their natures. It was his kindness and sympathy, no
less than his great learning, that gave Arnold of Rugby his world-wide
fame. It was his enthusiastic love for his work no less than his wisdom
that gave Horace Mann his high rank as an educator.
But I am detaining you too long. I gladly discharge the pleasant duty
assigned me, and cordially welcome you to the Capital. That sturdy old
Scotch statesman, Fletcher of Saltoun, writing to the Earl of Montrose,
two hundred years ago, said: “I knew a very wise man that believed that,
if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who
should make the laws of a nation.” I welcome you, teachers of Kansas, as
men and women who could say, with far more truth: “In educating the boys
and girls of the State, we inspire its sentiment, control its business,
direct its enterprise, and make its laws.” No one could aspire to a
nobler, greater work than yours, and in assembling here you make
manifest the fact that you realize the vast importance of your duties. I
trust your meeting will be pleasant and instructive, and that you will
one and all return to your homes inspired with renewed ardor for your
work, and with larger, broader, more exalted views of its great dignity
and greater responsibilities. To those here assembled, and to all the
faithful, earnest teachers of Kansas, I address Shakespeare’s language:
“I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons
are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under
you. You are good members of the Commonwealth.”
ADDRESS.
Delivered in the Grand Opera House, Topeka, Jan. 6, 1886, at
installation of officers of Lincoln Post, G. A. R., and other
organizations.
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY, LADIES OF THE RELIEF CORPS, AND MEMBERS OF
THE SONS OF VETERANS: I was somewhat surprised, while reading the papers
this morning, to see in the program of this evening’s ceremonies, that I
was announced for an address. I entered a mental protest against this
detail for extra duty. I do not know what I have done to deserve it. I
was invited to act as “Master of Ceremonies” on this occasion. I did not
understand, in accepting the invitation, that the Master of Ceremonies
was expected to make a speech. I felt very much, when I read that
announcement, as did a soldier at Chicamauga. The battle was just
opening; the artillery was thundering at the distant fords; the crackle
of the more deadly musketry was swelling to the roar of a close
conflict; and a regiment of our troops was moving forward, in line,
through the forest. Suddenly a rabbit started from his cover, and ran as
only a frightened rabbit can run, away from the advancing lines. A
soldier, expressing, I have no doubt, the general sentiment of his
comrades, shouted out: “Run, you white-tailed little rascal, run; if I
hadn’t any more pride than you have, I’d run, too.” When I saw the
announcement referred to, I felt like running.
I wanted also to say a few words to the committee that took this
unwarranted liberty. I should like to express my opinion of their
action, but it might not, here and now, be exactly the right thing to
do. A few years ago Judge Hugh L. Bond, of Maryland, told me that
shortly after the war he went to North Carolina with a party of Boston
gentlemen who contemplated the establishment of some important
industries in that section. The natives were unreconstructed and sullen.
One of them owned a fine water power. The dam was there, at the mill
site; but the mill—well, you know the rest of this. Judge Bond said that
while the others of the party were looking around the place, he engaged
the owner in conversation, and among other questions he asked: “What
became of your mill?” The native replied: “It was burned by _Mister_
Sherman.” Said Bond, affecting astonishment: “_Mister_ Sherman, _Mister_
Sherman—why, who is _Mister_ Sherman?” The native looked askance at him,
and slowly drawled out: “Wall, Mister, he war a man what made hisself
powerful unpopular around this neighborhood a few years ago.”
I know a committee that was “powerful unpopular” with me this morning.
Indeed, I think that for a few moments, I would have liked to
_conciliate_ that committee somewhat after Gen. Butler’s idea. Col. E.
W. Hincks, of the Sixth Massachusetts, explained this idea to me, some
years ago. During the fall or winter of 1861, he was under Gen. Butler’s
command, and received one day an order to make a scout through the
surrounding country, and to report at headquarters for instructions. He
reported, and, receiving from the General minute directions touching his
route, duties, etc., turned to leave, when he remembered that nothing
had been said about how the inhabitants were to be dealt with. So he
said: “General, how shall I treat the people?” “Oh,” replied Butler,
carelessly, “conciliate ’em; conciliate ’em.” Col. Hincks saluted, and
started off. He had his hand on the door-knob, when Butler suddenly
asked: “Young man, do you know how to conciliate an enemy?” The Colonel
turned and doubtfully replied: “I do not know, General, whether I
understand what you mean.” “Well,” said Butler, “the _right way_ to
_conciliate_ an enemy is to take him by the throat and choke him until
his eyes bulge out.”
I was, however, honored by the invitation I received to act as Master of
Ceremonies on this occasion. Lincoln Post of the G. A. R. is the largest
Grand Army organization in the West—probably the largest in the country.
Its members represent every army, every corps, and probably every
division and brigade of the Union Army. Always enthusiastic, always
ready for duty, preserving fresh and fair the inspiration that warmed
their hearts and nerved their arms a quarter of a century ago, and
maintaining unbroken the ties of comradeship which united them when they
touched elbows in the long line of patriot heroes stretching from the
Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic—it is indeed an honor to be called by
such a Post, to preside at the installation of its officers.
None the less do I appreciate the honor of acting as Master of
Ceremonies at the installation of the officers of the Relief Corps. I
have often thought that, after all, it was the patriotic women of the
country who had the hardest part to bear during the long and dreadful
years of the war. The excitement of a soldier’s life, the changing
scenes of march and camp, the inspiration of comradeship, the pride of
duty well performed, the sustaining power of organization and
numbers—all these were denied them. Powerless except to suffer,
voiceless except to pray, and yet patient, self-sacrificing and brave,
mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts of this land felt every shot
that echoed on the battle-fields of the war as a wound, and staggered
under the load of every hardship or privation our soldiers were called
upon to endure. The women at home were just as true patriots and heroes
as the men at the front:
“The maid who binds her warrior’s sash
With smile that well her pain dissembles,
The while beneath her drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles;
Though Heaven alone records the tear,
And fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As e’er bedewed the field of glory.
“The wife who girds her husband’s sword,
’Mid little ones who weep and wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder,
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as e’er
Was poured upon the field of battle.
“The mother who conceals her grief
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e’er the sod
Received on Freedom’s field of honor.”
The boys, too,—the sons of Veterans—the young men and lads in whose
veins runs the blood of the heroes who saved the Republic; the
rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed young fellows who are your legitimate
successors, my comrades,—what shall I say of them? The Grand Army will
vanish as the years go by. Day by day its ranks will shrink and dwindle,
as they did, years ago, before the fire of the enemy. They cannot be
filled by recruiting. But I rejoice that such an organization as the
Sons of Veterans will survive, to keep green and fair the deeds of their
fathers, and to preserve the heritage of free government that their
fathers maintained. The blood of patriot fathers warms the hearts of
patriot sons, and I have faith to believe that any emergency demanding
such sacrifices as those the people of this country were called upon to
make from 1861 to 1865, would find millions of young men ready to brave
all, suffer all, give all, for Liberty and the Republic.
“Mother Earth, are the heroes dead?
Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?
Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red
All that is left of the brave of yore?
Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,
Far in the young world’s misty dawn?
Or to teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught?
Mother Earth, are the heroes gone?
“Gone? In a grander form they rise.
Dead? We may clasp their hands in ours,
And catch the light of their clearer eyes,
And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers.
Wherever a noble deed is done,
’Tis the pulse of a hero’s heart is stirred;
Wherever the Right has a triumph won,
There are the heroes’ voices heard.
“Their armor rings on a fairer field
Than the Greek or the Trojan ever trod:
For Freedom’s sword is the blade they wield,
And the light above is the smile of God.
So in his isle of calm delight
Jason may sleep the years away;
For the heroes live, and the skies are bright,
And the world is a braver world to-day.”
Commander-in-Chief, Comrades of the Grand Army, and ladies and
gentlemen, I await your pleasure.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANSAS.
Address delivered at the Quarter-Centennial Celebration of the
Admission of Kansas, Topeka, January 29, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In Grecian mythology it is
related that Zeus, warned by an oracle that the son of his spouse,
Metis, would snatch supremacy from him, swallowed both Metis and her
unborn child. When the time of birth arrived, Zeus felt a violent pain
in his head, and in his agony requested Hephæstus to cleave the head
open with an ax. His request was complied with, and from the brain of
the great god sprang Athena, full-armed and with a mighty war-shout. She
at once assumed a high place among the divinities of Olympus. She first
took part in the discussions of the gods as an opponent of the savage
Ares. She gave counsel to her father against the giants; and she slew
Enceladus, the most powerful of those who conspired against Zeus, and
buried him under Mt. Ætna. She became the patron of heroism among men,
and her active and original genius inspired their employment. The
agriculturist and the mechanic were under her special protection, and
the philosopher, the poet and the orator delighted in her favor. The
ægis was in her helmet, and she represented the ether—pure air. She was
worshipped at Athens because she caused the olive to grow on the bare
rock of the Acropolis. She was also the protectress of the arts of peace
among women. She bore in her hand the spool, the spindle and the needle,
and she invented and excelled in all the work of women. She was the
goddess of wisdom and the symbol of thought; she represented military
skill and civic prudence. In war she was heroic and invincible; in peace
she was wise, strong, inventive, and industrious.
THE ATHENA OF AMERICAN STATES.
Kansas is the Athena of American States. Thirty-six years ago the Slave
Oligarchy ruled this country. Fearing that the birth of new States in
the West would rob it of supremacy, the Slave Power swallowed the
Missouri Compromise, which had dedicated the Northwest to Freedom. The
industrious North, aroused and indignant, struck quick and hard, and
Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war-cry of Liberty, and nerved with
invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed a high
place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of Slavery; she gave
voice and potency to the demand for its abolition; and she aided in
burying Secession in its unhonored grave. The war over, she became the
patron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism,
and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within the
shelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist and the mechanic were
charmed by her ample resources and inspired by her eager enterprise.
Education found in her a generous patron, and to literature, art and
science she has been a steadfast friend. Her pure atmosphere invigorated
all. A desert disfigured the map of the Continent, and she covered it
with fields of golden wheat and tasseling corn. She has extended to
women the protection of generous laws and of enlarged opportunities for
usefulness. In war she was valiant and indomitable, and in peace she has
been intelligent, energetic, progressive and enterprising. The modern
Athena, type of the great Greek goddess, is our Kansas.
THE CHILD OF A GREAT ERA.
It is not a long lapse of time since the 29th of January, 1861. A boy
born during that eventful year cast his first Presidential vote at the
last election. But no other period of the world’s history has been so
fertile in invention, so potential in thought, so restless and
aggressive in energy, or so crowded with sublime achievements, as the
quarter-century succeeding the admission of Kansas as a State. During
that period occurred the greatest war the world has ever known. An
industrious, self-governed, peace-loving people, transfigured by the
inspiration of patriotism and freedom, became, within a twelvemonth, a
Nation of trained and disciplined warriors. Human slavery, entrenched
for centuries in law, tradition, wealth, and the pride of race, was
annihilated, and five million slaves were clothed with the powers and
responsibilities of citizenship. The continent was girdled with railroad
and telegraph lines. In 1860 there were only 31,186 miles of railway in
the United States; there are now fully 130,000 miles. Less than 50,000
miles of telegraph wires were stretched at the date of the admission of
Kansas; there are now nearly 300,000 miles. The telephone and the
electric light are fruits of this period, and the improvements and
inventions in farm implements, in books and newspapers, in all the
appliances of mechanical industry, and in the arts and sciences, have
revolutionized nearly every department of human activity.
When this marvelous era dawned upon the world, Kansas was a fiction of
the geographers. On the map of our country it was marked as a desert,
and the few explorers who had penetrated its vast solitudes described it
as an arid and sandy waste, fit only for the wild bison or the wilder
Indian. There it had lain for centuries, voiceless and changeless,
waiting for the miracle of civilization to touch and transform it.
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill made Kansas the central figure
in a tremendous conflict. It became not only the child of a marvelous
epoch, and heir to all the progress, the achievements and the glory of
that epoch, but it stood for an idea; it represented a principle; and
that idea and principle thrilled the heart and awakened the conscience
of the Nation. That a State cradled amid such events, schooled during
such a period, and inspired by such sentiments, should, in its growth
and development, illustrate these mighty energies and impulses, was
inevitable. The Kansas of to-day is only the logical sequence of the
influences and agencies that have surrounded, shaped and directed every
step and stage of the State’s material and administrative progress.
NOT THE HISTORIAN.
I am not, however, the historian of this occasion. Very properly the
committee assigned to my honored predecessor, the first Governor of the
State—who has been with and of it during all the lights and shadows of
thirty-one revolving years—the duty of presenting an historical sketch
of the difficulties and dangers through which Kansas was “added to the
stars,” and became one of the brightest in the constellation of the
Union. To me was allotted another task—that of presenting, as briefly
and as clearly as I am able, the material development of Kansas, and her
present condition and position. It is at once a delightful and a
difficult task. The growth of Kansas is a theme which has always
enlisted my interest and excited my pride. But I cannot hope to present
any adequate picture of the Kansas you know so well—the Kansas of your
love and of your faith; the imperial young State, at once the enigma and
the wonder of American commonwealths.
THREE PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT.
The development of Kansas, it seems to me, has had three periods, which
may properly be called the decades of War, of Uncertainty, and of
Triumph. From 1855 to 1865, Kansas was an armed camp. The border
troubles, outbreaking late in 1854, continued until the Rebellion was
inaugurated. Kansas, in fact, began the war six years before the Nation
had fired a shot, and the call to arms in 1861 found here a singularly
martial people, who responded with unparalleled enthusiasm to the
President’s demands for men. In less than a year ten full regiments were
organized, and before the close of the war Kansas had sent over twenty
thousand soldiers to the field, out of a population of but little more
than a hundred thousand. Fields, workshops, offices and schools were
deserted, and the patient and heroic women who had kept weary vigils
during all the dark and desolate days of the border troubles, now waited
in their lonely home for tidings from the larger field of the civil war.
It is doubtful whether Kansas increased, either in population or wealth,
from 1861 to 1864. But the young State grew in public interest and
reputation, and when the heroic men, whose valor and patriotism had
saved the Republic, began to be mustered out, Kansas offered an inviting
field for their energy, and they came hither in great numbers. The
population of the State, which was 107,206 in 1860, had increased to
140,179 in 1865. The assessed value of its property increased from
$22,518,232 to $36,110,000 during the same period, and the land in farms
from 1,778,400 to 3,500,000 acres. It was not a “boom,” nor was it
stagnation and decay. Yet it is probable that nearly the whole of the
growth shown by these figures dates from the spring of 1864.
The real development of Kansas began in 1865, and it has known few
interruptions since. The census of 1870 showed a population of
364,399—an increase of 124,220 in five years, or nearly double the
population of 1865. Railroad building also began in 1865, and 1,283
miles were completed by 1870. The home-returning soldiers and the
railroads came together. Immigrants to other States came in slow-moving
canal boats or canvas-covered wagons, but they came to Kansas in the
lightning express, and most of them went to their claims in comfortable
cars drawn by that marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Our State
has never had a “coon-skin cap” population. It is the child of the
prairies, not of the forest. It has always attracted men of
intelligence, who knew a good thing when they saw it. They brought with
them the school, the church and the printing-press; they planted an
orchard and a grove as soon as they had harvested their first crop; and
if they were compelled to live in a dug-out the first year or two, they
were reasonably certain to own a comfortable house the third.
THE PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY.
The period from 1865 to 1875 was, however, a period of uncertainty.
Kansas remained an experiment. The drouth and grasshopper invasion of
1860, a menacing memory for many years, had just begun to grow dim when
the drouth of 1873 and the still more disastrous drouth and locust
invasion of 1874 revived its recollection, and intensified the
uncertainty it had inspired. The intervening years were not, it is true,
without their exaltation and triumphs. Luxuriant harvests followed the
disaster of 1860, year after year in unbroken succession, until 1873,
and we indulged in much jubilant boasting and self-gratulation over our
fruitful soil, our benign climate, and our gracious seasons. But over
and through it all brooded and ran a feeling of question or uncertainty,
which manifested itself in many ways. The newspapers, while affecting to
sneer at those who did not believe Kansas to be a country where rains
always came just when they were wanted, nevertheless recorded every rain
with suspicious prominence. Even the corner-lot speculator watched the
clouds while he was denouncing the slanderers who asserted that Kansas
was “a dry country.” “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” might
have been said of the Kansans who, from 1865 to 1875, vehemently
maintained that the normal condition of Kansas was that of a quagmire.
And in the midst of it all came 1873 and 1874, with their twin
devastations and calamities. A fierce sun rose and set for months in a
cloudless sky; the parched earth shrank and cracked; and the crops
withered and shriveled in winds as hot as the breath of a furnace. But
as if the destruction thus wrought was not enough, out from the
northwest came clouds of insects, darkening the sun in their baleful
flight, and leaving the very abomination of desolation wherever they
alighted. It was then that the bravest quailed, and our sturdiest
farmers abandoned all hope. Thousands of people, now among our most
prosperous citizens, would have sold everything they possessed for
one-sixth of its value, during the year 1874, and abandoned the State
forever. But they could find no purchasers, even at such a price.
Somehow—and I mention the fact to their everlasting credit—many of the
newspapers of Kansas never lost heart or hope during that distressful
season. They lauded the State more earnestly, if possible, than ever
before. They asserted, with vehement iteration, that the season was
exceptional and phenomenal. They exhorted the people to keep up courage,
and confidently predicted abundant harvests next year. And to their
influence more than any other, is due the fact that Kansas survived the
drouth and grasshopper invasion of 1874 with so little loss of
population.
THE PERIOD OF TRIUMPH.
The period of triumph began in 1875. While the world was still talking
of our State as a drouth-powdered and insect-eaten country, Kansas was
preparing for the Centennial, and getting ready for a great future. And
in 1876, she sprang into the arena of Nations with a display of her
products and resources which eclipsed them all, and excited the wonder
and admiration of the whole civilized earth.
From that time to this the development of Kansas has never known a halt,
nor have the hopes of our citizens ever been troubled by a doubt. More
permanent and costly homes have been builded, more stately public
edifices have been reared, more substantial improvements have been made
on farms and in towns, more wealth has been accumulated, during the
decade beginning in 1875, than during the two previous decades. No
citizen of Kansas, from that day to this, has ever written a letter,
made a speech, or talked at home or abroad, with his fellow-citizens or
with strangers, without exalting the resources and glorifying the
greatness of the State. No Legislature, since that time, has ever
doubted the ability of the State to do anything it pleased to do.
A new Kansas has been developed during that period. The youth of 1875
has grown to the full stature and strength of confident and intelligent
manhood. The people have forgotten to talk of drouths, which are no more
incident to Kansas than to Ohio or Illinois. They no longer watch the
clouds when rain has not fallen for two weeks. The newspapers no longer
chronicle rains as if they were uncommon visitations. A great many
things, besides the saloons, have gone, and gone to stay. The
bone-hunter and the buffalo-hunter of the plains, the Indian and his
reservations, the jay-hawker and the Wild Bills, the Texas steer and the
cowboy, the buffalo grass and the dug-outs, the loneliness and immensity
of the unpeopled prairies, the infinite stretching of the plains,
unbroken by tree or shrub, by fence or house—all these have vanished, or
are rapidly vanishing. In their stead has come, and come to stay, an
aggressive, energetic, cultured, sober, law-respecting civilization.
Labor-saving machines sweep majestically through fields of golden wheat
or sprouting corn; blooded stock lazily feed in meadows of bluestem,
timothy, or clover; comfortable houses dot every hill-top and valley;
forests, orchards and hedge-rows diversify the loveliness of the
landscape; and where isolation and wildness brooded, the majestic lyric
of prosperous industry is echoing over eighty-one thousand square miles
of the loveliest and most fertile country that the sun, in his daily
journey, lights and warms. The voiceless Sphynx of thirty years ago has
become the whispering-gallery of the continent. The oppressed Territory
of 1855, the beggared State of 1874, has become a Prince, ruling the
markets of the world with opulent harvests.
THE FACTS OF THE CENSUS.
I am not, in thus exalting the growth and prosperity of Kansas, speaking
recklessly, as I shall show by statistics compiled from the census and
agricultural reports of the United States and our own State. Figures are
always dry, I know. But when they tell the pleasant story of the march
of civilization into and over a new land, surely they cannot fail to
interest men and women who have themselves marched with this conquering
army of industry and peace.
THE GROWTH OF KANSAS WITHOUT PARALLEL.
The growth of Kansas has had no parallel. The great States of New York
and Pennsylvania were nearly a hundred and fifty years in attaining a
population Kansas has reached in thirty years. Kentucky was eighty
years, Tennessee seventy-five, Alabama ninety, Ohio forty-five, and
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, and North and South Carolina each
over a hundred years, in reaching the present population of Kansas. Even
the marvelous growth of the great States of the West has been surpassed
by that of Kansas. Illinois was organized as a Territory in 1810, and
thirty years later had only 691,392 inhabitants, or not much more than
one-half the present population of this State. Indiana was organized in
1800, and sixty years later had a population of only 1,350,428. Iowa was
organized as a Territory in 1838, and had, at that date, a population of
nearly 40,000. In 1870 it had only 1,194,020 inhabitants. Missouri was
organized in 1812, with a population of over 40,000, and fifty years
later had only 1,182,012. Michigan and Wisconsin, after fifty years of
growth, did not have as many people as Kansas has to-day; and Texas,
admitted into the Union in 1845, with a population of 150,000, had,
thirty-five years later, only 815,579 inhabitants.
In 1861 Kansas ranked in population as the thirty-third State of the
Union; in 1870 it was the twenty-ninth; in 1880 the twentieth; and it is
now the fifteenth. During the past quarter of a century Kansas has
outstripped Oregon, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Arkansas, Vermont,
New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, Mississippi,
California, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, and New
Jersey—all States before the 29th of January, 1861. Of the Northern
States only eight, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
Massachusetts, Michigan, and Iowa, and of the Southern States only six,
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas, now outrank
Kansas in population. At the close of the present decade Kansas will, I
am confident, rank as the eleventh State of the American Union, and will
round out the Nineteenth Century as the sixth or seventh.
In the following table the population of Kansas, as shown by the first
census of the Territory, taken in January, 1855, and the official
enumerations made every five years thereafter, is shown. The figures
also exhibit the proportion of white and colored, and of native and
foreign-born inhabitants; the increase of population every five years,
and the density of population per square mile of territory at the close
of each period. The State census taken in 1865, however, did not show
the proportion of native and foreign-born citizens:
═══════╤═════════╤════════╤════════╤═════════╤══════╤═════════╤═════════
│ _Total │ _In- │_Density│ _White │_Col- │ _Native │_Foreign-
_Year._│ popu- │crease._│of popu-│ popu- │ored._│ popu- │ born._
│lation._ │ │lation._│lation._ │ │lation._ │
───────┼─────────┼────────┼────────┼─────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────
1855 │ 8,601│ │ │ │ │ │
1860 │ 107,206│ 98,605│ 1.3│ 106,390│ 816│ 94,512│ 12,694
1865 │ 140,179│ 32,973│ 1.6│ 127,270│12,909│ │
1870 │ 364,399│ 224,220│ 4.4│ 346,377│18,022│ 316,007│ 48,392
1875 │ 528,349│ 163,950│ 6.5│ 493,00│35,344│ 464,682│ 63,667
1880 │ 996,096│ 467,747│ 12.2│ 952,105│43,941│ 886,010│ 110,086
1885[1]│1,268,562│ 272,466│ 15.4│1,220,355│48,207│1,135,887│ 132,675
───────┴─────────┴────────┴────────┴─────────┴──────┴─────────┴─────────
Footnote 1:
Census of March, 1885.
TOWNS AND CITIES.
In 1860 there were only ten towns and cities in Kansas having a
population in excess of 500 each; only three having over 1,000 each; and
only one having over 5,000 inhabitants. In 1880, ninety-nine towns each
had a population in excess of 500; fifty-five towns and cities had each
over 1,000 inhabitants; six had each over 5,000; and three had over
15,000 each. In 1885, each of one hundred and fifty-four towns had over
500 population; ninety-one towns and cities had each over 1,000; twelve
had each over 5,000; six had each over 10,000; four had each over
15,000; and two had each more than 20,000.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE POPULATION.
The origin and character of the population in Kansas is, in this
connection, worthy of special note. Every State in the Union and every
Territory except Alaska, contributed to the population of this State.
The United States census of 1880 shows that 233,066 persons born in
Kansas were then living in the State. The singular fact that native-born
Kansans were then living in every State and Territory, is shown by the
same authority. Illinois contributed 106,992 to our population; Ohio,
93,396; Indiana, 77,096; Missouri, 60,228; Pennsylvania, 59,236; Iowa,
55,972; New York, 43,779, and Kentucky, 32,979. Three other States,
Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, each contributed over 15,000; and
all others less than that number.
The same authority shows that the so-called “exodus” from the South has
been greatly exaggerated, Louisiana and Mississippi furnishing only
4,067 of our colored population, while nearly 19,000 came from the three
States of Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.
The colored people constitute, at the present time, less than four per
cent. of our total population, and the inhabitants of foreign birth a
little more than ten per cent. of the total.
THE MATERIAL RESOURCES OF KANSAS.
The growth of our State in population has not, however, equalled the
development of its material resources. The United States census of 1880
shows that while Kansas, at that date, ranked as the twentieth State in
population, it was the eighth State in the number and value of its live
stock, the seventeenth in farm products, the fourteenth in value of farm
products _per capita_, the twentieth in wealth, the thirteenth in
education, the seventeenth in the amount of its indebtedness, State and
municipal, and the twenty-fourth in manufactures. Only one State,
Nebraska, shows a smaller proportion of persons unable to read and
write. And in twenty-eight of the forty-seven States and Territories,
taxation, _per capita_, was greater than it is in Kansas.
In 1880 Kansas was the sixth corn-producing State of the Union. Only
Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, then produced larger crops
of this cereal. But the corn product of Kansas, that year, was only
101,421,718 bushels, while for the year 1885 it was 194,130,814 bushels,
or nearly double the crop of 1880.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
In the following table the aggregate of the corn, wheat, oats, potato,
and hay products of Kansas, for the years 1860 and 1865, and for each
year thereafter, is given. The figures, prior to 1875, are compiled from
the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture; those
following, from the reports of the Secretary of our own State Board of
Agriculture:
═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════
_Year._ │ _Corn, │ _Wheat, │ _Oats, │_Potatoes, │ _Hay,
│ bushels._ │ bushels._ │ bushels._ │ bushels._ │ tons._
───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
1860 │ 6,150,727│ 194,173│ 88,325│ 296,325│ 56,232
1865 │ 6,729,236│ 191,519│ 155,290│ 276,720│ 123,082
1867 │ 8,159,000│ 1,250,000│ 236,000│ 314,000│ 162,000
1868 │ 6,487,000│ 1,537,000│ 247,000│ 850,000│ 118,000
1869 │ 16,685,000│ 2,343,000│ 1,500,000│ 1,500,000│ 250,000
1870 │ 17,025,525│ 2,391,197│ 4,097,925│ 2,342,988│ 490,289
1871 │ 24,693,000│ 2,694,000│ 4,056,000│ 3,452,000│ 687,000
1872 │ 46,667,451│ 3,062,941│ 6,084,000│ 3,797,000│ 728,000
1873 │ 29,683,843│ 5,994,044│ 9,360,000│ 3,000,000│ 977,000
1874 │ 15,699,078│ 9,881,383│ 7,847,000│ 1,116,000│ 530,000
1875 │ 80,798,769│ 13,209,403│ 9,794,051│ 4,668,939│ 1,156,412
1876 │ 82,308,176│ 14,620,225│ 12,386,216│ 5,611,895│ 809,149
1877 │103,497,831│ 14,316,705│ 12,768,488│ 3,320,507│ 1,228,020
1878 │ 89,323,971│ 32,315,358│ 17,411,473│ 4,525,419│ 1,507,988
1879 │108,704,927│ 20,550,936│ 13,326,637│ 3,521,526│ 1,551,321
1880 │101,421,718│ 25,279,884│ 11,483,796│ 5,310,423│ 1,534,221
1881 │ 80,760,542│ 20,479,679│ 9,900,768│ 2,055,202│ 2,122,263
1882 │157,005,722│ 35,734,846│ 21,946,284│ 5,081,865│ 2,293,186
1883 │182,084,526│ 30,024,936│ 30,987,864│ 6,812,420│ 6,002,041
1884 │190,870,686│ 48,050,431│ 20,087,294│ 7,861,404│ 7,105,132
1885 │194,130,814│ 10,859,401│ 30,148,060│ 7,398,465│ 7,685,340
───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
In presenting these figures it is worthy of note that while, as already
stated, the U. S. census reports for 1880 show that Kansas ranked as the
twentieth State in population and the sixth in its corn product, it was
also the eleventh wheat-producing State of the Union, the eleventh in
its oats product, sixteenth in barley, tenth in rye, eighth in hay, and
seventeenth in potatoes. Thus the rank of Kansas, in agricultural
products, was far ahead of her rank in population.
THE AREA OF KANSAS.
The total area of Kansas is 52,288,000 acres. In 1865 only 243,712 acres
of this vast territory was under cultivation; in 1870 the area
aggregated 1,360,000 acres; in 1875, 4,749,900 acres; in 1880, 8,868,884
acres; and in 1885, 14,252,815 acres. In the following table I have
compiled figures showing the area under cultivation, and the value of
the crops produced in Kansas each year, from 1865 to 1885, inclusive:
═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════
_Year._ │ _Acres in │ _Value of
│ crops._ │ crops._
───────────┼───────────┼───────────
1865 │ 243,712│ $5,347,875
1866 │ 273,903│ 6,023,849
1867 │ 397,622│ 8,129,590
1868 │ 562,120│ 10,467,163
1869 │ 855,801│ 15,807,550
1870 │ 1,360,000│ 18,870,260
1871 │ 1,322,734│ 17,335,120
1872 │ 1,735,595│ 15,498,770
1873 │ 2,530,769│ 28,311,200
1874 │ 3,179,616│ 30,842,630
1875 │ 4,749,900│ 43,970,494
1876 │ 5,035,697│ 45,581,926
1877 │ 5,595,304│ 45,597,051
1878 │ 6,538,727│ 49,914,434
1879 │ 7,769,926│ 60,129,780
1880 │ 8,868,884│ 63,111,634
1881 │ 9,802,719│ 91,910,439
1882 │ 11,043,379│108,177,520
1883 │ 11,364,040│106,707,529
1884 │ 13,011,333│104,297,010
1885 │ 14,252,815│ 92,392,818
───────────┴───────────┴───────────
VALUE OF FARM CROPS.
The value of the farm crops of Kansas, for the five years ending with
1870, aggregated $59,298,414; for the next succeeding five years their
value was $135,958,214; for the next five years, $264,334,824; and for
the five years ending with 1885, the farm crops of Kansas aggregated in
value $503,485,316. Thus during the past twenty years the farmers of
Kansas have produced crops whose aggregate value reached the enormous
sum of $963,076,768.
FARMS AND FARM PRODUCTS.
The increase in the value of farms, of farm implements, and of farm
products, (including farm crops, products of live stock, and market
garden, apiarian and horticultural products,) is shown in the following
table. It will be seen that these values have generally doubled every
five years:
═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════
│ _Value of │ _Value of │ _Value of
_Year._ │ farms._ │ farm │ farm
│ │implements._│products._
───────────┼───────────┼───────────┬┴──────────
1860 │$12,258,239│ $727,694│ $4,878,350
1865 │ 24,796,535│ 1,200,720│ 10,653,235
1870 │ 90,327,040│ 4,053,312│ 27,630,651
1875 │123,852,466│ 7,935,645│ 43,970,414
1880 │235,178,936│ 15,652,848│ 84,521,486
1885 │408,073,454│ 9,604,117│143,577,018
───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
The value of the farm products of Kansas, from 1876 to 1880, inclusive,
aggregated $356,557,802, while their value from 1881 to 1885, inclusive,
aggregated the enormous sum of $738,676,912.
TAXABLE ACRES.
The steady development of the State is further illustrated by the
figures showing the increase of taxable acres. In 1860 only 1,778,400
acres were subject to taxation; in 1865 this area had been enlarged to
3,500,000 acres; in 1870 to 8,480,839 acres; in 1875 to 17,672,187
acres; in 1880 to 22,386,435 acres; and in 1885 to 27,710,981 acres.
LIVE STOCK.
In the number and value of its live stock, Kansas ranked, in 1880, as
the eighth State of the Union. In 1860 the live stock of Kansas
aggregated in value only a little over three million dollars; in 1865 it
aggregated over seven millions; in 1870, over twenty-three millions; in
1875, nearly twenty-nine millions; in 1880, over sixty-one millions; and
in 1885, nearly one hundred and eighteen million dollars. The following
table gives the number of horses, mules, cows, cattle, sheep, and swine,
and their aggregate value, for the years 1861 and 1865, and every year
thereafter to and including 1885:
═══════╤═════════╤════════╤═══════╤═════════╤═════════╤═════════╤═══════════
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ _Value of
_Year._│_Horses._│_Mules._│_Cows._│_Cattle._│_Sheep._ │_Swine._ │ live
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ stock._
───────┼─────────┼────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────
1861 │ 20,344│ 1,496│ 28,550│ 74,905│ 17,569│ 138,224│ $3,332,450
1865 │ 32,469│ 2,490│ 71,996│ 130,307│ 82,662│ 95,429│ 7,324,659
1866 │ 38,968│ 2,863│ 82,075│ 139,428│ 108,287│ 127,875│ 9,127,306
1867 │ 39,968│ 2,936│ 85,120│ 140,560│ 106,287│ 132,750│ 10,081,590
1868 │ 42,859│ 2,405│ 89,461│ 146,399│ 101,789│ 149,662│ 9,962,311
1869 │ 50,573│ 2,597│109,142│ 165,430│ 107,896│ 137,848│ 12,902,830
1870 │ 117,786│ 11,786│123,440│ 250,527│ 109,088│ 206,587│ 23,173,185
1871 │ 156,000│ 14,900│162,000│ 345,000│ 115,000│ 304,800│ 31,823,484
1872 │ 180,900│ 16,300│191,100│ 397,400│ 116,100│ 381,000│ 28,488,704
1873 │ 198,900│ 17,400│214,000│ 457,000│ 123,000│ 457,200│ 30,013,898
1874 │ 220,700│ 19,100│231,000│ 507,200│ 141,000│ 484,600│ 31,163,058
1875 │ 207,376│ 24,964│225,028│ 478,295│ 106,224│ 292,658│ 28,610,257
1876 │ 214,811│ 26,421│227,274│ 473,350│ 143,962│ 330,355│ 32,489,293
1877 │ 241,208│ 32,628│261,642│ 519,346│ 205,770│ 704,862│ 33,015,647
1878 │ 274,450│ 40,564│286,241│ 586,002│ 243,760│1,195,044│ 36,913,534
1879 │ 324,766│ 51,981│322,020│ 654,443│ 311,862│1,264,494│ 54,775,497
1880 │ 367,589│ 58,303│366,640│ 748,672│ 426,492│1,281,630│ 61,563,956
1881 │ 383,805│ 58,780│406,706│ 839,751│ 806,323│1,173,199│ 69,814,340
1882 │ 398,678│ 56,654│433,381│ 971,116│ 978,077│1,228,683│ 83,869,199
1883 │ 423,426│ 59,262│471,548│1,133,154│1,154,196│1,393,968│104,539,888
1884 │ 461,136│ 64,889│530,904│1,328,021│1,206,297│1,953,144│115,645,050
1885 │ 513,507│ 75,165│575,887│1,397,131│ 875,193│2,461,520│117,881,699
───────┴─────────┴────────┴───────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────
THE WEALTH OF AN AGRICULTURAL STATE.
Kansas is an agricultural State. It has no gold or silver, no iron, and
just coal enough to furnish fuel. It is the farmers’ and stockmen’s
State. Its development simply shows what good old Mother Earth, when in
her happiest vein, can do. “Agriculture,” says Colton, “is the most
certain source of strength, wealth, and independence; commerce, in all
emergencies, looks to agriculture both for defense and for supply.” The
growth and prosperity of Kansas afford a striking illustration of what
intelligent farmers, with a productive soil and a genial climate for
their workshop, can accomplish—what wealth they can create, what
enterprise they can stimulate.
It is difficult, however, to comprehend what the figures I have given,
showing the amounts and values of Kansas products, really represent.
When we read that Kansas produced, last year, 194,130,000 bushels of
corn, the nine figures set down do not convey any adequate idea of the
bulk and weight of this crop. But when it is stated that the corn crop
of Kansas for 1885 would fill 485,000 freight cars, and load a train
2,847 miles long—reaching from Ogden, Utah, to Boston—we begin to
comprehend what the figures stand for.
The wheat crop of the State, last year, was called a failure. It was,
for Kansas. And yet it would fill 31,939 grain cars, and load a train
189 miles in length. The oats crop of the State, for the same year,
would fill 44,335 cars, and load a train 260 miles long; while the hay
crop would load 768,534 cars, making a train 4,510 miles long.
These four crops of Kansas, for 1885, would fill 1,329,808 grain cars,
and load a train 7,804 miles in length. In other words, the corn, wheat,
oats, and hay produced in Kansas last year would load a train reaching
from Boston to San Francisco by the Union Pacific route, and back again
from San Francisco to Boston by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé route.
COMPARATIVE VALUES.
In speaking of the value of the farm crops and farm products of Kansas,
I can present a clearer idea of the wealth our farmers have digged out
of the earth by some comparisons. In 1881 the products of all the gold
and silver mines of the United States aggregated only $77,700,000; for
1882 they aggregated $79,300,000; for 1883, $76,200,000; and for 1884,
$79,600,000—making a total, for those four years, of $312,800,000. The
value of the field crops of Kansas, for the same years, aggregated
$411,092,498; and the farm products for the State for the same period,
aggregated in value $595,099,894—or very nearly double the aggregate of
all the gold and silver products of all the mines of the country.
The gold and silver products of the world average about $208,000,000 per
annum. The farm products of Kansas for 1885 aggregated $143,577,018, or
nearly three-fourths the value of the gold and silver product of the
world.
For the past four years the farm products of Kansas have aggregated in
value each year more than double the annual yield of all the gold and
silver mines of the United States.
The gold and silver products of Colorado, for 1883, aggregated only
$20,250,000; those of California, 16,600,000; of Nevada, $9,100,000; of
Montana, $9,170,000; of Utah, $6,920,000; of Arizona, $5,430,000; and of
New Mexico, $3,300,000. The corn crop of Kansas for the same year was
alone worth more money than the combined gold and silver products of
Colorado, California and Nevada; the oat crop of Kansas was worth
$705,000 more than the gold and silver product of Arizona; and the Irish
potato crop of Kansas was worth more than the gold and silver product of
New Mexico.
PROPERTY VALUATIONS.
The property valuations of Kansas have increased in steady proportion
with the growth of the State in population and productions. In 1860 the
true valuation of all the property of the State was estimated at
$31,327,891; in 1865 it was estimated at $72,252,180; in 1870 it had
increased to $188,892,014; in 1875 to $242,555,862; in 1880 to
$321,783,387; and for 1885 the true valuation, at a very moderate
estimate, was $550,000,000.
The following table presents the assessed valuation of all the property
of the State for the years mentioned, and also the assessed valuation of
all the real, personal, and railroad property. It will be seen that the
increase in the total assessed values from 1865 to 1875 was $85,434,344,
while from 1875 to 1885 it was $127,300,928.
═════════════╤═════════════╤═════════════╤═════════════╤═════════════
_Year._ │ _Total._ │ _Real │ _Personal._ │ _Railroad._
│ │ estate._ │ │
─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────
1860 │ $22,518,232│ $16,088,602│ $6,429,630│
1865 │ 36,126,090│ 28,133,276│ [A]7,992,814│
1870 │ 92,100,820│ 65,499,365│[2]26,601,455│
1875 │ 121,476,352│ 89,775,784│ 19,422,637│ $12,277,931
1880 │ 160,891,689│ 108,432,049│ 31,911,838│ 20,547,802
1885 │ 248,845,276│ 161,791,641│ 56,685,818│ 30,367,817
─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────
Footnote 2:
In 1865 and 1870, the railroad property was assessed as personal, and
is included under that head.
KANSAS MANUFACTURES.
Kansas is not a manufacturing State. Its prosperity is based upon the
plow. It has, however, coal deposits equal to the needs of its
population, valuable lead mines in the southeast, and salt and gypsum in
abundance. But the manufacturing establishments of the State are
steadily increasing in importance as well as in number. In its flouring
and grist mills Kansas ranked, in 1880, as the thirteenth State of the
Union; in meat packing, as the twelfth; and in cheese products, as the
fourteenth.
In the following table the number of manufacturing establishments,
including mines and railroad shops, their capital, products, etc., is
given for the years named:
═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤═══════════
_Year._ │_Establish-│_Capital._ │_Employés._│ _Wages._ │ _Value of
│ ments._ │ │ │ │products._
───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
1860 │ 344│ $1,084,935│ 1,735│ $880,346│ $4,357,408
1870 │ 1,470│ 4,319,060│ 6,844│ 2,377,511│ 11,775,833
1880 │ 2,803│ 11,191,315│ 10,062│ 3,995,010│ 30,843,777
1885[3] │ 3,900│ 19,000,000│ 16,000│ 6,300,000│ 48,000,000
───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
Footnote 3:
Partly estimated.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
The transportation facilities of Kansas are unsurpassed. Only seven
States of the Union, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa and Missouri, have within their borders more miles of completed
railway than has Kansas. For fully two hundred miles west of our eastern
border, every county except one is traversed by from one to six lines of
railway. There are eighty-six organized and eleven unorganized counties
in the State, and of these all except fourteen organized and seven
unorganized counties have railways within their limits. In 1864 Kansas
had not a mile of completed railroad. In 1870 we had 1,283 miles; in
1875 over 1,887 miles; in 1880 an aggregate of 3,104 miles, and there
are now 4,750 miles of completed railway in Kansas.
THE SCHOOLS OF KANSAS.
Education has gone hand in hand with the material growth of Kansas. It
has been the boast of our people for twenty years past, that the best
building in every city, town or hamlet in the State, was the school
house. The census of 1880 revealed the fact that only 25,503 inhabitants
of Kansas, over ten years of age, were unable to read. The growth of our
school system is shown by the following figures:
═══════╤══════════╤════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤══════════╤═════════
│_Scholars │_School │ _School │ │ _Amount │_Value of
_Year._│enrolled._│houses._│districts_.│_Teachers._│ paid to │ school
│ │ │ │ │teachers._│houses._
───────┼──────────┼────────┼───────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────
1860 │ 5,915│ 154│ │ 189│ │
1865 │ 26,341│ 640│ 721│ 899│ $86,898│ $122,822
1870 │ 63,218│ 1,501│ 1,950│ 2,210│ 318,596│1,520,041
1875 │ 141,606│ 3,715│ 4,560│ 5,383│ 689,906│3,742,507
1880 │ 231,434│ 5,315│ 6,134│ 7,780│ 1,088,504│4,049,212
1885 │ 335,538│ 6,673│ 7,142│ 8,129│ 1,989,169│6,704,176
───────┴──────────┴────────┴───────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────
In 1861 the amount expended for the support of common schools was only
$1,700, while the expenditures for the same purpose, during the year
1885, aggregated $2,977,763. For the five years ending with 1865, the
expenditures for public schools aggregated $262,657.21; for the next
succeeding five years they aggregated $2,259,497.89; for the next five,
$7,552,191.43; for the next five, $7,509,375.23; and for the five years
ending with 1885 the expenditures for public schools aggregated
$12,630,480.64. Thus Kansas has expended for the support of her common
schools, during the past quarter of a century, the enormous sum of
$30,214,202.40.
The table following shows the expenditures each year, from 1861 to 1885,
inclusive, and illustrates not only the growth of Kansas, but the
general and generous interest of its citizens in public education:
═══════════════╤═══════════════
_Year._ │_Expenditures._
───────────────┼───────────────
1861 │ $1,700 00
1862 │ 11,894 45
1863 │ 26,867 03
1864 │ 84,221 30
1865 │ 137,974 43
1866 │ 225,426 27
1867 │ 364,402 50
1868 │ 431,316 54
1869 │ 565,311 17
1870 │ 673,041 41
1871 │ 1,074,946 09
1872 │ 1,701,950 44
1873 │ 1,657,318 27
1874 │ 1,638,977 99
1875 │ 1,478,998 64
1876 │ 1,165,638 80
1877 │ 1,394,188 11
1878 │ 1,541,417 12
1879 │ 1,589,794 30
1880 │ 1,818,336 90
1881 │ 1,996,335 64
1882 │ 2,194,174 65
1883 │ 2,579,243 62
1884 │ 2,882,963 53
1885 │ 2,977,763 23
│ ——————————————
Total │ $30,214,202 40
───────────────┴───────────────
CHURCHES AND NEWSPAPERS.
Churches have multiplied and newspapers increased as have the schools.
In 1860 there were only 97 church buildings in Kansas, and they had cost
only $143,950. In 1870 the number of churches had increased to 301,
valued at $1,722,700; and in 1880 they numbered 2,514, costing an
aggregate of $2,491,560.
There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of these
only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, of
which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 20
dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were
dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our
newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation
aggregated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers,
and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to
the State.
WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quarter of
a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer with
confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that
the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any
we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been
broken by the plow—ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply the
present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of the
Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining upon
our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual,
permanent settlements in the counties along our western frontier—not
settlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by
practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organized
counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river to the
Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic
changes, and questioning whether the western third of Kansas is fit for
general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton counties
entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge or
barometer, but he sees the buffalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint
sending its long roots deep into the soil; he sees the trees growing on
the high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and
waving its green guidons of prosperity in the wind; he sees the clouds
gathering and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof—and
he knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to
stay.
A PROPHECY FULFILLED.
On the 7th of May, 1856, a great American, learned, sagacious, and
confident in his faith that right and justice would at last prevail,
said, in a speech delivered in the City of New York:
“In the year of our Lord 1900, there will be two million people in
Kansas, with cities like Providence and Worcester—perhaps like
Chicago and Cincinnati. She will have more miles of railroad than
Maryland, Virginia and both the Carolinas can now boast. Her land
will be worth twenty dollars an acre, and her total wealth will be
five hundred millions of money. Six hundred thousand children will
learn in her schools. What schools, newspapers, libraries,
meeting-houses! Yes, what families of educated, happy and religious
men and women! There will be a song of Freedom all around the Slave
States, and in them Slavery itself will die.”
Read in the light of the present, these eloquent words of Theodore
Parker seem touched with prophetic fire. The ideal Kansas he saw,
looking through the mists of the future, is the real Kansas of to-day.
The marvelous growth, the splendid prosperity, the potent intellectual
and moral energies, and the happy and contented life he predicted, are
all around us. At the threshold of the year A. D. 1886, fifteen years
before the limit of his prophecy, Kansas has cities like Providence and
Worcester; has more than double the railway mileage Maryland, Virginia,
and both the Carolinas could then boast; has land worth, not twenty, but
fifty and a hundred dollars an acre; has wealth far exceeding five
hundred million dollars; has schools, newspapers, libraries and churches
rivaling those of New England; and has 1,300,000 happy, prosperous and
intelligent people.
The prophecy has been fulfilled, but the end is not yet. The foundations
of the State, like those of its Capitol, have just been completed. The
stately building, crowned with its splendid dome, is yet to be reared.
Smiling and opulent fields, busy and prosperous cities and towns, are
still attracting the intelligent, the enterprising and the ambitious of
every State and country. The limits that bound the progress and
development of Kansas cannot now be gauged or guessed. We have land,
homes, work and plenty for millions more; and for another quarter of a
century, at least, our State will continue to grow. For we are yet at
the threshold and in the dawn of it all. We are just beginning to
realize what a great people can accomplish, whom “love of country
moveth, example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, and
glory exalteth.”
OUR DUTY TO THE UNION SOLDIER.
Address at the opening of “Blue Post” Fair, North Topeka, February
15th, 1886.
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY: In coming before you this evening, I do not
come with any expectation that I can say anything to interest or
instruct you. But when Comrade Arnold called on me, last Friday, he
supplemented his invitation with a statement that my acceptance would
promote the object for which this fair is held, and thus aid Blue Post
of the Grand Army of the Republic in securing a fund for the relief of
destitute and disabled soldiers. I could not resist such an appeal. I am
willing at all times to do what lies in my power for such a cause, and
so, busy as I am just now, I came to your festival to bid you Godspeed
in your noble work, and to give such assistance as I can in promoting
it.
It is sometimes asked why so many soldiers of the late war need help in
the battle of life, and why appeals in behalf of the survivors of the
Rebellion are growing more frequent as the years go by? Tens of
thousands of soldiers, it is said, are on the pension rolls of the
Government; the Nation has provided comfortable and pleasant homes for
thousands who are disabled and destitute; and why should the generosity
of the people be so frequently appealed to?
Those who ask these questions simply fail to comprehend either the
magnitude of the civil war, the vast number of men enlisted in the ranks
of the Union Army, the hardships or privations to which they were
exposed, the frightful legacy of wounds and disease their service
entailed, or the time that has elapsed since their final muster-out.
When these things are considered, the wonder will be, not that so many,
but that so few of the soldiers of the Union need the helpful sympathy
and assistance of their more fortunate comrades, and of all generous and
grateful people.
Nearly twenty-one years have come and gone since the war closed, and of
the 2,700,000 persons enlisted in the Union Army, probably a million
still survive. These men are all growing old. Few of them are under
forty years of age; the vast majority, perhaps, are over fifty; and very
many are nearing or past sixty years. Enfeebled by wounds or disease,
they are year by year less able to bear their part in the great battle
of life as bravely or as successfully as they did in the desperate
struggle to preserve the Republic.
It should not be forgotten that 224,306 soldiers were discharged from
the army because of wounds or disease, and that a far larger number,
mustered out in seeming good health, had contracted the seeds of disease
which will shorten their lives and enfeeble their powers. The Surgeon of
my regiment, a learned and experienced physician, once said to me that
there was not a man in the Army of the Cumberland who would not
ultimately suffer from the effects of the hardships, exposure and
privations to which that army was subject. Said he: “Two months of
semi-starvation in Chattanooga were followed by the cold and desolate
winter campaign in East Tennessee, and that by the alternating rain,
heat and fatigue of the campaign against Atlanta; and the strongest and
most healthy men in the regiment will some day suffer from the effects
of such service.”
Within a year I have read accounts of the death of fully a dozen
soldiers from the effects of wounds received nearly a quarter of a
century ago. About two years since a gallant officer of my own regiment
was confined to his bed for several weeks by the reopening of a wound
received at Chicamauga, in 1863. These are only isolated instances among
thousands, but they fairly illustrate the fact I wish to present, that
the effects of the war upon the physical powers of a vast multitude of
soldiers are just beginning to be felt.
I do not join, and never have joined, with those who assert that the
Government and the American people have forgotten the obligations they
are under to the men whose patriotism and valor preserved the Republic.
As a soldier and an American citizen, I am proud of the fact that this
assertion is not true. Occasionally, I know, there have been just
grounds of complaint; occasionally it has seemed that the war, and all
the noble sacrifices and splendid devotion of our soldiers were like an
old, old story, growing stale and uninteresting; and now and then
isolated cases can be cited to justify a charge of forgetfulness or
ingratitude. But the time has not been, and I trust it never will be,
when it can be truthfully said that any appeal in behalf of the
disabled, destitute and deserving soldiers of the Union would be
unheeded. As evidence of the truth of this statement, this fair, and
those held by the Grand Army Posts on the south side during the past
three weeks, and the generous patronage the people give to all of them,
may be cited.
There are now on the pension rolls of the United States the names of
over two hundred thousand soldiers, and over a hundred thousand
soldiers’ widows, and during the past twenty-two years the Government
has paid to pensioners over $750,000,000. It has provided National Homes
for nearly ten thousand disabled survivors of the war, and these are
being enlarged every year. Several States have built or are building
other homes; and the people, acting in their individual capacity, have
contributed millions of dollars to charities having for their object the
relief of disabled soldiers. In brief, no other Government, no other
people, in any age or country, has remembered and provided for its
defenders, and for the dependent relatives of the fallen, with such
abounding generosity.
But this liberality, this generous care for the survivors of the war,
must be continued for many years to come. The heroic men who periled
their own lives to save the life of the Republic, are, as I have said,
growing old, and every revolving year adds to the number of those who
are unable to support themselves or provide for their dependent
families. It is not right or just that any of these men should be
permitted to suffer the pangs of want. They offered all they had—health,
ambition, life itself, for the country. No saint or martyr ever gave
more than they. The Government, the people, can never repay them, but
they can do something to relieve their necessities, to protect them from
want, and to make their declining years happy with the thought that
their services are not forgotten. This is the noble purpose you have in
view in organizing this fair; this is the inspiration of those who
patronize it; and this, I am glad to believe, is a duty which the
American people will always willingly recognize and generously
discharge.
IN MEMORIAM.
An address, delivered at Wichita, Kansas, on Memorial Day, 1886.
COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The growing
popularity of Memorial Day, and the increasing interest in the beautiful
ceremonies of its observance, are among the most happy and hopeful
indications of American sentiment. All the good or evil of to-day is but
the result of yesterday’s teaching. Our greatest historian, speaking of
the men who mustered on the village green at Lexington, “and fired the
shot heard round the world,” declares that “the light that led them on
was combined of rays from the whole history of the world; from the
traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world’s morning; from the
heroes and sages of Republican Greece and Rome; from the example of Him
who died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the religious creed
which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this truth, as in a
life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark flood of the
Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted out of their
forests to the councils of Saxon-England; and from the cloud of
witnesses of all the ages to the reality and rightfulness of human
freedom.”
This is the lesson of Memorial Day. It is yesterday teaching to-day. It
brings the peaceful present, reverently uncovered, to the grass-grown
grave of the war-worn past. It teaches the living to honor the memory of
those who cheerfully died for a good cause. It tells the children that,
in a war for human freedom, the level of a soldier is the pinnacle of
glory. And so long as heroism is thus revered and patriotism honored; so
long as men and women teach their children to honor and to emulate the
example of the heroes and patriots who, a quarter of a century ago,
rallied around the flag of their imperiled country with such
unparalleled enthusiasm, fought for it, suffered for it, died for it,
lifted it into the very heavens, stainless and triumphant, and made all
men free before the Constitution and the laws—so long as this is the
lesson and the inspiration of the rising generations of Americans, there
need be no fear that the dead have died in vain, or that the Republic
they loved will perish from the earth.
In speaking to you to-day, I shall talk of some heroes and martyrs who
were my comrades and my friends. They were not “born to fame.” None of
them were known beyond the narrow limits of the neighborhoods in which
they lived, or of the regiment they glorified by the simple manhood of
their lives. Country boys, some of them, they had grown up from infancy,
surrounded by calm and gracious scenes and sounds; town boys, others,
they had dreamed only of business or professional pursuits, and of those
triumphs and successes which, in civil life, insure a quiet and
prosperous old age.
Suddenly the flash of a gun in Charleston harbor startled the land like
an electric shock, and in a moment all the currents of its life were
changed. The air throbbed with the roll of drums and the blare of
bugles; flags fluttered in the sky, like shipwrecked rainbows; and for
the first time in their lives millions of people realized what the old
flag stood for. Men walked about with an unwonted flame in their eyes,
and women, quick to comprehend the agony and bitter sacrifices of the
years to come, and hiding in their hearts the never-lifting shadow of
their fears, wept and prayed, in the silence of their rooms, that this
cup might pass away.
Then came the calls for men, swiftly following one after another, and
sweeping away, in successive surges, the very blossom and flower of the
youth and manhood of the land. Seventy-five thousand first; then three
hundred thousand, and three hundred thousand more, until the total
exceeded two million seven hundred and seventy-two thousand; and in
almost every home throughout the length and breadth of the land there
were vacant places by the hearthstone and aching voids in the heart,
that, in hundreds of thousands of cases, would nevermore be filled.
Many of you, perhaps, have seen Rogers’s statuette, “One More Shot.”
Some time ago, while looking at a copy of it in a shop window, a soldier
friend said: “Two of the finest types of our volunteers are represented
in that group.” The martial pose of the central figure is superb; the
boyish grace of his kneeling comrade is no less striking. The one
represents a young man of twenty-five or thirty; his companion is a mere
boy. The elder, tall, alert, resolute, looks intently forward. His
broken left arm is held deftly in the folds of his coat; his gun rests
against his body, and his right hand is seeking his cartridge-box.
Martial, masterful, manly—there were dozens of men in every regiment who
might have stood for the model of this figure. The younger, sitting on a
knapsack engaged in binding up a wounded leg, and placidly indifferent
to everything else, fairly represents a still larger class of our
volunteers—the laughing, joking, rollicking boys, who were heroes
without heroic feeling, and equal to martyrdom without one spark of a
martyr’s fire.
I have, at home, a picture representing General Thomas studying a map by
the light of a camp-fire, on the evening after the first day’s fight at
Chicamauga. There is no artistic merit in the picture. But I bought it
and have kept it because it represents, though indifferently, several
other types of American soldiers. The painter has caught something of
the masterful figure of Thomas. Near the great General, seated on a
stump and gazing fixedly at the camp-fire, is a middle-aged Lieutenant.
With his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand, his grave,
thoughtful, dreamy expression indicates that his mind has drifted far
away from the sights and sounds about him, and is with his wife and
children in the dear old home. Lazily watching the two officers is a
young soldier on duty as a sentinel, with his gun resting carelessly in
the hollow of his left arm. These three figures represent other types of
soldiers, and are as characteristic as, though less skillfully drawn
than, those of the Rogers group.
The dead soldiers I am going to speak of, like those of the Rogers group
and the Thomas picture, were only types of hundreds of other volunteers.
I have no doubt that, if I merely sketched them, giving no names, every
soldier here present would say that I was describing men of his own
regiment.
I first met one of them in the winter of 1861–2. There was a
reorganization of Kansas regiments, and he was transferred to mine, with
his company. Born in a small village in New York, he was country-bred,
and had a fair education. Square-shouldered, strong-limbed, graceful in
movement, and with every muscle and fibre of his body vigorous and
healthy, his was a handsome figure. Whether some remote ancestor had
transmitted to him the blood of a soldier, I do not know, but I doubt if
he had ever thought of war, or of a soldier’s life, before the flash of
the gun at Sumter startled the slumbering Nation. He was as modest as he
was manly. If he was corrected or reproved for mistakes such as young
officers frequently made in the early days of their service, he would
blush like a school-girl. But he was a born soldier. His blue-gray eyes
were alike steady, quick, and fearless. After three months drill he
walked with the erect and martial bearing of a regular; his prompt
military salute, never forgotten or omitted on any occasion, was given
or responded to with a grace that was at once easy and natural; and his
voice, clear as the tones of a silver bugle, had in it the ring of a
true commander. He was a Captain, and his company was made up, as most
volunteer companies were, of young men and boys who had been the
school-mates and friends of their officers. His affection for his boys
deepened and strengthened during every day of his service, and they
idolized him. But not one of them ever for a moment forgot that he was
their Captain, nor did he forget it. The willing respect, the cheerful
and prompt obedience he gave to his superior officers, he expected from
his men, and they gave it, not so much because it was enforced, as
because it was deserved.
I don’t think I ever heard him utter a complaint concerning any feature
of a soldier’s life, however hard or perilous it might be. The dusty
marches along Southern pikes beneath the blazing heat of a summer sun;
the cold and dreary tramps of midwinter; the lonely vigils of picket
duty; the weary monotony of camp-life—none of these ever extorted from
him a murmur. He was always and everywhere the same cheerful, patient,
willing soldier; the same kindly, brave and manly gentleman.
On the morning of the 19th of September, 1863, our division moved from
near Crawfish Springs to the battle-field of Chicamauga. The march was
rapid, dusty and exhausting. The thunder of artillery smote the air, and
the crackle of musketry at the distant fords told of a closer conflict.
The troops that had passed along the road during the night had fired the
fences on either side, and they were still smouldering, filling the
atmosphere with stifling smoke. When we reached a point near General
Rosecrans’s headquarters, we were ordered into the woods to the right,
and I halted to give instructions to my regiment as it passed by. Near
its center marched the young soldier of whom I have been speaking. As he
came up, and halted for a moment to talk, I noted his striking
appearance. His clothing was so dusty that it looked more like
Confederate gray than Union blue; his face was stained with smoke; he
had tied a white handkerchief about his neck, and its loose folds fell
down his back; but in his walk and bearing there was no trace of either
fatigue or lassitude. His step was even firmer, his bearing more erect,
than usual, and his brave eyes sparkled with the excitement of the
near-approaching fight.
In less than half an hour he was in the midst of it, and all day long,
as the battle ebbed and flowed, and the air was turned to powder and
smoke, and shells tore through the woods, and the roar of musketry grew
so dense that it drowned the thunder of the cannon, his courage and
enthusiasm were conspicuously illustrated. At dusk our division was
relieved, and he marched his company to the field assigned for our
bivouac. Over fifty per cent. of his men had been killed or wounded, but
he was unhurt.
An hour later, after the command had cooked and eaten a scanty meal, the
first since morning, he came to me and asked permission to take a small
squad of his company and go out to the front. “I think,” he said, “that
I may be able to find some of my boys who are wounded.” I gave the
requested permission, but warned him not to venture too far, calling his
attention to the constant firing of the picket lines. A bright smile lit
up his face as he said: “Oh, I’ll be careful. But that rattle is feeble
after the roar of to-day.” And giving his usual quick, graceful military
salute, he wheeled and walked away out of the light of the camp-fire
into the darkness.
I never saw him again. An hour later the men he had taken with him
returned, and reported that they had run into a squad of the enemy; that
the Captain had been shot through the heart and instantly killed; and
that they were unable to bring in his body.
Thus ended the young life of Edgar P. Trego, “a soldier without fear and
without reproach.” From the dull level of every-day walks and ways he
stepped at once into the great events of a great era, and became a hero
and a martyr for a great cause. One of the counties of this State bears
his name, and is honored by it. His remains, recovered months after his
death, repose in the beautiful National Cemetery at Chattanooga, with
those of nearly twenty thousand other soldiers who gave up their lives
that the country might live.
“Brave, good, and true,
I see him stand before me now,
And read again on that young brow,
Where every hope was new,
How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm-set
And look made up for Duty’s utmost debt,
I could divine he knew
That death within the sulphurous hostile lines,
In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched designs,
Plucks heartsease, and not rue.”
—The stories told by the rosters of military companies are always very
meager. They are like the family histories recorded in an old Bible. A
child is born; it dies. This is the beginning and the end. Now and then
a marriage is noted. The army records are quite as brief. A soldier is
mustered in; he is killed in battle, or dies, or is mustered out. Now
and then he receives promotion, or is wounded. These are the only facts
that are noted on the Company rolls. But meager as they are, they may,
to one familiar with army life, tell a wonderful story of duty
faithfully discharged and of dangers bravely faced. One of these
military biographies—the story of another comrade and friend—I propose
to quote as it is recorded in the books of the Adjutant General’s
office. The subject of it was born across the ocean. The flag he
followed, the Nation he gave his life to preserve, were his only by
adoption. He was a German. Small in stature; his features delicate and
sensitive; his complexion clear and rosy as a girl’s; well educated and
of studious tastes; keeping “the noiseless tenor of his way” with a
modesty only equalled by his merit, he won confidence and esteem by
genuine deserving, and his history, even as it is set down in the brief
notations of a regimental roster, is a wonderful story. I quote it in
full:
“Zacharias Burkhardt. Born in Saxony. Merchant, 38 years of age,
single. Enlisted in Co. B, Eighth Kansas Infantry, Sept. 2d, 1861,
at Leavenworth, Kansas, and was mustered in as a private. Promoted
Corporal, Sept. 2d, 1861. Promoted Sergeant, Nov. 17th, 1861.
Promoted First Sergeant, August 1st, 1862. Promoted Sergeant Major
of the Regiment, Dec. 17th, 1862. Promoted Second Lieutenant Co. B,
May 13th, 1863. Promoted First Lieutenant, May 27th, 1863. Severely
wounded at the battle of Chicamauga, Ga., Sept. 19th, 1863. Died at
Atlanta, Ga., October 28th, 1863, of wounds received in action.”
Of his long and trying marches, in heat or cold, rain or sunshine; of
the patient, zealous devotion to duty which won for him six promotions,
never jumping a grade, in less than two years; of his unfailing good
temper; of the exact discipline, enforced with equal kindliness, justice
and firmness, he always maintained; of the modest pride with which he
wore either chevrons or shoulder-straps, never exalting himself, yet
never forgetting the added burdens they imposed, not only of authority
but of responsibility—on all these qualities, so conspicuously
illustrated during his service, I might dwell long and lovingly. But
“they need no praise whose deeds are eulogy,” and nothing that I could
say would add to the glory of a life so manly and unpretending, and of a
death so heroic.
—A man who might have stood for the original of the principal figure of
Rogers’s “Last Shot,” was Charles O. Rovohl. Tall, erect, compactly
built, masterful in strength, with a fine head set on a finely
proportioned body, his appearance would have attracted attention in any
crowd of men. His soldierly qualities were no less conspicuous, and he
was soon chosen for that post of honor and of danger, the Regimental
Color-Bearer. He had enlisted in Company I, Eighth Kansas, at White
Cloud, April 3d, 1862; on the 1st of January, 1863, he was promoted to
be a Corporal; and in August, 1863, he was appointed Color-Bearer of the
Regiment.
Around him, at Chicamauga, was a remarkable group of boyish-looking
soldiers, the eight Corporals constituting the Color Guard: William E.
Wendell, Co. E, Thomas Adamson, Co. D, John Binger, Co. B, George
Mathews, Co. F, Charles Morgan, Co. H, Benjamin Sprouse, Co. G, Hugh
Turner, Co. K, and Allen B. Bozarth, Co. H. Rovohl was about twenty-six
years of age—most of his comrades were under twenty-one. Selected, as
the Color Guard always is, from different companies, and with a
carefulness inspired by regimental pride, the Color-Bearer and his guard
of honor formed a striking group—he tall, powerful, manly, grave and
silent; they boyish, beardless, laughing, chattering, careless—but one
and all of them daring and gallant beyond what was common even in those
heroic years.
Within an hour after the battle began, Rovohl, the Color-Bearer, was
mortally wounded. When he fell his comrades indulged in a fierce dispute
as to which of them was entitled to carry the flag. Several claimed it,
but Wendell, affirming his seniority of rank as a Corporal, secured it.
Two of them proposed to carry Rovohl to the surgeons in the rear, but he
refused all help, saying: “My life is nothing-keep the flag to the
front.” Corporal Wendell was soon mortally wounded, and Adamson then
took the flag. Morgan and Sprouse were instantly killed, and Mathews was
severely wounded. Adamson and Bozarth were also wounded. When night came
and the roar of battle died away, four of these nine young men were
dead, three others were wounded, and only two, Binger and Turner, were
unhurt. Binger was, some weeks later, promoted to be a Sergeant,
appointed Regimental Color-Bearer, and served in that position until his
final muster-out, in January, 1866. He refused promotion offered him, to
a Lieutenancy, because he would not part with the colors.
I have heard men, during recent years, deride eulogistic references to
our country’s flag as sentimental nonsense. If any of you should hear
such talk, think of these young heroes, who thought the flag was worth
far more than their own lives; who so loved it and reverenced it that
they cheerfully died for it; and let their devotion, their sentiment,
their sacrifice, be a mute but unanswerable protest against those who
deny the existence of such a thing as disinterested patriotism. And when
you think of the flag, the brave old flag, the flag that means
everything worth having in this country; the flag that is at once the
beauty and the glory of our land; the “Old Flag” that is always new, and
bright, and gracious, and inspiring; the flag that, floating against the
sky, is not only the most beautiful thing a true American will ever see,
but the most thrilling and sacred sentiment that warms his heart—when
you think of this glorious old flag,
“Think of the strong, heroic souls,
Who hailed it as their pride.
And with their faint and anguished eyes,
Lifted in dreadful agonies,
Saw it between them and the skies,
Blessed it, and, blessing, died.”
—During the historic march of General Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, a
new term suddenly achieved notoriety and popularity, and it came, after
awhile, to be applied indiscriminately and wrongfully to all his
soldiers, who were spoken of as “Sherman’s bummers.” In fact, the
“bummer” was a character in the Western armies long before the march to
the sea began. The name only was a result of that campaign. The army
“bummer” was a genuine product of the Western armies. The field of their
operations was so vast, their marches so long, their movements so swift,
that in time these characteristics of the whole body stimulated and
exaggerated the natural restlessness and adventurous spirit of many of
the men composing it, and thus the army “bummer” was developed. The term
should not be confounded. The army “bummer” was not akin, even remotely,
to the lazy, blear-eyed, bloated, worthless vagabond who, in civil life,
is designated by this term. The army variety of the _genus_ “bummer” was
simply a restless, adventurous, investigating, daring forager; a scout
not detailed for scouting duty; an independent exploring engineer, who
had a natural instinct for topography and poultry, and an unerring nose
for roads, by-paths, and Confederate pork and mutton. He looked with
contempt on camp-guards, and regarded picket-lines with disdain. He
could, without serious difficulty, make his way through an unknown
country swarming with his deadly enemies. Answering “here” to his name
at evening roll-call, and evading, with subtle skill, the vigilance of
the sentries, he would travel ten or fifteen miles, on the darkest
nights, through woods and fields he had never before seen, and, bringing
back a full supply of the best the country afforded for his mess, would
answer “here” at roll-call in the morning, and be ready for a
twenty-mile march that day. He could accomplish the feat—impossible in
times of peace—of carrying away, without being stung, a bee-hive loaded
with honey and populated by a full swarm of angry bees. He was
ubiquitous. In camp or with the column one moment, he was heard of an
hour later, miles away, calmly inspecting a smoke-house or cellar, and
retailing the most absurd inventions of his exuberant fancy to the
startled inhabitants. Possessing marvelous powers of endurance, fruitful
in expedients, always cool, courageous and alert, the army “bummer” was
at once an enigma and a phenomenon. How he did what he did, was not
capable of explanation; that he did it all was wonderful.
To this class or type of soldiers belonged James H. English, a private
soldier, from the date of his enlistment until the day of his death, in
Company I. Tall and supple, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh;
restless under restraints; having the instincts of an explorer allied
with the reckless audacity of an adventurer, “Jim” English was a
character. He was born in Pike county, Missouri, a region famous for its
odd specimens of humanity; was a brickmaker by trade, and twenty-four
years of age. The regimental roster says he enlisted December 11th,
1861, and was present for duty until January 1st, 1864, when he
reënlisted as a veteran, and was then present for duty until December
16th, 1864, when he was killed in battle at Nashville.
Poor, restless, wandering, good-hearted, illiterate “Jim;” always
“present for duty”—that was all. Always asking to go, and going whether
he got permission or not. Always keeping on good terms at regimental
headquarters so as to shield himself from the wrath of his Captain if
the latter discovered his nocturnal absences from camp. Appointing
himself forager for the field and staff, his voluntary duty was
discharged with zealous faithfulness and tenacity. Queer old “Jim”—I
should have gone hungry many a time if his daring and skill as a forager
had not been exerted in my behalf. Many were the faults of this odd,
slouching, observant, predatory, old-young fellow, but he had many good
qualities also, not the least of which were his shy friendliness and his
quiet good-nature. In that other and better land I hope he is not only
“present for duty,” as he always was on this earth, but that he is
serene and content, as he never was.
—Another and an entirely different type of our volunteer soldiers was
Orderly Sergeant John W. Long, whose military history is thus recorded
in the brief annals of the regiment:
“John W. Long enlisted as a private, September 30th, 1861. Born at
Lemoy, Ohio; a farmer; single; twenty years old at enlistment.
Promoted Corporal, May 1st, 1862. Wounded at Chicamauga, September
19th, 1863. Reënlisted as a veteran, January 1st, 1864. Wounded at
Peach Tree creek, near Atlanta, July 20th, 1864. Promoted First
Sergeant, October 21st, 1864. Killed at the battle of Nashville,
December 16th, 1864.”
A universal favorite was “Johnny” Long, as he was called. He was always
in his place, and his brave, cheerful nature was superior to the
vicissitudes of the longest tramp or the most desolate bivouac. Through
all the eventful years of my service with him I am sure that I never saw
a frown on his face, nor heard a complaint from his lips. If extra duty
was to be performed, “Johnny” Long was always ready for it. If a forage
detail was needed, after a long day’s march, the bright, contented face
of “Johnny” Long, if he was a Corporal or Sergeant with the squad, gave
assurance that the work assigned the detail would be vigorously and
intelligently attended to. In camp, always neat, good-humored, and
vivacious; on duty, always prompt, tireless, and intelligent; in battle,
always steady, reliable, and brave—“Johnny” Long was at all times and
everywhere an ideal soldier.
Twice the enemy’s bullets struck him, inflicting first a slight and then
a severe wound, and his comrades joked him about “the third time, and
out.” But he only laughed, as he did at all things personal to himself.
Sympathetic and tender with the troubles or misfortunes of others, his
own he made light of. But, alas! the “third time” did put out the life
of this gay-hearted and fearless young soldier. In the last battle in
which his regiment took part, and while gallantly charging the enemy’s
works at Nashville, he was instantly killed. Some of his comrades say
that his face, in death, told no story of pain or of horror. It was
smiling, as in life. Hardships, privations and toil could not sour the
sweet currents of his nature, and even death failed to chill the
generous ardor of his soul. He died, as he had lived, with a smile on
his young lips and content in his heart.
“Right in the van,
On the red rampart’s slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Forward, as fits a man.
But the high soul burns on to light men’s feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet.”
—Not all the heroes of the war whose graves will be wreathed with
flowers to-day, fell in battle. It has been said that “the crowning
glory of our soldiers was their peaceful disbandment.” One day they
stood in line, the absolute masters of this land. Throughout its length
and breadth there was no power, no authority, that they did not outrank.
The next day they had disappeared, silently, peacefully, modestly, and
were absorbed into the great body of American citizens. Calmly and
serenely they took up the broken threads of their old life, with its
toils, its cares and its perplexities, and within a month no signs of
the most tremendous and momentous struggle the world has ever known were
to be seen.
One of these home-returning heroes was Ferdinand A. Berger. Enlisted as
a private in Company A, at Leavenworth, on the 1st of September, 1861,
he was finally mustered out, at Leavenworth, January 9th, 1866, having
served four years and four months. October 1st, 1861, he was promoted to
be a Corporal, and on January 1st, 1862, was made a Sergeant. At
Chicamauga he was severely wounded. January 1st, 1864, he reënlisted as
a veteran, and was, the same day, promoted to be First Sergeant. October
21st, 1864, he was promoted to be First Lieutenant, and in November of
the same year received a commission as Captain, but could not be
mustered, his company having been reduced in number below the standard.
December 16th, 1864, at Nashville, he was again severely wounded. And on
the 9th of January, 1866, he was finally mustered out, with his company,
only nine enlisted men remaining. He was then only twenty-four years of
age.
Returning to Kansas, he located in Atchison county, and engaged in
farming. On the 8th of January, 1879, he came to Atchison city, in the
full enjoyment of health, to attend to some business affairs. Shortly
after noon, a runaway team attached to an overturned sleigh, came
dashing up the street. With characteristic promptness and courage,
Captain Berger sprang in front of the frantic horses, and seizing them
by their bits, managed to stop them. The owner then came up and caught
the reins, but the maddened animals continued to plunge and struggle,
and Captain Berger attempted to unhitch their traces. While thus
engaged, one of the horses delivered a vicious kick, its iron-shod hoof
striking him fair in the face, breaking his jaw in several places, and
producing a severe contusion of the brain. Two days later he died from
the effects of his injuries.
Thus one of the most faithful and heroic of soldiers, who had passed
through the harvest of death at Chicamauga, stormed the blazing heights
of Mission Ridge, gone unharmed through the campaign to Atlanta, and
charged the rebel works at Nashville, lost his life, at last, on the
peaceful streets of a Kansas town, while endeavoring to save the lives
of others.
* * * * *
—I might sketch for you many other soldiers, as brave, patriotic and
self-sacrificing as those I have named. Every volunteer regiment had in
its ranks scores of such men. Indeed, I should like to speak of Capt.
John L. Graham, of Robert M. Hale, of William H. Horr, of Gil. M. Judah,
of John W. McClellan, and many others among the martyred dead, and of
dozens who passed unscathed through the fiery furnace of war and are
still among the living. But my purpose is fulfilled. I simply desired to
present an outline sketch of a few soldiers, differing widely in
temperaments and personal characteristics, but all fair types of the men
whose valor and patriotism crushed the greatest rebellion the world has
ever witnessed. The pictures are incomplete, I know. I regret that a
hand more skillful than mine has not drawn them; that a tongue more
eloquent than mine could not have told the inspiring story of their
dauntless courage and their sublime self-sacrifice. But as I knew them I
have tried to present them to you, not as soldiers of rare or
exceptional qualities and services, but as representatives and types of
thousands of their comrades, living and dead. In every city, town and
neighborhood of Kansas may be found soldiers of these types, for our
wonderful population includes more than a hundred thousand men who have
marched to the music of a drum:
“Men who were brave to act,
And rich enough their actions to forget, forget—
Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw, and keep their simpleness intact,
And, all unconscious, add more lustre yet
Unto their victory.
“Lo! a farmer ploughing busily,
Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain.
I see in his frank eyes
The hero’s soul appear.
Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land
Of knightly deeds and dreams.”
I might have talked to you of campaigns and battles, or discussed the
causes and results of the war, or spoken of army life in general. But
these are harvested fields, in which I did not care to glean after the
reapers who had gone before. So it seemed to me that I might interest
you, for a few brief moments, by telling this simple story of a few of
the martyred dead whose lives and services, although not written in any
history, are worthy of record on the brightest pages of fame’s deathless
memoirs. The Union army contained a vast host of men such as these I
have described. Never in any other land beneath the sun, nor in any
other age since the morning stars first sang together, did such an array
of brilliant youth and splendid manhood rally around any standard to do
battle for any cause. From schools and workshops, from fair country
fields and busy marts of commerce, the bravest, brightest, best of all
the land came thronging to fields lit by the baleful fires of civil war,
to fight, to suffer, and to die for the Republic and for Freedom. The
comforts of home, the charms of society, the joys of love, the profits
of commerce, the acquisitions of industry, the allurements of ambition,
the delights of ease—all these were abandoned for the privations, the
hardships, the dangers of a soldier’s life. The world was fair and
beautiful to them, the future hopeful and happy. But they gave all they
had—the boundless resources of their youth, the potent energies of their
manhood, the devotion of their hearts, even life itself—for Union and
Liberty. Saint nor martyr never gave more.
“Old Greece hath her Thermopylæ,
Brave Switzerland her Tell,
The Scot his Wallace heart, and we
Heroic souls as well.
The graves of glorious Marathon
Are green above the dead;
And we have royal fields whereon
The trampled grass is red.
“Oh, not alone the hoary Past
Spilled precious princely blood;
Oh, not alone its sons were cast
In knightly form and mood;
Perennial smells of sacrifice
Make sweet our sickened air;
And troth, as leal as Sidney’s, lies
Around us everywhere.
“Though tears be salt, and wormwood still
Is bitter to the taste,
God’s heart is tender, and He will
Let no life fail or waste.
O, mothers of our Gracchi! when
You gave your jewels up,
A continent of hopeless men
Grew rich in boundless hope.
“Renown stands mute beside the graves
With which the land is scarred;
Unheralded, our splendid braves
Went forth unto the Lord;
No poet hoards their humble names
In his immortal scrolls,
But none the less the darkness flames
With their clear-shining souls.
“Beneath the outward havoc, they
The inward mercy saw;
High intuitions of Duty lay
Upon them, strong as law;
Athwart the bloody horizon
They marked God’s blazing sword,
And heard His dreadful thunder’s run
When but the cannon roared.
“Shield-bearers of the Sovran Truth!
We count your costly deeds
Devoutly as a maiden doth
Her consecrated beads.
You thrill us with the calms which flow
In Eucharistic wine;
And by your straight tall lives we know
That life is still divine.”
BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN.
Address of welcome, delivered at Atchison, Kansas, July 1st, 1886,
at a meeting of the “Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.”
MR. CHAIRMAN: Within the past half-century, the employments of men have
multiplied enormously. Thousands of people are now eagerly toiling, with
hand and brain, at occupations that, within the life-time of many living
men, were not dreamed of. The telegraph and the telephone, now
furnishing a vast multitude of men and women with employment, are among
the most recent contributions to the world’s industry, convenience and
happiness. And within the present century that marvelous machine with
which you are so familiar, the locomotive, took form and shape in the
inventive brain of Robert Stephenson.
It is doubtful whether any invention of any age—with the possible
exception of that great motive power of all modern life, the
printing-press—has wrought such changes in the life, work and thought of
mankind as has the locomotive. It has annihilated distances; it has
wedded the oceans flowing on either side of great continents; it has
crowded the most remote and inaccessible regions with busy and
prosperous life; it has transformed all the methods and systems of human
labor and activity; it has so assimilated different peoples by the
speedy and direct communication it has afforded them, that the world is
becoming cosmopolitan; and it has created a new employment, engaging a
vast army of trained and skilled workmen.
One is amazed, on looking up the facts, to learn how brief is the time
in which this marvelous revolution has been wrought, and how vast is the
business conducted on the iron net which now checkers almost the entire
surface of the civilized world. Thousands of men are still living who
read the contemporary accounts of Stephenson’s first successful
experiment. His queer old locomotive, the _Rocket_, made its trial trip
in September, 1829, not quite fifty-seven years ago, and the first
successful railroad, that from Liverpool to Manchester, England, was
formally opened on the 15th of September, 1830. Contemporaneous
experiments were made in this country, however, and on the 30th of
August, 1830, a trial was made of a locomotive built by the late Peter
Cooper, of New York, on a road from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills. Mr.
Cooper’s locomotive, however, was a diminutive machine of only one-horse
power, and on the return trip to Baltimore it was beaten in speed by a
pair of horses. Exactly four months after the opening of the Liverpool
and Manchester road, or on the 15th day of January, 1831, a railroad
running out of Charleston, South Carolina, was formally opened, the
motive power being a small locomotive built at West Point, New York; and
on the 9th of August of the same year a trial trip was made on a road
from Albany to Schenectady, New York.
These, however, were all mere experiments, and they were not attended
with remarkable success. The locomotives used were small machines,
difficult to regulate, feeble in power, and dangerous to those in charge
of them. The first really successful railroad in this country was not
opened until the 16th of May, 1834, and it ran from Boston to Newton,
Massachusetts, a distance of about eight miles.
Our railway system is, therefore, the growth of only a little more than
fifty years. Thousands of living men have witnessed its beginning and
its development to its present vast proportions. And what a marvel it
is! There are now within the limits of the United States fully 160,000
miles of railway track, or enough to reach around the globe nearly seven
times. Fully 30,000 locomotives drag the commerce of the continent over
these lines, and 20,000 passenger cars and fully 900,000 freight cars
are employed in transporting the travelers and merchandise of the
country. In 1884—correct statistics of later date not having been
compiled—the freight trains of the United States ran an aggregate of
334,814,529 miles, and the passenger trains an aggregate of 206,516,118
miles. During that year the railways carried 334,570,766 passengers and
390,074,749 tons of freight. In conducting this vast business—the
magnitude of which the human mind can hardly measure or
comprehend—250,456 persons were employed.
In this State, which has just completed the first quarter-century of its
existence, there are 5,117 miles of railway track, over which more than
three million passengers and seven million tons of freight are annually
carried; and nearly 700 locomotives and over 7,000 people are employed
in conducting this gigantic business.
You are representatives, therefore, of a great army of men employed in
the mightiest work of modern times, and it affords me pleasure to meet
and greet you. I know of no human vocation requiring greater skill,
fidelity, sobriety, endurance and courage than does the work of the men
who are employed on our railways, and I am glad to add that, in my
judgment, there is no body of men in this country who more fairly and
fully meet the requirements of their arduous and responsible station
than do those who run the trains of our railways.
And this is especially true of the men who ride at the front, on that
marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Theirs is the post of danger
and of responsibility, and singularly brave, cool, thoughtful, watchful,
intelligent men they grow to be. You will all, I presume, become
locomotive engineers. The way to the engineer’s seat, I am informed, is
from the fireman’s side. I hope promotion will not be slow. The
engineers, it is said, are the best paid body of skilled workmen in
America. I hope this is true. If it is not, it ought to be, for
certainly no body of skilled workmen in America occupy a more
responsible position, nor, in my judgment, is there a body of workmen in
America who more faithfully and nobly discharge the duties of their
post. The engineers and the firemen who ride with them are employed in a
work that is not only arduous but dangerous as well; in a work that
requires steady nerve, watchful eye, quick thought, prompt action, and
at times, the undaunted and self-sacrificing spirit of a martyr.
In war, an army rests securely in its camp by day, and sleeps peacefully
in its tents during the night, trusting confidently in the vigilance,
fidelity and courage of the pickets at the front, who never sleep. So
the railroad train, crowded with passengers or loaded with valuable
freight, rushes along over hills and through valleys, while in the cab
at its front sits its pickets, the engineer and fireman, sleepless and
alert. Those who ride as passengers place implicit confidence in the
vigilance, the courage and the resources of the pickets in the cab. They
talk and laugh, read or sleep, never thinking of danger, because they
know that watchful eyes are on the track, and that everything that human
foresight, care and skill can do to avert disaster, will be done. None
of them, perhaps, fully realize the mental and physical strain the men
in the cab endure. But when the invisible but ever-present perils of the
track take tangible form, and the engineer and fireman at their posts of
duty, and faithful to its trusts, even when they look death in the face,
are hurled over the embankment or against an obstruction, then all
realize the constant dangers they face, and applaud the faithful heroism
of their daily life.
To talk to you of your duties and responsibilities is, however,
unnecessary. You understand them far better than do I, and the history
of railway operations in this country shows how intelligently and
faithfully you discharge them. I come before you, not to lecture or
instruct you, but at the request of your local committee, to meet and
welcome the chief officers of your organization. I very cheerfully do
this. In Atchison, where so many of your fellow-craftsmen live, and in
this State, which in a few years will have more miles of railway within
its limits than any other State of the Union, the representatives of any
large body of trainmen will always meet with a cordial welcome. I hope
your visit will be an agreeable one, and that you will return to your
homes carrying with you only pleasant memories of your brief sojourn in
this always hospitable city, and of those whose acquaintance you formed
while here.
THE SWEDES IN KANSAS.
Address delivered, July 5, 1886, at the celebration of Independence
Day, by the Swedes of Lindsborg, Kansas.
MR. CHAIRMAN: When I received the invitation to attend this meeting I
did not not think of “the day we celebrate,” nor of what might occur
here, nor of what I could say to you if I came. The invitation to
address an assemblage of Scandinavian people broke down the barriers of
time and place, and awakened recollections of a body of men, born on the
Scandinavian Peninsula, who, nearly a quarter of a century ago, were
endeared to me by the strong ties of common hardships, privations and
dangers. For nearly three years the Kansas regiment I had the honor to
command, tented, marched and fought by the side of a regiment of
Scandinavians. And when the brave but unfortunate commander of that
regiment, Col. Hans C. Heg, was mortally wounded at the battle of
Chicamauga, I succeeded him in command of the Brigade. I speak from
personal knowledge, therefore, when I say that the Scandinavian people
who have immigrated to this country, and sworn allegiance to its
Constitution and its laws, are thorough Americans. I have seen their
loyalty and devotion tested in the fiery furnace of battle, and by the
most arduous and trying campaigns. I know, also, something of the work
the Scandinavian people have done in developing the resources of this
fair young State. Our census returns and our agricultural reports, in
telling the story of the wonderful growth and prosperity of those
sections of Kansas in which the Scandinavian settlers are located, tell,
also, the story of their industry, their enterprise, and their thrift.
And so, when I received your kind invitation to attend this meeting, my
inclination to accept it, as I wrote Professor Swensson, was very
strong. I wanted to avail myself of such an opportunity to acknowledge
two important facts concerning Scandinavian Americans—first, the sturdy
courage and splendid patriotism I had seen illustrated, by them, during
our late civil war; and, second, that as citizens of Kansas they had
done their full share in making this a great, prosperous, law-respecting
commonwealth. This duty I gladly discharge. With reverent gratitude I
recall the services of the men from the Scandinavian Peninsula who
mustered under the flag of the Fifteenth Wisconsin, and with admiring
wonder I look around me and see the substantial evidences of your
industry, energy and enterprise.
One hundred and seven years ago, after the Americans had carried the
British works at Stony Point, the Commanding General, Anthony Wayne,
sent to Washington a letter which read: “Dear General: The American flag
waves here.” That was all. But it told all. To-day the American flag
waves here and everywhere, from the Northern lakes to the Gulf, and from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. And wherever it waves it is the symbol of
peace, order, education, progress, and freedom. It is the flag of sixty
million people, and dear to them, one and all, because it is the flag of
a Republic where each man is the equal of every other man, in rights and
privileges as well as in duties and responsibilities. It is your flag as
it is my flag—mine by birth, yours by adoption. You have a right,
therefore, to celebrate the anniversary of our National Independence.
The impulse which led you to leave the land of your birth and establish
homes in the new world, was that love of Freedom and faith in Humanity
which is the soul of the great Declaration. Thousands of men of your
race and blood have fought and suffered and died for the flag of this
Republic. Their services and sacrifices and your own choice have made
you heirs to the common heritage of American citizenship—individual
liberty and security, a fair chance to work and win, the sovereignty of
electors, and the protection of just laws. No government can give more
than this, and no fair-minded and independent man expects or asks more
of any government.
In exchanging the rocks and snows of Sweden for the broad prairies and
rich soil of Kansas, you have not only benefitted yourselves, but you
have benefitted the State. I do not depreciate your native land. I know
something of its history and its resources. Compared with the vast areas
of the United States, the Scandinavian Peninsula is not a large
territory. It includes less than three hundred thousand square miles; it
has a population not exceeding six million; and its sterile soil yields
grudgingly. But amid its rocks and snows a singularly hardy and
energetic people have lived and worked since the dawn of civilization.
From the bleak and barren hills of this Peninsula came the earliest
forms of constitutional government. There, too, is found not only the
oldest aristocracy of Europe, but the sturdiest, most prosperous and
well-educated people. For of the Swedes, not one in a thousand is unable
to read and write, and the common people are the owners of nearly the
whole of the landed property in the Kingdom. This Peninsula, too, is
rich in historic names. Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII justly rank
among the greatest rulers and soldiers the world has ever known. Among
statesmen, Oxenstiern deserves his world-wide fame; and among artists,
there is no name brighter than that of Thorwaldsen. In literature, the
writings of Tegner, Fredrika Bremer, Carlen and Bjornson are as familiar
to English-speaking people as to the Swedes. The mystic philosophy of
Emanuel Swedenborg has interested and entertained the students of all
countries. And among singers, what land or age has ever produced voices
so rich in melody as those of Jenny Lind or Christine Neillson? At our
Centennial Exhibition, in 1876, I spent many delightful days in the
Swedish department, and I remember with still vivid interest its
unequalled specimens of wood-carving, and the paintings in which the
effect of moonlight on the water was reproduced with such marvelous
fidelity and skill. The fair-haired people of the Scandinavian Peninsula
have indeed stamped their impress upon the history, the literature, the
arts, the industries, and the laws and government of the whole civilized
world, and always the influence exerted by their teaching and example
has been wholesome and beneficent.
We are interested now, however, in the Scandinavian people in America,
and not those remaining on the Peninsula. The census of 1880 shows that
there are 440,262 Scandinavians—Swedes, Norwegians and Danes—in the
United States, and of these 194,337 are Swedes. The census of Kansas
also reveals the fact that 11,207 of our citizens are of Swedish birth.
This county of McPherson has within its limits the largest number, or
2,117; Saline county has 1,636; and Riley, Osage, Republic and Clay have
each over 500 citizens of Swedish birth within their limits. That they
make good citizens is a fact universally acknowledged. Wherever they
have settled, improvement and prosperity abound, and schools and
churches multiply. They are, too, thorough Americans. They do not want
to go back to the bleak, snow-clad hills and the vast forests of their
native land, nor do they bring with them to this country that distrust
of rulers and of law which arrays them against our government as if it
was a natural enemy. They do not figure largely in politics; they prefer
to attend to more material and personal concerns—building homes,
conducting business and manufacturing industries, establishing schools
for their children, erecting churches, and accumulating property. They
do not, however, neglect the duties and responsibilities of the
citizenship they have assumed; they study to discharge these, not as
aliens, but in the true spirit of American individuality and patriotism.
Hence, in exchanging the rocks and snows of Sweden for the soil and
sunshine of Kansas, our Swedish citizens have, as I have said, benefited
not only themselves, but the young State with whose fortunes they have
linked their own.
There are some foreigners whose coming to America is a public disaster.
These are the men who, degraded and embittered by the oppression of
despotic governments, confound liberty with license and lawlessness, and
can see no difference between the President of the United States and the
Czar of Russia. The tolerance of our laws, the liberality of our system
of government, allows such freedom of speech and of action that these
men, abusing and outraging the liberty they are permitted for the first
time in their lives to enjoy, at once array themselves as enemies of all
law and all government. They cannot comprehend the fact that laws are as
necessary to the human race as the air we breathe. They cannot
understand the difference between an arbitrary despotism and a
government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” The red flag
they unfurl is the flag of the robber and the murderer. Their cry for
liberty is the cry of the wolf in the forest seeking for his prey. It is
no wonder that public indignation is intensifying against these
miscreants, and that the demand for laws that will deal with them
promptly and sternly, is swelling into a popular clamor. Less than a
quarter of a century ago more than two million men rallied around their
country’s flag, and cheerfully offered their lives that the Republic
might be preserved. It is a glorious banner—the brave old flag of the
stars and stripes. It is the flag of Yorktown, and Gettysburg, and
Chicamauga, and Vicksburg, and Appomattox. Every man who lives where it
floats is a freeman and a sovereign. It is the symbol of the only real
Republic on the face of the earth. It is the flag of the only government
where every man is free to do whatsoever he pleases as long as he does
not invade the rights and freedom of his fellow-man. It is the banner of
the Nation that opened this rich and beautiful land as a free gift to
all—native and foreign-born alike. And any man, no matter where he was
born, who seeks to degrade this glorious old flag, or to substitute in
its stead the red flag of the robber and the anarchist, ought to enjoy,
for an indefinite period, the liberty of the penitentiary.
I am glad to say that the Swedish settlers in the United States have
never been accused or suspected of either sympathy or affiliation with
the wretches who flaunt the red flag, and affect to believe that all
government is tyranny, and property is robbery.
This country is not only a free country, but its government is the
perfection of human wisdom. From the dawn of its existence, the United
States has been heir to the ripest harvests of the world’s learning and
experience. England, France, Germany and Sweden struggled through long
centuries of barbarism, ignorance and oppression, before they wrested
from force and Kingcraft the protection of constitutional government.
Our forefathers brought with them, across the ocean, the fruits of this
experience. They loved liberty, and they braved the isolation and
dangers of an unknown land in order to enjoy it. Transmitted from sire
to son, and broadening and strengthening for a hundred years, the ideas
and the aspirations of the men who landed at Plymouth and at Jamestown
at last found expression in the Declaration of Independence. “This
immortal State paper,” says Bancroft, “was the soul of the country at
that time; the revelation of its mind when, in its youth, its
enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest
creative powers of which man is capable. The heart of Jefferson in
writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all
humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of
mankind, without any exception whatever, for the proposition which
admits of exceptions can never be self-evident.”
It was inevitable that the successful maintenance of the rights asserted
in the Declaration, and the establishment of a government based upon the
self-evident truths it affirmed, should not only exercise a potent
influence upon the civil institutions of the world, but attract to this
country the most energetic, daring and aspiring spirits of all civilized
nations. A wide continent, almost boundless in its area and infinite in
its resources, afforded human industry and activity such opportunities
for the exercise of their powers as were never before known, while the
theories and principles of the Declaration, embodied in the organic law
of the Republic, guaranteed to every citizen the largest individual
liberty consistent with social order, and ample protection in the
enjoyment of the products of his industry and skill.
If it was great to be a Roman citizen centuries ago, it is glorious,
to-day, to be a citizen of the United States. What Nation enjoys such a
splendid fame as ours? What other people is so opulent in the blessings
of liberty, intelligence and peace? What country can boast of a happier
and more prosperous present, or a more hopeful future? We have no
venerable antiquity to look back upon; but what Nation, old or young,
has enriched history with so long a list of immortal names—the names of
jurists such as Jay and Marshall; or statesmen equalling Adams,
Jefferson, Hamilton, Seward, and Blaine; or orators rivaling Patrick
Henry, Webster, Clay, Douglas, Morton, and Sumner; or soldiers equalling
Washington, Jackson, Grant, Sherman, and Thomas; or philosophers such as
Benjamin Franklin; or poets of nobler fame than Longfellow, Bryant,
Lowell, and Whittier; or financiers greater than Morris, Gallatin,
Chase, and Sherman; or historians such as Bancroft, Prescott, and
Motley? And what age or country, marshalling all its proud names, and
blending the splendid qualities of each in a single person, can match
the towering greatness of him who was at once statesman, orator,
philosopher, hero, patriot and wise ruler—Abraham Lincoln?
The citizens of the United States are heirs to the rights of the
Declaration, the guarantees of the Constitution, the protection of the
flag, and the fame and glory of all the splendid names I have mentioned.
It is, therefore, glorious to be a citizen of this Republic, and in
leaving the bleak Scandinavian Peninsula and coming to America, you have
made a wise exchange. The true Fatherland is the land of equal rights.
The best country is that which affords to all its citizens the best
opportunities for acquiring happy homes. The best government is that
which makes all men equal before the throne of its Constitution and its
laws. This country, this government, as I firmly believe, is the United
States. You share in this belief, and so believing, you have taken our
National Festival to your hearts, and made it your Festival, to
celebrate, to be proud of, to honor and to revere. I greet you,
therefore, not as Swedes, but as fellow-citizens. I rejoice in your
prosperity. I acknowledge the brave, energetic part you have taken in
the work of developing the resources of Kansas. I gladly join with you
in celebrating this Festival of Liberty. You and your kindred have
witnessed the full fruition of the predictions which one of our great
poets attributes to a prophetess of your race, who lived centuries ago:
I.
“Men from the Northland,
Men from the Southland,
Haste empty-handed;
No more than manhood
Bring they, and hands.
II.
“Dark hair and fair hair,
Red blood and blue blood,
There shall be mingled;
Force of the ferment
Makes the New Man.
III.
“Them waits the New land;
They shall subdue it,
Leaving their sons’ sons
Space for the body,
Space for the soul.
IV.
“Here shall men grow up
Strong from self-helping;
Eyes for the present
Bring they as eagles’,
Blind to the past.
V.
“They shall make over
Creed, law, and custom;
Driving men, doughty
Builders of empire,
Builders of men.
VI.
“Over the ruin,
See I the promise;
Crisp waves the cornfield,
Peace-walled, the homestead
Waits, open-doored.
VII.
“Here all is all men’s,
Save only Wisdom;
King he that wins her;
Him hail thy helmsmen,
Highest of heart.
VIII.
“Might makes no master
Here any longer;
Sword is not swayer;
Here e’en the gods are
Selfish no more.
IX.
“Walking the New Earth
Lo, a divine One
Greets all men godlike,
Calls them the kindred,
He, the Divine.
X.
“Is it Thor’s hammer
Rays in his right hand?
Weaponless walks he;
It is the White Christ,
Stronger than Thor.
XI.
“Here shall a Nation rise
Mighty in manhood;
Justice and Mercy
Here set a stronghold
Safe without spear.
XII.
“Weak was the Old World,
Wearily war-fenced;
Out of its ashes,
Strong as the morning,
Springeth the New.
XIII.
“Beauty of promise,
Promise of beauty,
Safe in the silence
Sleep thou, till cometh
Light to thy lids!
XIV.
“Thee shall awaken
Fame from the furnace,
Bath of all brave ones,
Cleanser of conscience,
Welder of will.
XV.
“Lowly shall love thee,
Thee, open-handed!
Stalwart shall shield thee,
Thee, worth their best blood,
Waif of the West.
XVI.
“Then shall come singers,
Singing no swan-song,
Bird-carols, rather,
Meet for the man-child
Mighty of bone.”
ADDRESS.
Accepting the Republican nomination for Governor, at the State
Convention, July 8, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: Two years ago the
Republican State Convention conferred upon me the unprecedented honor of
a nomination by acclamation for the office of Governor. To-day, by the
generous confidence of the people you represent, and your own kindness
and partiality, I have been accorded the equally unprecedented honor of
a unanimous renomination.
How proud I am of this confidence and regard, and how grateful I am to
you, and to the constituencies you severally represent, language cannot
express. The honor thus done me is far above and beyond my deserving. I
realize this fact, humbly and forcibly. But from the bottom of my heart
I thank you, one and all, and I beg you to bear back to your homes, and
to those you represent, the assurance of my profound appreciation and
unspeakable gratitude.
I entered upon the discharge of the duties of the executive office a
year and a half ago, without previous training or experience. My
distrust of my fitness for such responsibilities was keen. But my trust
in the kindness and generosity of the people of Kansas, among whom all
the years of my manhood had been passed, and with whose hopes and fears,
triumphs and disappointments, I had sympathized for nearly thirty years,
was confident and unbounded. This trust has sustained me through all the
lights and shadows of my official life; it abides with me to-day in the
presence of this great convention of earnest and intelligent
Republicans, whose generous approbation warms and stirs every pulsation
of my heart; and it will go with me in the future, whatsoever the
embarrassments, failures or successes of my life shall be.
I have no doubt that in the discharge of my official duties I have made
mistakes. No human judgment is infallible, nor can any man expect that
all will recognize the reasons which, to him, seem to mark out clearly
the line of action and of duty. It has happened, too, that my official
life as Chief Executive of this State has been crowded thick with
perplexities and difficulties, and I could not hope, amid such
surroundings, to avoid errors or escape criticisms. If I have, on the
one hand, made mistakes, I have not, on the other, complained of just
and fair disagreement or disapproval, nor have I, when my own judgment
and conscience approved my actions, cowered or quailed before criticism
or clamor. And my experience has, I trust, broadened the horizon of my
views, as it has certainly strengthened my faith in the just judgment of
a generous and intelligent people.
One thing I can confidently assert here in your presence. That is, that
I have steadily endeavored to deserve the respect and regard of the
people of Kansas. I have never cared—I never shall care—whether any
person eulogizes my official life as brilliant or distinguished, so that
all good citizens shall say that it was clean, just, safe, honest, and
industrious. This is the only praise I hope to deserve or seek to win;
this is the aim and end of my ambition.
I come before a Republican State Convention as a candidate for office,
for the last time. I recognize the propriety and justice of the
sentiment which forbids a Governor to aspire to a third term, and if, by
the confidence, partiality and generosity of the people of Kansas, I
shall be again elected to the office I now hold, I shall, at the close
of my term, gladly return to the work and duty abandoned at their call,
and as a private citizen will continue to labor for the success of the
glorious party you represent, and to advance the interests of this
imperial commonwealth.
The controversies, rivalries and jealousies that are inevitable in an
assemblage of this character, are soon forgotten by all who have any
honest faith in or real devotion to the principles and policies of the
Republican party. Far above and far beyond any mere personal ambition,
or the gratification of any individual interest, are the ideas and
principles which have bound together, for more than thirty years, the
greatest, purest and most patriotic organization of intelligent people
ever known in this or any other land; an organization which found this
Republic a collection of discordant States, and has made it a great
Nation; which has exalted the American name in every civilized country
in the world; which has enriched our history with deeds and names that
will inspire youth and exalt manhood during all the centuries to come;
which has never been ashamed or afraid to espouse the cause of the poor,
the weak, the alien or the ignorant, and make their wrongs its own;
which to-day stands for all that makes American homes sober, happy and
pure, American industry prosperous and hopeful, and all who live beneath
our flag secure and free; and which can be depended upon, in the future,
to protect the interests of all classes of the people against the
aggressions of corporate power.
I have read the platform you have adopted. It is a notable declaration
of just principles and honest purposes. My judgment approves it, my
heart indorses it, and I pledge you, here and now, that whatsoever I can
do to give vitality to your declarations will be cheerfully, honestly
and faithfully done.
I will not, gentlemen of the convention, trespass further on your time.
You have duties to discharge, and you desire to give them your
attention. I trust your deliberations will be pleasant and harmonious. I
thank you, sincerely and gratefully, for the distinguished honor of your
confidence, and wish you to express to those you represent my deep
appreciation of, and thankfulness for, their constant and unfailing
support. May peace, happiness and prosperity abide in your homes and
theirs, and may that order, security and contentment which a
law-respecting, sober and intelligent people can justly expect to enjoy,
be the common heritage of all the people of this great commonwealth.
REPUBLICANISM IN KANSAS.
Speech delivered at Topeka, September 15, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The campaign in Kansas this year
is what is called an “off-year” contest. The intense enthusiasm, the
fierce excitement, the great processions, with flags and banners and
music and resounding hurrahs; the marvelous interest, dwarfing and
absorbing all other concerns, and even paralyzing for months the
every-day business pursuits and industries of the people—all these will
be wanting in the campaign of 1886. And yet the interests involved in
the election that will be held in November next are as momentous, and
the issues depending on its result are quite as important to the State,
as were the interests and issues depending upon the result at the
ballot-box in 1884. The one officer who was to be elected then, and is
not to be chosen now, was the President. We are to choose, in November
next, as we did two years ago, a full board of State officers, seven
Congressmen, a State Legislature, a Judge of the Supreme Court, and
nearly half of our county officers. We are to elect men who will make
our laws, National and State, as well as men who will execute our State
laws. And as good local government really concerns each individual
citizen far more than do the acts of the President, because it touches
each and every citizen more directly, it has always seemed to me that
the people, if they have a proper regard for their own interests, ought
to regard the “off-year” elections with quite as deep interest, if not
more anxious solicitude, than they do the choice of a President.
DEMOCRACY IN KANSAS.
I appear before you as the candidate of a great party, honored by its
confidence and proud to bear its standard, to ask you in its name for
your support. I have been a citizen of this State for nearly thirty
years. I came here, a boy of 18, when Kansas was a poor, weak,
distracted Territory, rent and torn by civil war, invaded by hordes of
ruffians and marauders, and suffering under all the evils of the worst
government that ever harassed and oppressed a free people. For more than
two years this intolerable lawlessness had prevailed—for nearly three
years longer it continued; and the party that confronts us to-day, and
is asking your support, is the same party that, from 1854 to 1861, held
Kansas by the throat, and by fraud, and murder, and arson, and
turbulence, and every crime that ever disgraced humanity, endeavored to
fasten upon it the curse of Human Slavery.
Beaten in its attempt to enslave Kansas, the Democratic party plunged
the whole country into civil war, and for four long and bloody years the
Nation struggled on to universal freedom and national unity; and this
young State, that had been fighting for five years to get into the
Union, now had to fight for four years more to preserve the Union.
Republicanism and Kansas were wedded together in this long and terrible
struggle. When Jefferson Davis marched out of the Senate, William H.
Seward moved to take up the Kansas bill, and as the coat-tails of the
Rebel chief disappeared through one door, young Kansas, smiling and
triumphant, marched in at the other.
REPUBLICAN CONTROL IN KANSAS.
For twenty-four years the Republican party controlled the government of
the Republic, and from that day to this the Republican party has
moulded, directed, and controlled the affairs and destiny of Kansas. Has
the trust reposed in the Republican party by the people of this State
been misplaced or betrayed? Has it administered the government wisely
and humanely? Has it justified, by its conduct, the reasonable
expectations of an intelligent people? Has it enacted wise laws? Has it
honestly collected and disbursed the public revenues? Has it maintained
peace? Has it made liberal provisions for the education of our youth?
Has it fostered institutions for the care and maintenance of the
unfortunate? Has it remembered that the only liberty that is valuable,
is liberty founded on just laws, and connected with public order? Has it
allied humanity with justice? Has its rule promoted enterprise, fostered
agriculture, encouraged industry, and nourished commerce? Has it
endeavored to further morality, to promote sobriety, to suppress vice,
to punish crime, to abolish drunkenness, and to curb and scourge
lawlessness? Has it, in brief, in the discharge of its public trusts,
made this State a great, prosperous, intelligent, law-respecting
commonwealth, in which every citizen enjoys the largest possible liberty
consistent with social order and a due regard for the rights of his
fellow-men? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, the
Republican party has a just right to expect that the people of Kansas
will continue to give it their confidence and support.
What, then, are the facts? Kansas celebrated only a few months ago, the
first quarter-century of her existence as a State. During all that
period, as I have said, the Republican party has controlled its
destinies and administered its government. The accidental break in the
Governorship four years ago does not modify this assertion, for the
Legislature was, during that period, Republican by an overwhelming
majority; all the other State officers were Republicans, and the local
governments of the State were, as a rule, of similar faith. The
Republicans, therefore, controlled public affairs just as certainly and
as firmly, during the years 1882 and 1883, as they did before and have
since.
THE GROWTH OF KANSAS UNDER REPUBLICAN RULE.
What, then, has been the history of Kansas under Republican rule? Its
growth is without parallel in the history of American States. In 1860
Kansas had a population of only 107,206, and ranked as the thirty-third
State of the Union. To-day our population is fully 1,500,000, and Kansas
ranks as the fourteenth State. During the past quarter of a century
Kansas has passed ahead of all the Northern States except eight, and all
of the Southern States except five. All of the other great States of the
Union were from fifty to a hundred years in attaining the population
Kansas has reached in thirty years. In 1860 we had only three towns with
a population exceeding 1,000; we have now over one hundred each having a
population in excess of 1,000; twelve having each over 5,000, and four
with over 15,000 inhabitants.
Twenty-five years ago we produced only 6,000,000 bushels of corn and
194,000 bushels of wheat per annum; last year we produced 194,000,000
bushels of corn and 11,000,000 bushels of wheat. In 1860 the farm crops
of Kansas were valued at less than $150,000; last year their value
exceeded $92,000,000. In 1860 the farm products of Kansas, including
crops, products of live stock, etc., were valued at less than
$5,000,000; in 1885 their value was nearly $144,000,000. In 1860 less
than 150,000 acres were under cultivation; last year the area was nearly
15,000,000 acres. In 1860 only 1,778,400 acres were taxable; in 1885
over 27,710,000 acres. In 1860 the live stock of Kansas was valued at
less than $3,000,000; in 1885 the valuation reached nearly $118,000,000.
The value of the farm products of Kansas for the year 1885 aggregated
near three-fourths of the value of the gold and silver products of the
whole civilized world, and were more than double the value of the
products of all the gold and silver mines in the United States. In 1860
the assessed valuation of all the property of Kansas, real and personal,
was less than $23,000,000; for 1885 it was nearly $249,000,000. The
railroads of Kansas are assessed, for the year 1886, at $32,434,936, or
more than double the valuation of all the real estate in 1860. We had
not a mile of railway within our borders in 1864—we now have 5,117
miles. Every county in the State, except twenty, is now traversed by one
or more railroads, and within the present year fully 500 miles of new
road will be added to the lines we already have.
In educational privileges, what State can equal Kansas? Our State
University, Agricultural College and Normal School are institutions of
which every intelligent Kansan is justly proud, and our common-school
system, supplemented by dozens of denominational or private academies
and colleges, is wonderful in the scope and extent of the educational
facilities provided. We had only 154 school houses and employed only 189
teachers in 1860; we now have more than 7,000 school houses, in which
fully 9,000 teachers are employed to instruct 350,000 scholars. In 1861
the amount expended for the support of common schools was only $1,700;
the expenditures in 1885, for the same purpose, aggregated $2,977,763.
During the past quarter of a century Kansas has expended, for school
buildings and the support of public schools, including our institutions
for higher education, fully $35,000,000.
Churches have multiplied with proportionate rapidity. In 1860 we had
only ninety-seven church buildings, costing an aggregate of only
$143,950; in 1885 we have over 3,000, valued at more than $3,000,000.
In 1860 only twenty-seven newspapers were published in Kansas; we now
have over 650, of which fully forty are dailies, and their aggregate
circulation exceeds 400,000 copies. Every county in the State, organized
or unorganized, now has one or more newspapers, and no other State in
the Union can boast of a more enterprising and intelligently-conducted
press than that of Kansas.
The provisions made for the unfortunate have been most generous. Two
asylums for the insane have been erected; and the institutions for the
blind and for the deaf and dumb are among the largest and best in the
United States. An asylum for feeble-minded children has been provided.
The Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, a noble charity, illustrating the grateful
loyalty of our people, will soon be completed. A Reform School for
wayward boys is in successful operation; and the State, following the
example of the most advanced commonwealths, is now erecting an
industrial reformatory for the confinement of law-breakers who are not
hardened criminals, thus removing this class, who may possibly be
reclaimed by wholesome discipline, from the degradation of the
penitentiary.
KANSAS, THE CHILD OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
In citing these facts and figures showing the marvelous growth of
Kansas, I am not asserting or intimating that our fellow-citizens of
other political organizations have not contributed their full share of
the revenues necessary to build and maintain the institutions
enumerated. Nor do I claim that to Republicans alone is due all credit
for the marvelous growth of Kansas. That would be a folly of which I
hope I am not capable. But it is true that this wonderful development
could not and would not have occurred if the government of the State had
been what our political opponents assert it has been—corrupt,
tyrannical, weak and bad. I appeal to the average common sense of any
good citizen to make answer whether Kansas could possibly be what it is
to-day, one of the greatest and most prosperous States of the Union, if
its government had been the weak and wicked thing Democratic orators and
newspapers assert that it has been? I appeal from Philip drunk with
partisan prejudice, to Philip sober enough to realize the wonderful
growth and to be proud of the splendid State we inhabit. Here is the
Kansas of our love and our faith—look around you and see it. Every
citizen of the State, no matter what his political opinions may be, is
proud of Kansas. And yet Kansas, more than any other region under the
shining stars, is the product, the child of the Republican party.
Republicans have guided and directed its growth and development from its
infancy to the full stature of its splendid manhood. Republican
intelligence, Republican policy, Republican courage, enterprise and
sagacity, have inspired its laws, established and moulded its
institutions, and controlled every step and stage of its marvelous
development. There is no State in the American Union where there are, in
proportion to population, so many happy and prosperous homes as are
found in the State of Kansas. There is no State where so many men sit
down every day to substantial meals, nor where so many wives and
children are comfortably clad—no people anywhere on earth of whom so
large a proportion are sober, intelligent and contented with their lot,
as here in Kansas. And this great State, as I have said, is the child of
the Republican party—bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh. It has
grown great and powerful and prosperous, because it has grown up under
Republican laws and Republican direction. Its schools, its churches, its
charities, its institutions, its industries, have been planted, nurtured
and promoted under the encouragement of Republican intelligence. Kansas
is a shining illustration of the beneficence of Republican policy and
principles. Its growth has surpassed that of any other American State,
because Kansas has always been a Republican State. The people know this.
The most bitterly prejudiced Democrat in the land realizes it, wonders
at it, and in his secret heart rejoices over it.
THE TWO PLATFORMS.
Our Democratic opponents, however, challenge the right of the Republican
party to a renewal of public confidence. And on what grounds? Read their
platform, and you will see that the first and principal plank is a
general and very bitter denunciation of “all sumptuary laws, State or
National,” and an emphatic demand for a return to the license system.
They are opposed, the platform declares, “to the principle of
constitutional prohibition.” They regard it as an invasion of “the
individual liberty and manhood of the citizen.” And they favor, “instead
of constitutional or statutory prohibition, a well-regulated and just
license system.”
The Republican platform, on the other hand, declares that “the people of
Kansas have adopted prohibition as the settled policy of the State, and
have declared that the saloon, with its corrupt and demoralizing
influences, must go.” The Republicans are, therefore, the platform
declares, “in favor of carrying out this verdict of the people, by
enacting laws to enforce it, and by faithfully executing those laws, so
that the sale of intoxicating liquors, except for the purposes specified
in the Constitution, may be made impossible.”
On this question, as you will see, the two parties radically disagree.
The Republicans take their stand fairly on the Constitution of the
State—on the action of the sovereign people of the State, who by their
votes have placed the liquor traffic and the saloon under the ban of
their organic law. The Democrats denounce the Constitution and laws of
the State, and favor a return to the license system.
Prohibition, it should be remembered, was not originally a party or
partisan policy. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is
responsible for the fact that the prohibition amendment to the
Constitution was adopted. That was the act of the sovereign people of
Kansas, acting in their individual capacity, without partisan or party
indorsement or direction.
HISTORIC PARALLELS.
But in another sense, the Republican party is responsible for
prohibition. It was always and is everywhere the party of law and good
government. It stood for the constitution and laws during the dark and
desolate days of 1861–5, and grew to manhood amid the perils and trials
of a monstrous rebellion against a people’s government, and the people’s
verdict that the aggressions of human slavery must cease. When the
people of Kansas adopted the constitutional amendment of 1880, and
decreed that the saloon, with its corrupt and demoralizing influences,
must go, the Republican party accepted this decision, and a Republican
Legislature enacted laws to enforce it. The Democratic party, from that
day to this, has constantly and persistently endeavored to nullify the
constitutional amendment and the people’s verdict against the saloon.
History, it is said, repeats itself, and certainly the history of the
Democratic refusal to accept the decision of the people of Kansas on the
question of prohibition, and the Democratic refusal to accept the result
of the election of 1860, afford striking parallels. In 1860 slavery
crouched behind armed rebellion; in 1886 the saloon crouches behind
Democratic nullification. The Republican party was the party of the
Constitution and the laws in 1861; it is the party of the Constitution
and the laws to-day. In 1861 the Democratic party advocated and defended
that sum of all villainies, human slavery; it is to-day advocating and
defending that fruitful source of vice, poverty, and crime, the liquor
traffic. The Republican party was right in 1861; it is right now. In
1865 it made every man beneath the flag free and equal, and to-day it is
striving to make every home in Kansas a happier home. It has loyally and
honestly accepted the solemn duty devolved upon it by the people’s
verdict against the sale of intoxicating liquors except for certain
specified purposes, and it intends to enforce this verdict faithfully
and firmly.
THE GROWTH OF KANSAS SINCE THE PROHIBITION LAW TOOK EFFECT.
Our opponents assert, however, that prohibition has damaged the material
prosperity of the State.
Where are the evidences to establish this fact? What is the truth? The
prohibition amendment was adopted in 1880, and the first law to enforce
it went into effect in May, 1881. We have had, therefore, more than five
years of actual experience, and I appeal to the facts of the census to
answer the assertion that prohibition has done injury to the material
interests of Kansas.
In 1880 the population of the State was 996,096. We had been twenty-five
years in attaining that population. To-day Kansas has not less than
1,500,000 inhabitants. In five years we have gained half a million. In
1880 only 55 towns and cities had a population exceeding 1,000, and six
had each over 5,000. In 1885, 91 towns and cities each had over 1,000,
and twelve had each over 5,000. In 1880 we had only 8,868,884 acres
under cultivation; in 1885 we had 14,252,815 acres. In 1880 the farms of
Kansas were valued at only $235,178,936, and the farm products for that
year aggregated only $84,521,486; in 1885 the farms of the State were
valued at $408,073,454, and the farm products of that year aggregated
$143,577,018. In 1880 the live stock of Kansas was worth only
$61,563,950; in 1885 it was worth $117,881,699. In 1880 the assessed
valuation of the property of Kansas, real, personal and railroad,
aggregated $160,891,689; in 1885 it aggregated $248,845,276. In 1880 we
had only 3,104 miles of railway; we have now 5,117 miles. In 1880 we had
5,315 school houses; in 1885 we had 6,673. In 1880 we expended
$1,818,336 for the support of our common schools; in 1885 we expended
$2,977,763. In 1880 we had only 357 newspapers and 2,514 churches; in
1885 we had 581 newspapers and 3,976 churches.
Do these figures prove the assertion of those “weeping Jeremiahs” who
believed, or affected to believe, that the prosperity and growth of
Kansas depended upon the saloons? Do they not, on the contrary,
establish the fact that the growth of Kansas during the past six
years—the six years of prohibition—has far exceeded any other period of
the State’s marvelous development?
DOES PROHIBITION PROHIBIT?
Our opponents allege, again, that “prohibition does not prohibit;” that
the saloons are simply transformed into drug stores, and keep on selling
liquor as before; and that drinking and drunkenness have really
increased since the prohibition law went into effect. If these
assertions are true, what have they to complain of? If prohibition does
not prohibit, why do the men who want to open saloons, and make a living
by making their fellow-men drunk, oppose prohibition? If a saloon can be
so easily transformed into a drug store, why don’t all the
saloon-keepers adopt that course? If drinking and drunkenness have
increased, why are those who profit by drinking and drunkenness, and all
their allies and supporters, so bitterly opposed to prohibition?
The distress of the gentlemen who so vehemently argue that “prohibition
does not prohibit,” recalls one of President Lincoln’s quaint stories.
Gen. Grant was winning victories in the West, but his success inspired
the usual jealousies and rivalries, and the President was frequently
advised that Grant was a failure, and urged to remove him. This
criticism and fault-finding continued even after the surrender of
Vicksburg. The wiseacres insisted that Grant had made a fatal mistake in
paroling Pemberton’s army, and argued that the paroled men would, in a
brief time, swell the ranks of other Confederate armies. The President
had been patient until then, but when this argument was made, he turned
on the critics, and, with a sly twinkle, asked: “Did you ever hear about
Bill Sykes’s yellow dog?” They said they hadn’t. “Well,” said Mr.
Lincoln, “Sykes had a yellow dog he set great store by, but there was a
lot of boys in town who didn’t share Sykes’s opinion. In fact, they
regarded Sykes’s yellow dog as a nuisance. So they finally fixed up a
cartridge with a long fuse, put the cartridge in a piece of meat,
dropped the meat in the road near Sykes’s house, and then, having
perched themselves on a fence near by, with the end of the fuse in their
hands, whistled for the dog. When he came out he scented the meat, and
bolted it, cartridge and all. The boys touched off the fuse, and in a
moment there was an explosion. Sykes rushed out to see what was the
matter, and found the ground covered with pieces of yellow dog. He
picked up the biggest piece he could find, and after mournfully
regarding it for a moment, sorrowfully said: ‘Well, I guess he’ll never
be much account again—as a dog.’ And,” added the President, “I guess
Pemberton’s army will never be of much account again—as an army.”
Looking at the fragments of the whisky traffic scattered over the State,
in jails, or seated on store-boxes swearing that “prohibition doesn’t
prohibit,” or across the border in Missouri—looking at these scattered
fragments, it may fairly be said that, like Sykes’s dog, the whisky
business in Kansas will never be of much account again—as a business.
SALES OF LIQUOR BY DRUGGISTS.
It is unfortunate that the law does not require probate judges to make
returns, to some State officer, of the sales of intoxicating liquor
reported to them by the druggists of the State. In the absence of such
returns accurate figures cannot of course be furnished. But it is
possible to make up, from such official reports as are attainable, a
reasonably accurate estimate of the liquor traffic in Kansas, and this I
shall endeavor to do. In one of the oldest and most populous counties of
this State—a county having nearly 25,000 inhabitants, and not a saloon
within its borders—the official returns made to the probate judge, for
the month of July last, show less than 1,500 sales. There are now
ninety-three organized counties in the State. Seventy-nine of them have
populations ranging from 2,500 to 25,000; and only fourteen have
populations in excess of 25,000. In more than one-half of the counties
of Kansas the sales of liquors by druggists will not reach 1,500 per
month; in less than one-half the sales will probably exceed that number.
Considering all the facts, however, it is fair to accept the official
sales made in the county to which I have referred as an average for each
other county. On this basis, with ninety-three counties, each averaging
1,500 sales per month, the aggregate for the entire State would be
139,500 sales per month, or 1,674,000 per year, or not much more than
one sale per annum for each inhabitant.
It has been ascertained, also, by thoroughly competent and reliable
investigation, that the sales of liquor by druggists do not average, in
value, to exceed 40 cents for each sale. I will, however, make the
estimate liberal, and call the money value of each sale 50 cents. And as
the sales by druggists aggregate 1,674,000 per year, their pecuniary
value, at 50 cents each, aggregates $837,200.
THE SALOON TRAFFIC IN LIQUORS.
Now, compare these figures with the saloon traffic in liquors. In this
city, the capital of the State, there were, in January, 1885, seventy
saloons. It has been ascertained, by the most careful and accurate
investigation, that the expenses of saloons for rent, fuel, lights, city
license, taxes, lawyers’ fees, help, liquors, etc., cannot average less
than $20 per day. The expenses of some, of course, do not exceed $5 or
$10 per day, but those of others reach $30 to $50 per day; so that $20
is a fair average. Hence, the seventy saloons open in Topeka until
January, 1885, must have received an aggregate of $1,400 per day to
cover their expenses, or, allowing 10 per cent. for profit, $1,540 per
day. And as the saloon, where it exists, is open 365 days in the year,
the seventy saloons of the city of Topeka, in order to meet their
expenses and realize a profit of 10 per cent., must have received the
enormous sum of $562,100 per annum. In other words, the 23,490 people of
the city of Topeka then expended in the saloons more than two-thirds as
much money for alcoholic liquors as all the people of the State of
Kansas now expend in the drug stores for the same purpose.
Let me make the comparison still more plain. There were, in Topeka,
seventy saloons, which would be one for every 335 of its then
inhabitants. A like ratio for the State would give Kansas, with its
1,500,000 inhabitants, 4,477 saloons. The expenses of these, at $20 per
day, and 10 per cent. profit, would aggregate the enormous sum of
$35,950,310 per year. In other words, while the sales of liquor in
Kansas by the druggists now aggregate only $837,200 per annum, if we had
in Kansas as many saloons in proportion to population as had this city
from 1881 to 1885, their sales, in order to meet their daily expenses,
must aggregate $98,494 per day, or $35,950,310 per annum—$35,113,110
more than the sales by the druggists now aggregate.
A still more startling comparison is afforded by the statistics of the
saloon business of Leavenworth. There are, it is reported, 230 saloons
in that city, or one for every 127 of its 29,268 inhabitants. To meet
the expenses of these saloons, estimating them at an average of only $15
per day each, requires receipts aggregating $3,450 per day, or
$1,259,250 per annum—$422,250 more than is received by all the druggists
of Kansas for all the liquors they sell. A like ratio for the whole
State would give Kansas 11,811 saloons, whose daily expenses, at $15 per
day, would aggregate the enormous sum of $177,165 per day, or
$64,665,225 per year—just $63,828,225 more than the sales by the
druggists now aggregate.
DEMOCRATIC SLANDERS OF HONORABLE MEN.
I want to add, too, that in my judgment, the assertions sometimes made,
that the drug stores of Kansas have all been transformed into saloons,
are absolutely false. I am acquainted with many of the druggists of this
State, and know them to be honorable, law-respecting, conscientious
citizens, who would not only scorn to do an illegal act for pecuniary
profit, but who are far above and beyond the meanness of selling liquors
as a beverage. There is no class of business men in the State who stand
higher in the esteem and respect of all good citizens than do our
druggists, and the attempt on the part of the Democratic party and its
allies to degrade their business to the low level of the saloons, and to
blacken and stain their reputation as honorable and law-respecting
citizens, is unspeakably outrageous. It is true, no doubt, that there
are men engaged in the drug business who disgrace it by violating the
Constitution and laws, and who, for pecuniary profit, sell liquors for
other than the excepted purposes of the Constitution. But these men are
the exception, and not the rule, among the druggists of Kansas, and
sooner or later the law will reach and punish them, and drive them out
of the business they degrade. Those, however, who place druggists
generally in this class, are either stupid or malicious slanderers of
men who, as a class, are honorable citizens, engaged in a reputable and
legitimate business. The sale of liquor for certain purposes is
expressly authorized by the Constitution and the laws, and sales for
these purposes are far larger than most people suppose. Alcohol is sold
for hundreds of mechanical and scientific uses, strictly within the
permission of the Constitution, and all varieties of intoxicating
liquors are prescribed by learned and reputable physicians, for medical
use. The sales for these legitimate and lawful uses constitute, I have
no doubt, a very large proportion of the sales made by the druggists of
Kansas; so that the quantity of intoxicating liquors sold as a beverage
is reduced to a very small amount, and this amount will grow smaller
year after year.
THE SOBER, LAW-RESPECTING STATE.
My fellow-citizens, those who assert that the drug stores have been
transformed into saloons, or that drinking and drunkenness have
increased in Kansas, ought to know that they are not telling the truth.
There is not an intelligent, observing man in Kansas who does not know
that drinking and drunkenness have been enormously diminished in this
State during the past five years. It is no doubt true that liquor is
sold in many places, in violation of law. But no intelligent, truthful
man, who knows what the condition of affairs was six or eight years ago,
and is to-day, will deny that a great reform has already been
accomplished. I have traveled over the State a great deal during the
past two years. I have attended public meetings in a hundred different
towns and cities—political meetings, soldiers’ reunions, fairs and other
gatherings, at which from 3,000 to 50,000 people were assembled—and it
is one of the rarest of things to see a single person under the
influence of liquor. I have heard hundreds of people speak of this
remarkable fact, and always with satisfaction and pride. Wherever the
saloon has been banished, nineteen-twentieths of all the drinking and
drunkenness prevailing have been abolished with it. The social feature
of the drinking habit goes with the saloon, and this social feature—the
American habit of treating—is responsible for nine-tenths of all the
drinking and drunkenness in America. The loafing-place the saloon
afforded, with its crowd of hangers-on, has gone with the saloon. The
bad example set before young boys, the allurements of good-fellowship
which tempted so many, the appetite developed and nurtured by
treating—all these have gone with the saloon. And yet, not to-day, nor
next year, nor for a decade to come, will all the good results of this
abolition of the saloon be realized. The old generation of drinkers
will, many of them, probably continue to get liquor in some way—but
their boys, our boys, all the happy, hopeful, bright-eyed and
rosy-cheeked young fellows who are growing up on the prairies of Kansas,
will grow to manhood untempted by the social allurements of the saloon,
soberer, healthier, happier men than their fathers were.
FATHERS, MOTHERS, WIVES, AND CHILDREN REJOICE.
And where is the father who does not rejoice over this prospect? The man
does not live who is so degraded, so brutal, that he would wish his boy,
or the husband of his daughter, to acquire the drinking habit. Where,
then, is the man who is not willing to give his voice and his vote to
sustain the party which, respecting and obeying the formally expressed
will of the people, proposes to abolish the saloon, and the frightful
crime, poverty, wretchedness and vice of which it is the fruitful
source? Suppose that not another drop of liquor should ever be sold as a
beverage in Kansas, would any human being in the State thereby suffer
harm? If every saloon in Kansas should be closed to-morrow, and never
reopened, would any man, woman or child within the limits of the State
be injured? Has whisky, since the first drop was distilled, ever
benefited any man who drank it, or made the life of any wife, mother or
sister any happier, or brought joy to the heart or smiles to the lips of
a little child? Has any good ever come out of the saloon? Has any human
being been hurt or harmed, in any town or city of this State, by the
closing of the saloons? Not one—not a single one. In hundreds of Kansas
towns whence the saloons have been banished, there are thousands of
homes where wives and children wear better clothes, and sit down every
day to better meals, than they had provided for them before the saloons
were banished. Is there a home anywhere in the State that is less
peaceful, prosperous and happy, or a child that is clothed in rags, or a
wife whose love and happiness have been blighted, because the saloons
have been closed? Not one—not a single one.
THE SALOON, THE SCHOOL HOUSE AND RECRUITING STATION OF THE ANARCHISTS.
Another, and if possible, more urgent reason why the saloon must go, has
recently been brought home to the people of this country with convincing
force. Americans have believed that this was the freest, happiest land
under the sun, and it is. Its government is the perfection of human
wisdom. It is, as the greatest of our Presidents has said, “a government
of the people, for the people, by the people.” No limitations or
restrictions are placed on the rights or liberty of any citizen, except
such as are necessary to protect the rights and liberty of all other
citizens. The humblest man in the land may aspire to the highest
official place, and it is a fact that a vast majority of those citizens
who have attained the loftiest honors sprang from the humblest walks in
life. Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Blaine, Logan, and thousands of others
who might be named, are conspicuous illustrations of this truth. Ours is
a government of liberty, regulated by law. Its delegated and reserved
powers embody the ripest fruits of man’s experience with and knowledge
of man’s weakness and strength, selfishness and generosity, cruelty and
justice—embody, in fact, the experience of thirty centuries of human
progress. Only a few brief years ago, the people gladly and proudly
sacrificed 500,000 lives, and billions of treasure, in order to
preserve, for themselves and their children, this heritage of free
government.
But within the past decade there has been spawned upon our hospitable
shores a school of depraved and vicious foreigners, who are poisoning
and polluting the very atmosphere they breathe. Incapable of
comprehending the difference between absolute despotism and republican
freedom, confounding liberty with license, regarding all restraints of
law as tyranny, and denouncing all government as oppression, these
apostles of anarchy are sedulously sowing the seeds of discord, envy,
hate, rapacity, and murder. And where do these miscreants find the most
willing converts to their atrocious theories? Where do they assemble to
plot, to declaim, to conspire, and to argue? Read the reports of the
trial of the anarchists in Chicago, and you will ascertain. Read, in the
journals of any of our large cities, reports of anarchist and socialist
assemblies. Follow Most, and Schwab, and Spies, and Fielden, and
Parsons, to their favorite haunts. Do this, and you will find that the
saloon is always and everywhere the assembly room, the school house, the
tabernacle of these wild, vicious and dangerous apostles of lawlessness.
There they teach their ferocious doctrine, “burn, and murder, and
plunder, in order to live.” There they find the ignorant and brutalized
human beings whose besotted minds and deadened consciences make them
ready converts to the monstrous theories that property is robbery, that
law is oppression, that government is tyranny, that religion is a cheat,
and that everything mankind has been taught to revere should be
proscribed and destroyed.
THE CONFESSION OF AN ANARCHIST.
One of the most prominent men in this State told me, some months ago, of
a conversation he had with a well-known New York socialist. The Kansas
man said to the New Yorker: “You claim you desire to elevate humanity.
You know, as every intelligent man does, that for a very large
proportion of all the poverty, crime and woe of this world the liquor
traffic is responsible. Why, then, don’t you endeavor to close the
saloons of this city?” The reply was prompt and conclusive. Said the New
Yorker: “Close the saloons? Why, if that was done we should have no
meeting-places. We find and make most of our converts in the saloons!”
Here, then, in the saloons, where poverty, vice, crime and suffering are
bred and nurtured, are the haunts, and homes, and recruiting offices of
the dynamiter and bomb-thrower. From the saloons come the miscreants who
parade with red flags, and who revile and denounce the brave old banner
of the “Stars and Stripes.” From the saloon issue the wild-eyed and
crack-brained enthusiasts, and the brutal and vicious emissaries of envy
and hate, who want to substitute for a republic of reason, order,
security, liberty, and law, the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and
arbitrary government of the mob.
THE LABOR QUESTION.
Another prominent question upon which the two platforms express
opinions, is that of labor and capital. And in discussing this question,
as all others, the Republican party deals not in vague promises or
glittering generalities, but in definite statements. It points to what
it has done; it presents accomplished facts to sustain its assertion
that it will honestly favor “all legislation tending to secure to the
laborers their just proportion of the proceeds of their work, to protect
them against the encroachments of organized capital, and to provide easy
and speedy redress for all wrongs suffered by them, or threatened to
them.”
A political party making professions of devotion to the interests of any
class of the people should be able to show by its record, that when in
position to control legislation, it originated or adopted some policy
beneficial to that class. Can the Democratic party present such evidence
of friendliness for or sympathy with the laboring masses? For nearly
thirty years it had supreme control of the National Government. Did it,
during that time, devise or perfect any measure or policy to ameliorate
the condition of the laboring classes, or shape and direct legislation
to the end that human selfishness or rapacity should be held in check,
and the opportunities of all men be equalized?
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THE ENEMY OF HONEST LABOR.
No, it did not. On the contrary, during that period every measure of the
Democratic party was directly against the interests of laboring men. The
homestead law was repeatedly defeated by Democratic Congressmen, and was
never enacted until the Republicans came into power. Every attempt of
the Democratic party to legislate on the subject of the tariff was made
in the interest of foreign capital and low-priced labor, and against
home enterprise and American workingmen. The Democratic party formed an
alliance, offensive and defensive, with an aristocratic oligarchy which
held to the monstrous doctrine that capital should own its own
laborers—own and buy and sell them as cattle are owned, bought and sold.
The stronghold of the Democratic party was and is to-day this community
of great planters, and the favorite candidates of the Democratic party
are men with “bar’ls”—monopolists and millionaires, who are expected to
buy their way to place and power.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ALWAYS THE HELPFUL FRIEND OF THE WORKINGMEN.
On the other hand, the Republican party has always been the real,
practical and helpful friend of the poor man. Before it had been in
power a year it had opened the public domain to the people, by the
passage of the homestead law, giving land to the landless and free homes
to the homeless. It has changed 4,000,000 of slaves into freemen and
paid laborers, thus relieving every workingman and woman, North and
South, from the ruinous competition of slave labor. It has steadily
insisted on protecting American enterprise and industry against foreign
competition and the poorly-paid labor of Europe. It has insisted, at all
times and under all circumstances, that the real, pressing need of the
country was not cheap manufactured goods of any kind, but prosperous and
contented mechanics. It destroyed the great landed aristocracy that was
built upon the ownership of labor, and has raised another and humbler
class of men to power. Its candidates have been taken from the people.
Its first President was a flat-boatman, a rail-splitter, a poor country
lawyer, who was the architect of his own fortunes. Its second was a poor
tailor whose wife had taught him to read. Its third President, the son
of a poor tanner, lived for years in obscurity, and knew the bitterness
of poverty and friendlessness. He filled the world with the glory of his
achievements, but preserved to the end the simple manhood of a modest
citizen. Its fourth President was also a man of the people. After him
came a man who had been a carpenter and a schoolmaster; and then
followed the son of a poor Irish minister. Its last candidate was
another self-made man of the people, who had been in turn, schoolmaster,
reporter, editor, Congressman, Senator, and Secretary. Not one of the
Republican candidates for President was born to the purple. One and all,
they came up, by their own exertions, from the humblest walks of life.
Working-people themselves, they have understood and sympathized with the
aspirations, the interests, the well-being of the real working-people.
THE LAWS OF KANSAS TOUCHING THE LABOR QUESTION.
In this State, one of the first acts of the Republican party was of vast
importance and general benefit to workingmen. The Wyandotte
Constitutional Convention, which assembled early in 1859, was the first
distinctively Republican official body ever assembled in Kansas; and one
of its most notable actions—and as novel and beneficent as it was
notable—was to adopt a constitutional provision exempting from forced
sale, under any process of law, the homestead of every citizen. Years
ago, too—long before labor questions were much discussed—Republican
Legislatures of Kansas enacted laws protecting the wages of the laborer,
laws providing for a mechanics’ lien broad enough to fully secure all
demands for work or materials, and laws making liberal exemptions from
taxation to small manufacturers and dealers. And these beneficent acts
have been supplemented, during later years, with laws authorizing the
incorporation of associations of workingmen, and providing for the
safety and health of miners; while during the legislative sessions of
1885 and 1886, an act establishing a Bureau of Labor Statistics, charged
with the duty of collecting facts and statistics concerning the moral,
financial and educational condition of the laboring masses, and a law
providing for the legal arbitration of all differences between employers
and employés, were enacted.
Thus from its first accession to power down to the present time, the
Republican party of Kansas has been enacting laws to protect workingmen
against the encroachments of capital, and to provide remedies for wrongs
done them, or threatened to them. The statute books of no other State of
the Union contain so many laws designed especially to protect
workingmen, and to secure justice for them. Claims for labor take
precedence, under our laws, over all others. No contractor can, in
Kansas, cheat a mechanic out of the wages he has earned, for his wages
constitute a first lien on any structure he has aided in building. Every
home in Kansas, no matter how humble, is protected by the constitution
against forced seizure or sale for debt, and any body of workingmen
believing themselves aggrieved, can now appeal to any judge in the State
for the appointment of a board of arbitration to consider and adjust
such grievances. In brief, the Republicans of Kansas have, for a quarter
of a century past, been enacting law after law to protect the
laboring-man, to shield him against wrong or injustice, and to secure
for him a just proportion of the proceeds of his work. Such a record of
steadfast devotion to the interests and rights of workingmen is the best
pledge of justice for the future. But the platform of the party, adopted
in July last, speaks on this question with an earnestness and frankness
that leave no room for question or doubt. It does more than this. It
draws a wide distinction between the honest, law-respecting, intelligent
workingmen of this country, and those noisy, turbulent and vicious
demagogues and loafers who muster under the red flag of the anarchist
and communist. To the interests and rights of the real workingmen, no
matter how poor or humble they may be, the Republican party of Kansas
pledges its constant and unfaltering support, while to the doctrines and
aims of the anarchist and communist it pledges unalterable hostility.
REVIEW OF THE ISSUES.
And now, my fellow-citizens, I have presented for your consideration,
fairly and correctly, I think, the principal issues and interests
involved in the approaching election. I have established the wisdom and
beneficence of Republican administration in Kansas, by presenting facts
and figures from the census, and letting them tell the story of the
marvelous growth and development of the State under the fostering
influences and wise direction of the Republican party. I have
demonstrated that the Republican party is the party of the constitution,
and is, therefore the people’s party; that it has honestly accepted, and
is endeavoring honestly to enforce the decision of the people of Kansas
on the question of prohibition. I have shown by the facts of the census,
that the assertions of our opponents that prohibition has hurt or harmed
the material growth or prosperity of Kansas, is without foundation. I
have presented facts and arguments illustrating the hypocrisy and
falsehood of the assertion that drinking and drunkenness have not been
largely diminished since the prohibitory law went into effect. I have
shown, by citing historical facts, and presenting the record of
Republican legislation, National and State, that the Republican party
has always been the real and helpful friend of the working-people, and
has constantly and faithfully labored to improve their condition and
protect their interests. In brief, I have maintained, and fairly and
conclusively shown, I think, that the Republican party of Kansas, by its
acts, its policy, its clear and honest administration of public trusts,
its steadfast and courageous devotion to the best interests of the
people, and its loyal and consistent respect for the constitutional law
of the land, has deserved the confidence the good citizens of this State
have always reposed in it, and deserves their confidence and support
to-day, as fully and fairly as at any time during the past quarter of a
century.
PERSONAL.
As for myself, I am the candidate of this great party for reelection to
the office of Governor. Two years ago, after a campaign of remarkable
interest and excitement, I was elected by a majority of nearly 40,000
votes. I have been unspeakably proud of the confidence thus reposed in
me by the patriotic and intelligent people of Kansas, and profoundly
grateful to them as well. I have endeavored to deserve their confidence
and regard by a faithful, impartial, honest discharge of my official
duties. In addressing the convention which renominated me, I said: “I
have never cared, I never shall care, whether any person says that my
official life was brilliant or distinguished, so that all good citizens
are compelled to say that it was clean, just, safe, honest, and
industrious.” I repeat this statement, with earnestness and emphasis. I
came to Kansas nearly thirty years ago, and have lived in the full blaze
of public life ever since. I have served the people of this State in
many capacities—as an editor, a soldier, a legislator, and a public
officer. And although painfully conscious that I have made mistakes, I
can stand up here in your presence, or in the presence of any audience
of Kansas people, and challenge any man to say wherein I was ever
unfaithful to a public trust, or guilty of a corrupt or dishonest
action.
OPINIONS CONCERNING QUESTIONS OF STATE POLICY.
As to my opinions concerning questions of State policy, no intelligent
citizen can be deceived or misled, for they are fully and fairly set
forth in the two messages I have had the honor to transmit to the
Legislature. The questions of prohibition and labor I have already
discussed at some length. Other questions discussed in my messages may
be briefly summarized.
In my first message to the Legislature I called the attention of that
body to the enormous aggregate of our municipal indebtedness, then
aggregating nearly $16,000,000, and now perhaps nearly $20,000,000. I
cited the fact that while our State debt was very small, the debts of
its local subdivisions were enormous, and I earnestly urged the passage
of a law limiting and restricting the debt-creating and tax-levying
authority of counties, cities, townships and school districts, to the
end that the tax burdens of the people might be reduced.
Second—I urged a thorough revision of our laws touching the assessment
and equalization of taxes, so as to secure, if possible, uniform values,
and a material reduction of the percentage of taxation.
Third—I recommended reforms in our laws for the disposition of school
lands, calling attention to the defects and shameful abuses of our
present system, and urging that stringent legislation should be adopted
to protect the school domain of the State from despoliation by
speculators.
Fourth—I urged radical changes in our present system of managing the
State charitable institutions, so that the vast sums of money annually
expended for public charities should be disbursed under systematic,
intelligent and constant supervision, with a rigid accountability.
Fifth—I earnestly recommended such changes in our insurance laws as were
necessary to protect our citizens against wrongs and abuses clearly
pointed out.
Sixth—I recommended important modifications in our present railroad law,
and urged that railroad corporations should be prohibited from
establishing rates that enable them to pay large dividends and interest
on stock and bonds issued in amount double or three times the cost of
the construction of their roads.
Seventh—I urged a thorough revision of our laws concerning public
highways, calling attention to the fact that the present system of
making and improving country roads was not only wasteful and unjust in
its operation, but unsatisfactory in its results.
Eighth—I urged the necessity of protecting our vast stock interest
against loss or damage from contagious diseases, or from the
introduction of Texas cattle.
Ninth—I recommended a revision and codification of the entire body of
our laws, suggesting that this work would enormously reduce the expense,
delay and perplexities of litigation in our courts.
Tenth—I urged a revision of the fee-bills of many local officers, so
that all might clearly understand how much the law allowed for such
services as officers are required to perform.
Eleventh—I advised a repeal of our cowardly law which abolishes the
death penalty by indirection.
Twelfth—I recommended a reduction of the legal rates of interest from 7
per cent. or not to exceed 12 per cent. by special contract, to 6 per
cent. or not to exceed 10 per cent. by special contract.
Thirteenth—I urged the creation of a State Board of Pardons, so that the
Governor, in exercising the gravest responsibility vested in him by the
constitution, should have the benefit of the advice and counsel of a
tribunal charged with the duty of investigating the facts and reasons
urged for a pardon.
Fourteenth—I called attention to serious defects in the crimes act, and
the law regulating the assessment of improvements by occupying
claimants.
Fifteenth—I urged complete enrollment of the soldiers of the State, and
a record of that enrollment, so that honorably-discharged Union soldiers
might, on application to the Adjutant General, ascertain the post-office
address of surviving comrades, whose testimony was necessary to
establish just pension claims.
In my second message, I renewed the recommendations made touching all
those subjects that had failed to receive legislative attention, and
added the following additional recommendations:
First—The passage of a law providing regulations to govern the
arbitration of disputes between employers and employés. I stated that
such a law was, in my judgment, vitally important to the prosperity and
happiness alike of employers and employed, as well as to the peace and
order of civil society.
Second—In view of the fact that the State debt aggregated only $815,000,
of which amount only $256,000 was held by individuals or corporations, I
urged that it was neither wise nor just to impose upon the present
generation of tax-payers the burden of paying our outstanding bonds on
their maturity; that our bonds could readily be re-funded at not to
exceed 3½ or 4 per cent.; that the present is paying for public
buildings future generations will occupy, and that the future should
provide for the payment of outstanding bonds.
Third—I recommended that a constitutional amendment should be submitted,
striking the word “white” from section 1 of article 8 of our organic
law. This limitation prevents colored men from serving in the militia.
During the civil war the colored troops demonstrated the courage and
patriotism of their race, and it should be, not their right alone, but
their duty, to bear arms in any emergency calling for a military force.
Fourth—I suggested that the Legislature should demand the establishment
of military posts along our southwestern frontier, in order to protect
our borders against Indian raids, and give our citizens full assurance
of protection.
Fifth—I urged that Memorial Day be made a legal holiday.
Several of the recommendations thus made were favorably acted on by the
Legislature, and bills to carry all these suggestions into practical
effect were introduced. Experience in the duties of the Executive
office, and a closer observation of the practical workings of our laws
and institutions, and of the needs of the people, have only confirmed
and strengthened the opinions I expressed touching all these questions.
And if I am reëlected, I shall regard it as a solemn duty to again urge
favorable legislative action upon all the interests and subjects I have
thus enumerated and discussed. Every recommendation made in either
message was, I believe, practical and just, and I am convinced that
affirmative action by the Legislature, touching one and all of these
questions, would not only promote the best interests of the people, but
be earnestly approved by them.
LAWS ENACTED IN 1885 AND 1886.
It has also given me sincere satisfaction, since assuming the duties of
the Executive office, to approve a number of measures which mark a
decided reform in the conduct of State affairs and the administration of
justice. Some of these I deem it proper to briefly mention.
_First_—A Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics has been
established, charged with the duty of collecting information relating to
the commercial, industrial, social, educational and sanitary condition
of the laboring classes, with a view of furnishing suggestions and facts
for the guidance of the Legislature.
_Second_—An Industrial Reformatory has been established, for the
confinement, instruction and reformation of the large class of lads and
young men whose wrong-doing was the result of bad surroundings or
intoxication rather than of a naturally criminal or vicious disposition.
Not one-half of the prisoners in our penitentiary belong naturally to
the criminal classes, and more than one-half of them are under 25 years
of age. Hundreds of these can, by a course of judicious instruction and
discipline, be reformed and reclaimed, and the new Industrial
Reformatory marks a decided advance in the method of dealing with
law-breakers who are not hardened criminals.
_Third_—A Home for the Orphan Children of loyal soldiers has been
established, and will in a few months be completed. The beneficence of
the State could find no better field for the exercise of its generous
impulses than will be afforded by the establishment of this home for the
care and education of the orphan children of those who periled their own
lives that the country might live.
_Fourth_—The laws of Kansas now provide legal machinery for the
arbitration of differences between employers and their employés. This
law is not, perhaps, perfect, but it is a movement in the right
direction, and I am satisfied that it will in time demonstrate its
usefulness.
_Fifth_—Twelve new counties have been fully organized during the past
twenty months, and seven of these were organized under the law recently
passed, requiring a population of 2,500 and property assessed at
$150,000 as a prerequisite to organization.
_Sixth_—Laws have been enacted providing that preference in public
employment and appointments shall be given to honorably-discharged Union
soldiers, and for the burial of Union soldiers at the public expense.
THE AUTHORITY OF A GOVERNOR.
In considering all these things, my fellow-citizens—and I have tried to
present my views and action touching them with entire frankness, and as
fully as is possible in a speech of this character—it should not be
forgotten that the Governor of an American State possesses no authority
that is not expressly vested in him by the laws. His duties and powers
are clearly defined and limited by law, and he has no more right to do
any act or exercise any authority not explicitly within the scope of the
laws than has any other citizen. Hundreds of men thoughtlessly say, when
something they think ought to be done is left undone, “If I were
Governor, I would do this and that,” when, if any one of them were
Governor, he would find that he had no legal right to do what he says he
would do. I have frequently, since assuming the duties of my present
office, found my authority thus restricted, and although this fact has
occasionally caused embarrassment and vexation, I know the limitations
placed on my official power are proper and just. This is a government of
laws, and not of men, and no interests, either of justice, morality, or
the public welfare, will be promoted by vesting any officer with
arbitrary powers or authority. If, therefore, any good citizen thinks
that I have on any occasion failed to do what he believes I should have
done, let him, before condemning me, ascertain whether I had any legal
authority to do it; whether I had not, in fact, done all that the laws
of Kansas authorize me to do; and whether, all things considered, it is
not always safer and wiser to follow Davy Crockett’s rule: “Be sure you
are right; then go ahead.” True courage is not illustrated by yielding
to public clamor; nor are right and justice exemplified by hasty and
ill-considered zeal for a good cause. The American faith in
“level-headedness” is not, after all, misplaced, and the public man who,
possessing the judicial quality of seeing both sides, or all sides, of
any question, does the safe and the just thing in dealing with it, can
afford to trust to the clear judgment and the honest instincts of the
American people for his vindication and approval.
REPUBLICAN ACHIEVEMENTS.
I have not, my fellow-citizens, attempted to discuss those questions
which divide the people in the larger domain of national politics. It
has seemed to me that, on an occasion of this character, I should
confine my remarks to a discussion of State affairs. But I am not
indifferent, I could not be indifferent, to those issues of principle or
of policies on which the Republican party bases its action and its
faith. I am before you as a candidate of the Republican party. I have
been a Republican from boyhood—an earnest, enthusiastic, loyal
Republican; a Republican from conviction; a Republican who believes that
the Republican party embraces in its ranks the best brain, and heart,
and conscience of the American people. On every great question presented
during the past thirty years, the Republican party has taken the side of
justice, liberty, and eternal right. Never ashamed or afraid to espouse
the cause of the poor, the ignorant, or the alien, and make their wrongs
its own, it has never, on the other hand, pandered to vice or crime or
cupidity for support. When it took control of the General Government,
this country was a weak collection of discordant States on the verge of
civil war and disunion. It crushed armed rebellion, brought the old flag
back to the places from which it had been driven, and made the American
Republic the greatest of civilized nations. It struck the shackles from
4,000,000 slaves, lifted them up, and enfranchised them. It opened the
public lands to the people under the beneficent provisions of the
homestead act. It spanned the continent with railways. It gave to the
people a sound financial system and a stable currency. It revived and
fostered American manufactures. It encouraged public education. It
enriched our history with a long list of imperishable names that will be
an inspiration and an example to our youth for generations to come—the
names of Lincoln, and Grant, and Seward, and Thomas, and Garfield, and a
host of others. And finally, when fraud and terrorism in the South and
vilification and falsehood in the North had accomplished their ends, and
this great party surrendered the trusts it had so long controlled, did
its opponents and traducers, after the most patient and careful
investigation, discover any facts or evidence to justify the ignorant
and brutal accusations they had made against Republican honesty and
competency? Not a single fact. Not a shadow of evidence. They “counted
the money,” and it was all there—every penny of it. They investigated
the books, they scanned every account, they scrutinized every item and
figure, and they found nothing to criticise. And at last, one of the
most prejudiced Democrats in the country was compelled to declare, and
did declare, that he had been amazed at the perfect system, accuracy and
integrity with which the business of his department had been conducted
by the Republicans.
THE “RASCALS” WHO WERE TURNED OUT.
But they “turned the rascals out.” Oh, yes—that business has been
attended to with promptness and regularity. An unending procession of
“rascals” has been moving out for a year and a half. “Rascals” who had
invaded the sacred soil of Virginia and Kentucky; who had stolen negroes
and made them free; who had been with Grant at Vicksburg and in the
Wilderness, and with Thomas at Mission Ridge, and with Sherman on the
march to Atlanta and the sea, and with Meade at Gettysburg. Some of
these “rascals” had grown old and gray; some limped out painfully,
because of old wounds; some wore a vacant sleeve; some had voted against
that great Democratic patriot, Vallandigham; and some had, years before,
been guilty of singing a song about hanging a great Democratic statesman
on a sour-apple tree. Men guilty of such “rascalities” as these of
course deserved to be “turned out,” and they were promptly bounced.
DEMOCRATIC PATRIOTS AND MARTYRS WHO CAME IN.
In their stead, a long line of Democratic martyrs and patriots marched
in—men who had “fought four years for their Democracy” under Lee, or
Bragg, or Joe Johnston; men who had expatriated themselves to the wilds
of Canada to avoid Lincoln’s “bastiles;” men who had wandered through
the timbers of the Wabash or the Miami bottoms hunting their lodge of
“Knights of the Golden Circle” or “Sons of Liberty;” men who had
rejoiced over every disaster to the Union arms, and mourned over every
Union victory; men who had denounced that gentle and loving Greatheart,
Abraham Lincoln, as a “tyrant,” a “baboon,” and an “ape;” men who had
assailed our great commander, Ulysses S. Grant, as a “bloody butcher”
and a “drunken tanner”—these, in large measure, were the “honest
patriots” who marched in, while the drums beat and the fifes whistled
the old familiar tune, “Turn the rascals out;” and the Democratic party
of Kansas, assembled in State convention, formally indorsed and approved
this programme by adopting a resolution that “the soldiers and sailors
of the late war”—not Union soldiers, not loyal soldiers, mind you, but
“soldiers of the late war,” Confederate as well as Union—“are entitled
to the first consideration in appointments.”
CONCLUSION.
My fellow-citizens, the issues of this campaign are of vital importance
to the prosperity and happiness of this State and this Nation.
Republicans of Kansas, remember that in less than two years from this
time we will be in the midst of a Presidential campaign. Do your duty
now, and the result then will be assured. Support with voice and pen and
vote, the candidates of your party—the men who represent convictions,
principles, and policies approved by your judgment, and dear to your
hearts. There has never been a time, from 1860 down to the present
moment, when the Republican party more fully deserved the support of all
loyal and just-minded men than it does now. Rally around the old banner
of Republicanism—the flag of Lincoln, and Grant, and Garfield, and
Logan, and Blaine. Vote with and for the party that gave liberty to the
slave, and restored the Union and brought back peace and prosperity to
bless a distracted and impoverished land. Vote with the party that has
made Kansas famous throughout the civilized world as a State where
unexampled material growth has gone hand in hand with unexampled social
and intellectual progress. Vote with the party that is striving to make
every home in Kansas a prosperous and happy home. Vote for the party
that is always and everywhere the party of good government, of social
order, of liberty and law. Do this, do it earnestly and faithfully, and
the benediction of an approving conscience will fall upon and abide with
you forever.
SPEECH.
Before the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of
North America, Topeka, May 28th, 1885.
MR. MODERATOR, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ASSEMBLY: When the Rev. Mr.
McKirahan kindly invited me to meet the General Assembly of the United
Presbyterian Church, I accepted his invitation with mingled reluctance
and pleasure. On the one hand, I shrank from appearing before so august
an assemblage; on the other, I was glad to greet and to welcome to the
capital city a congregation of men representing a religious body so
numerous and so influential.
I should, however, have stipulated, in accepting the invitation, that I
might be permitted to remain a silent spectator of your proceedings. In
the presence of so many trained and gifted speakers, one who makes no
claim to the graces of oratory ought to be permitted to remain silent. I
could neither instruct nor entertain you, and certainly I have no desire
to interrupt, even for a moment, the important business you are here to
transact.
The Christian minister occupies a most important position, and the
duties devolving on him are at once delicate and responsible. In one
sense, this is an age of unbelief; and yet never in any other age was
the appeal for light, for faith, for instruction, so widespread and so
strong. Weak men cannot make answer to this demand, and the churches of
all denominations ought to fill their pulpits with the most vigorous and
aggressive intellects in their ranks.
Daniel Webster once said: “I thank God that, if I am gifted with little
of the spirit that is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet
none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down.”
In this spirit, at least, I can greet and welcome you, and bid you
Godspeed in your mission and your work.
I beg you, therefore, to accept my hearty congratulations on the
prosperity of the denomination you represent, and my cordial well-wishes
for your individual welfare and happiness. I sincerely trust that your
sessions may be pleasant and profitable, and that you may each and all
return to your homes refreshed and strengthened by this fraternal
meeting.
ADDRESS.
Delivered at Clay Center, at a meeting to celebrate the completion
of the water works, June 6th, 1885.
MR. MAYOR, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have no doubt that the founders
of Clay Center confidently predicted a rapid and substantial growth for
the town they had established. The Kansas men who located towns were, as
a rule, sanguine and cheerful persons, and no matter how bleak and
desolate were their surroundings, nor how unpromising the future really
was, the ground in which they planted their stakes seemed to them
specially designed, from the beginning of all things, as the site for a
prosperous city. Before the first rude frame building was completed,
they had drawn on the map of Kansas numerous lines of railway that must
and would be built, and they lay down at night to dream delightful
dreams of fortunes that were to be realized from corner lots.
For nearly thirty years I have been noting these town-building
experiments, and at times it has seemed a reckless waste of energy and
of enthusiasm. But the wildest anticipations of the town-builders have,
in most instances, been more than realized. The map of Kansas is dotted
all over with prosperous, steadily-growing towns and cities, where
beautiful homes abound, where pleasant school rooms welcome throngs of
eager children, where church bells chime, where the roar and clatter of
mills and factories blend with the clangor of hurrying trains, where the
streets are noisy with commerce, and where business and industrial
thrift, and the charms of congenial and intelligent society, unite to
make life opulent and happy.
And we are yet at the threshold and in the morning of it all. The Kansas
of to-day only foreshadows the Kansas that is to be. Within our favored
borders, soil and climate combine to give to an enterprising and
intelligent people the best reward for toil and skill, for energy and
thrift. No disaster, no calamity, can permanently check the development
of a country so rich in natural resources. So the growth of Kansas,
through the terrors of civil war, through drouths and grasshopper
invasions, through evil and good report, has been constant and often
phenomenal. The growth and prosperity of Clay county and of Clay Center
afford a splendid illustration of the possibilities of Kansas. I can
remember when the general judgment, even of our own people, condemned
all the territory west of the Blue river as unfit for agriculture. Yet
to-day, among the eighty-four organized counties of the State, Clay
ranks as the fifteenth corn-producing and the sixteenth wheat-producing
county; and here, the natural result of this agricultural development
and wealth, is this beautiful and prosperous city of five thousand
contented and intelligent people.
You have assembled to-day to celebrate the completion of one of the most
important enterprises that has ever enlisted your energies and your
enthusiasm. Byron said that “till taught by pain, men really know not
what good water’s worth.” Perhaps the drouths of 1860 and 1874 have
taught our people the worth of water, for it is certain that every
thrifty Kansas town is ambitious to have a generous and unfailing
supply. Indeed it may be said that the construction of water works in a
Kansas town marks the dividing-line between hope and certainty. Every
prosperous and growing Kansas community looks forward with ardent hope
to the coming of the day when it can afford such a luxury, and when that
day does come it may be accepted as indisputable evidence that the town
is no longer an experiment; that its future is no longer doubtful; that
it has attained such wealth, population, business and strength as will
enable it, in the future, to defend its interests and its rights against
all rivals or enemies.
I congratulate you, citizens of Clay Center. All that makes life
enjoyable you have here. A lovely and fertile country surrounds you.
Your streets are thronged with business, and your numerous commercial
houses indicate a growing and prosperous trade. Your industrial
establishments are increasing, in importance as well as in number.
Railways give you speedy and direct connection with the markets of the
country. Pleasant and inviting homes welcome you to their comfort and
repose after the toils of the day are ended, and churches and schools
abound. And now you have secured what thousands of older and more
populous towns have not, a permanent and abundant water supply.
You have a right, therefore, to rejoice. You have just reason for the
pride you feel in your fair city, for within its gates business thrift
and industrial activity, municipal growth and individual enterprise, the
joy of beautiful homes and the charms of an intelligent society, combine
to benefit and to delight. As a citizen of Kansas I share in your pride;
I rejoice with and I congratulate you. For I know that what you have
already accomplished is but an augury of what is to be; is but the
prophecy of a larger growth and greater influence in the years to come.
SPEECH.
At a banquet given the Mexican Editorial Excursion, Topeka, June
24th, 1885.
GENTLEMEN: Until within the past five or six years, Mexico was, even to
a well-educated citizen of this country, an unknown and mysterious land.
Its government, its people, its cities, its resources and products, were
regarded very much as are those of India—as matters of historical or
critical interest, perhaps, but of no direct or material concern to the
people of the United States. American journalists are generally as well
informed as any other class of our citizens, and yet I doubt whether,
among them all, there were a dozen who could name half a dozen Mexican
newspapers. Yet here with us to-day, are a large number of Mexican
journalists—men of education, intelligence and character, who have come
to study, in the school of travel, the lessons taught by personal
observations and individual exploration.
The railroad, the modern diplomat, as well as guide and pioneer, has
made the distant and unknown, near and familiar; has introduced
neighbors who were strangers; has broadened the horizon of national
view; has brought the United States and Mexico into more intimate and
friendly relations with each other; and has conveyed you here, to be our
guests and our friends.
It gives me pleasure to meet and to greet you. I welcome you to Kansas.
I hope your brief visit to our State will be to you an enjoyable one,
and that you will carry with you, on your return to your homes, only
pleasant memories of your journey. I greet you as journalists of a
sister Republic; I welcome you as neighbors and as friends. And in thus
saluting you, I am sure that I only give voice to the general sentiment
of the citizens of our Capital city, and those of the State of Kansas.
AN ANNIVERSARY.
ATCHISON, KANSAS, November 2, 1885.
REV. LINUS BLAKESLEY—_My Dear Sir_: When you so kindly invited me to be
present at the anniversary exercises of the Congregational Church, I did
not remember that Monday evening was the eve of annual election. I must,
therefore, either forego a pleasure I had promised myself, or fail in
discharging that highest duty of American citizenship, attendance at the
polls on election day. I think you will agree that I ought to do what I
have decided to do—remain at home until after election.
“The Thirtieth Anniversary of the First Congregational Church of
Topeka!” That antedates the State nearly six years. Topeka was then
little more than a name on the map, if, indeed, it had yet attained that
distinction. And Kansas, a strange, unknown country, representing an
idea more than the metes and bounds of a future great State, was just
beginning to be discussed, written about and wondered at, as it has been
during all the years that have since come and gone. Mr. Whittier was a
prophet when, a year before your church was established, he sang:
“We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbath of the wild
The music of her bells.
“Upbearing, like the ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.”
My earliest recollections of the Congregational Church of Topeka date
back to the spring of 1861. The first Legislature of the State assembled
on March 26th of that year, the Senate meeting in the third story of a
building that stood on the southeast corner of Kansas avenue and Sixth
street, and the House in a building some distance south of this. There
were rumors that the building in which the House met was unsafe. These,
however, did not seriously disturb the members; but when the rains came,
and not only beat upon it, but poured through a leaky roof, the
honorable Representatives of the State of Kansas concluded it was time
to move. And so, on the 11th of May, the House adjourned, to meet the
following Monday in the Congregational Church. There its sessions were
held until the final adjournment, June 4th.
And in and around the old church flamed and burned the fierce
enthusiasms kindled by the assault on the life of the Republic. A
company was formed, composed of members and officers of the Legislature,
and day after day, during the recess, it was drilled by a young member
who had attended a military school and knew something of tactics. It was
a curious sight to see the squads of men moving about on the prairie
near the church, and to remember that these awkward soldiers were the
law-makers of the young State.
But I must not “wake remembrance with all her busy train,” or this
letter will spin out to an inexcusable length. I only intended to
explain why I could not be with you this evening, and to beg you to
present my regrets and apologies to the company assembled, for my
necessary absence.
Yours, very truly, JOHN A. MARTIN.
THE KANSAS PIONEER.
Address delivered at Garden City, at the opening of the Southwestern
Exposition, October 12th, 1886.
FELLOW-CITIZENS: It affords me peculiar pleasure to be with you to-day,
and to discharge the duty assigned me of formally opening this great
fair and festival. Under any circumstances it would be a pleasure to
fulfill such an appointment, but, upon this occasion, it is doubly
delightful. I wanted to come here, first, because I wished to see the
material evidences of the marvelous growth and development of
Southwestern Kansas; and, second, because I wanted to take off my hat,
in the presence of the men and women who have wrought these miracles,
and thank them, personally and in the name of the State, for doing what
the most sanguine and enthusiastic Kansan never dreamed, ten years ago,
could be done.
When I came to Kansas, now nearly thirty years ago, it was the universal
belief of the people of the Territory that agricultural development was
not possible west of the Blue and the Neosho. Ten or twelve years later,
this line of possible productiveness was moved westward to the
Republican and the Arkansas, and ten years ago it was advanced to the
hundredth meridian. Beyond that, all said, crops could not be produced;
the country was a good grazing region, but the idea of growing wheat, or
corn, or any cereals, in the sterile and rainless counties of the
western third of the State, was preposterous. Men were foolhardy, the
prophets said, to attempt agricultural pursuits in the western third of
the State. The soil was barren, the altitude too great, and the whole
region was rainless.
Disregarding all these assertions, you people of the West came here. The
loneliness and immensity of the plains had no terrors for you. You
invaded their solitudes. You pushed the frontier steadily westward. You
plowed and planted, digged and sowed. You were determined to conquer the
land, by irrigation if necessary; by faith, and work, and courage, in
any event. The invisible sentinels of danger and privation waited and
watched every step of your advance, and the vastness and loneliness of
the far-reaching prairies, always more melancholy than the ever-changing
and always-murmuring woods, only intensified their terrors. But you came
to stay, and you conquered. You saw the wilderness vanish; you conquered
your own doubts and fears, and inspired others with your hopefulness and
courage; until at last every doubting Thomas was silenced, and the whole
world realized the fact that here, on the western borders of Kansas, was
as rich, as beautiful, and as productive a land as the sun, journeying
from continent to continent, looks down upon and warms with his genial
rays.
After the battle of Mission Ridge, Gen. Gordon Granger rode along the
lines of his victorious soldiers, whose courage and enthusiasm had
carried them, without orders, up the blazing heights, and said,
substantially: “Here you are, but how did you get here? You were ordered
to take the line of works at the foot of the Ridge, and you have taken
those on its summit! You ought to have known you couldn’t take this
position! You are here in defiance of all military rules, of tactics,
and of orders, and I am going to have every one of you court-martialed!”
In very much the same spirit I say to you, people of Finney county and
of the Southwest: “Here you are, in defiance of all predictions and
hope! The prophets all said the western third of Kansas would never
produce crops. Public sentiment agreed that this was a grazing country,
unfit for general farming. Yet here you are, holding an agricultural
fair, and exhibiting corn and wheat, oats and rye, potatoes and
pumpkins, and everything else the farmers of any other section plant and
harvest or gather. You have contemned the prophets! You have blotted the
‘Great American Desert’ from the map of the Continent! You have
established gardens in the wilderness! You have confounded the
scientists! And you should all be court-martialed!”
Your triumph over the adverse forces of nature is as marvelous and
complete as was that won at Mission Ridge, and, as a Kansan, I rejoice
over and am proud of it. There is something splendid in the march of
civilization into and over an unpeopled land—something grander, even,
than the advance of a victorious army. It is better to build up than to
destroy—better to redeem a desert than to make one. The impulse which
sent millions of men into the field to defend the honor of our flag,
will be celebrated, in song and story, as long as the world shall
endure. The march of the armies of industry and peace across the plains,
peopling their solitudes, conquering the wilderness, and forcing from a
reluctant soil its fatness, is an achievement equally romantic and
inspiring. And you, people of Western Kansas, are the heroes of this
conquest—the leaders in this great victory of peace, no less renowned
than those of war. I congratulate you on your unparalleled triumph; I
come here to mingle my rejoicings with yours; to thank you sincerely and
heartily for what you have done; and to express my confident belief that
your success will be as permanent as it has been brilliant.
This is a great State. It is the heart of the American Continent. Its
history is a romance of the most thrilling interest; its development has
been without parallel in the record of American Commonwealths. It has
absorbed, in its population, the best blood and brain of all the
civilized nations of the earth. During a campaign of thirty years, waged
by the peaceful forces of civilization on the prairies of Kansas,
seventy-nine thousand square miles of territory have been planted in
crops. Six hundred cities and towns dot the map of the State; nearly six
thousand miles of rail are kept bright by the constant friction of a
mighty commerce; property worth fully six hundred million dollars has
been accumulated; seven thousand school houses welcome throngs of eager
children; crops valued at over one hundred million dollars are annually
harvested; and fully a million and a half of intelligent, enterprising
and prosperous people have homes within the borders of this State. The
black banners of industry float from thousands of mills and factories.
Fields and meadows are rich with herds and flocks. The face of the land
has been transformed with forests, orchards and hedge-rows. Everywhere
is growth, improvement, increase; everywhere are the evidences of
culture, thrift, and enterprise; everywhere the promise of a larger,
broader life, and a firmer, deeper faith in the greatness and glory of
Kansas. Here is the Central State, the Sunflower State, the Soldier
State, and within its borders prosperity and order, intelligence and
sobriety, industry and enterprise, go hand in hand.
And we are yet at the threshold and in the morning of it all. Kansas is
still in the bloom of her youth; she has only fairly commenced her great
career. Loving Freedom and loyal to the core; believing in education and
respecting law; striving to keep her young manhood sober, clean and
healthy; never a feeble imitator, yet always willing to learn; not
afraid to experiment, and always ready to lead; full of energy, courage
and enthusiasm—this is the Kansas of our love and our faith, this the
fair mistress of our hearts, to whom, adopting the language of Ruth to
Naomi, we say: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my
God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”
ADDRESS.
Delivered at the opening of the Floral Festival, Library Hall,
Topeka, November 9th, 1886.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In responding to the request of the Misses
Bristol, to formally open this beautiful festival, I am fully aware of
the fact that I have assumed a difficult _role_. My botanical education
was sadly neglected, and I had better confess, at once, that I know very
little about flowers. I delight in their beauty. I have always believed
that, where plants are blooming in gardens or windows, it is an
indication of a sweet and beautiful home life—of taste, of refinement,
of hopefulness and aspiration. I have visited several of the most noted
gardens in this country, and found rare pleasure in their treasures of
bud and blossom, of leaf and foliage. And yet, if I were asked, I could
tell the names of very few of the plants in any garden.
I am, however, glad to do whatsoever I can to promote the success of
this novel and beautiful festival of flowers, and especially to aid and
encourage the ladies who have arranged it. They have not only furnished
the people of the Capital City with a lovely exhibition, but have
answered, practically, a question often asked: “What is there for
woman’s hands to do?” Here is one occupation, at least, in which two
women have achieved a signal success; have supplied something a
community wants, and have done it well; have found something to do which
enlists at once their taste, their intelligence and their energies, and
in doing it have benefitted the city in which they live as well as
themselves.
I very gladly, therefore, comply with their request, that I should
formally open this festival. It is a beautiful display of
flowers—creditable alike to the ladies whose skill and taste and
enterprise devised and arranged it, and to the city in which it is held.
And now, speaking for them, I bid you one and all welcome, and declare
the flower show formally opened.
DEDICATION OF SNOW HALL.
Address at the dedication of “Snow Hall,” State University,
Lawrence, November 16th, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN: In the stirring poem read by our Kansas poet, Eugene F.
Ware, at the Quarter-Centennial, it is said:
“States are not great
Except as men may make them.
Men are not great except they do and dare.
But States, like men,
Have destinies that take them—
That bear them on, not knowing why or where.”
The wonderful growth and marvelous prosperity of Kansas, unprecedented
in the history of American States, is not alone due to soil, climate,
resources, and topography. Other States have soils as productive,
climates as healthful, resources more varied, and landscapes as lovely,
as ours. The unexampled development and prosperity of Kansas is the
logical result of her splendid citizenship, and of the intellectual and
moral forces this citizenship has set at work in every township of the
State. Our pioneer settlers laid the foundations of a school house and a
church by the side of their first rude homes, and from that day to this
the idea thus planted has grown and spread and flourished with the
development of the commonwealth. The people of Kansas may have been
parsimonious in some things, but they have never stinted their
expenditures to provide, for all the children of the State, the most
ample educational facilities.
A few days ago the oldest and most richly endowed college in this
country celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its
foundation. For more than two centuries Harvard has been the pride of
the great State within whose borders it is located, and yet it has never
received, from Massachusetts, as much money as the young State of Kansas
has appropriated, during the past twenty-five years, to establish and
support this University.
The older generations of Kansans, however, hold a divided allegiance.
They love and are proud of the State of their adoption, but memories of
the fields and hills and streams of their birthplace are still singing
in their hearts. The young men and women who come up to Mount Oread to
be equipped for the battle of life, will be, as a rule, natives of the
State, and attached to it by the undivided ties of childhood’s memories
and the pride and faith of maturer years. Generation after generation of
these sons and daughters of Kansas will be inspired, within these walls,
with higher aims, nobler motives, and larger and broader views of human
life and endeavor.
We meet, to-day, to formally celebrate another step in the growth and
progress of the State University—to dedicate this beautiful building,
the home, for all future time, of the Department of Natural History.
Very properly the building is to bear the name of the learned, devoted
and enthusiastic teacher to whose energy, industry and zeal the State is
indebted for the treasures that are gathered within its walls. I
discharge a very pleasant duty, gentlemen of the Board of Regents, when,
in the name of the State, I commit to your keeping this stately edifice.
See that the purpose of the Legislature, in ordering it, is fully
carried out. Study the needs of this great educational institution, and
make them known. Strive to keep it, in all its departments, fully
abreast with the growth and progress of the State. In this endeavor you
can, I am confident, rely on the cordial and generous coöperation of the
intelligent people of Kansas, and the hearty support of their chosen
representatives in the Legislature.
ADDRESS.
Address of welcome to the State Teachers’ Association, delivered in
Representative Hall, Topeka, December 28th, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Readers of Kansas newspapers and students of Kansas
affairs cannot have failed to notice the fact that, during the hot and
dusty months of July and August, many vocations in this State are
practically abandoned. Courts adjourn, and judges and lawyers flit away
to the mountains, the woods, or the lakes; churches are closed, and
ministers seek the peace and quiet of rural sights and scenes;
physicians discover that their patients can get along without them for a
while, and take a vacation; and men engaged in every department of
commerce or industry abandon, if it is possible for them to do so, the
cares, perplexities and toils of their employments, for a brief summer
sojourn amid fresh fields and pastures new.
But during this season of sweltering heat and stifling dust, as the same
readers or observers must also have noticed, there is one class of men
and women who, having then a legal holiday, do not utilize it to “loaf
and possess their souls.” In every county of Kansas these men and women
assemble, not to rest, but to work; not for pleasure, but to study; not
to get away from the worries, the troubles and the tasks of their
profession, but to fit themselves more thoroughly for its duties and
responsibilities.
I hear it said, now and then, Mr. President, that the profession of the
educator is not progressing as are many other vocations, or that the
schoolmasters and mistresses of twenty-five or fifty years ago were more
proficient or competent than are those of to-day. Against such
thoughtless or reckless assertions, I put the convincing fact of these
midsummer schools, in which the teachers of Kansas assemble to study, to
compare notes, and to be instructed in the best methods of instructing
others. Men and women capable of such devotion to their work as these
meetings illustrate, need no excuse or defense.
And these are the men and women I am now to welcome to the capital. I
discharge the duty assigned me, Mr. President, with sincere pleasure.
Very few, if any, of the meetings held in this room are composed of
people who occupy so important a place in the every-day work and growth
of the State as do those now assembled here, and none, I am sure,
represent a more useful or honorable calling. Teachers of Kansas, I
believe you understand these facts. I believe you appreciate, in full
measure, the dignity and importance of your vocation, and that you are
striving, earnestly and laboriously, to fit yourselves for its great
duties and vast responsibilities. I trust your sessions will be alike
pleasant and profitable, and that you may one and all return to your
work refreshed and benefitted by this fraternal intercourse with one
another. In this faith and in this hope, I greet you, and most cordially
welcome you to the capital of the State.
THE GOVERNORS OF KANSAS.
Second Inaugural Address, delivered in Representative Hall, Jan.
9th, 1887.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I heard a gentleman say recently: “I have known
all the Governors of Kansas.” I asked: “How many Governors has Kansas
had?” He thought a moment, and replied: “Nine.” I presume a very large
majority, even of those best informed in the political history of the
State, would make the same wrong reply. For Kansas has had sixteen real
and four acting Governors, and since its admission into the Union the
State has had ten. I am glad the committee having charge of the
ceremonies to-day did not forget this fact, and so did not omit to
invite the Hon. Nehemiah Green, who was Governor of Kansas from November
4, 1868, to January 11, 1869.
It is not inappropriate, I think, on an occasion of this character, to
briefly recall some facts connected with the incumbents of the Executive
office of Kansas. I have known all of our Governors, Territorial and
State, except two, Reeder and Geary; and all of the acting Governors
except one, Woodson. The Territorial period extended from June, 1854, to
January, 1861, and during these six years and a half, seven Governors,
and five Secretaries who at times acted as Governor, were appointed by
the President. Kansas had a small population then; but then, as now, the
voice of Kansas was heard in the land, and it was no puling infant’s
cry! So the President sent out, to govern this lusty young giant of the
American desert, strong men, distinguished men, men who had had a large
and valuable training in civil affairs, and they were, one and all, glad
to come and to link their names and fames with that of Kansas.
The Territorial Governors appointed were, in succession: Andrew H.
Reeder, John L. Dawson, Wilson Shannon, John W. Geary, Robert J. Walker,
James W. Denver, and Samuel Medary; and the Secretaries were Daniel
Woodson, Frederick P. Stanton, James W. Denver, Hugh S. Walsh, and
George M. Beebe. All came to Kansas and served in the positions to which
they were appointed, except one, Mr. Dawson, who declined. Of these
seven Governors, all were lawyers except two—Geary, who was a merchant,
and Medary, who was a printer by trade. Five were born in Pennsylvania;
one, Shannon, in Ohio, and one, Denver, in Virginia.
As I have stated, these Territorial Governors were generally
distinguished men.
Governor Reeder, previous to his appointment as Governor, had never held
an office, but he had been for many years one of the most eminent
lawyers of Pennsylvania.
Wilson Shannon had been twice elected Governor of Ohio, and had also
served as Minister to Mexico, before coming to Kansas.
Robert J. Walker had been a United States Senator from Mississippi, and
Secretary of the Treasury during President Polk’s administration.
James W. Denver had represented California in Congress, and served as
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Samuel Medary was an editor of national reputation, and had been
Governor of Minnesota.
All except Geary were over forty years of age when appointed, and he,
the youngest of them all, had been a soldier in the Mexican war. After
leaving Kansas he rose to the rank of Major General in the Union army,
and was later elected Governor of Pennsylvania.
Thus three of our Territorial Governors have been the Chief Executives
of three other States.
All of the Territorial Governors appointed except one, Denver, are dead;
but the Secretaries of the Territory, all of whom acted as Governor
during their terms of office, are all living except one, Hugh S. Walsh.
Kansas has also elected three Governors who never served, viz.: Charles
Robinson, elected under the Topeka Constitution; George W. Smith, chosen
under the Lecompton Constitution; and Henry J. Adams, elected under the
Leavenworth Constitution. My honored predecessor, Charles Robinson, thus
enjoys the distinction of having been elected under two Constitutions.
He is the first Governor of Kansas in a double sense—he was chosen to
that office under the first and last Constitution framed for the State.
Of the Governors of the State, four were under 35 when elected; all
except two are now past 50; and the oldest was first chosen. All have
been residents of Kansas for more than twenty years; two, the first and
the present Governor, for over twenty-nine years; and all except one,
Governor Harvey, are still citizens of the State. Eight of the ten
served in the Legislature previous to their election to the Executive
office, and the other two, Governors Robinson and Anthony, have since
served as members of the law-making branch of the State government. One,
Governor Robinson, is a native of Massachusetts; three, Carney, Green,
and Glick, are natives of Ohio; two, Osborn and Martin, of Pennsylvania;
one, Harvey, of Virginia; one, Anthony, of New York; and two, Crawford
and St. John, of Indiana. Governor Robinson was a physician; three,
Crawford, St. John, and Glick, were lawyers; one, Carney, a merchant;
two, Osborn and Martin, were printers; Green was a clergyman, Harvey a
surveyor, and Anthony a tinsmith. All except four, Robinson, Carney,
Osborn, and Glick, served in the Union army during the war. Only one of
our Governors, Green, graduated at a college or university. One,
Governor Harvey, was elected to the United States Senate after the
expiration of his term as Governor, and Governor Osborn represented the
country as United States Minister to Chili and Brazil.
Twenty-six years have come and gone since the first Governor of the
State took the oath of office, and he and all of his successors are with
us yet. Here are the Executives who organized the splendid regiments
young Kansas sent out to battle for the honor of the flag. Here are
those who saw the dawn and morning of that marvelous development which
began with the close of the civil war, and has since spread over four
hundred miles of fair and fertile country. Here are those who were
called upon to protect our frontiers against repeated invasions by
merciless savages. Here are those who witnessed the still more dreadful
desolation wrought by insects whose baleful flight darkened the light of
the sun at midday. Here are those who have occupied the Executive chair
during the later years of peaceful prosperity and unexampled growth.
We greet them, one and all, cordially and gratefully. We salute them as
citizens whom the people of Kansas have deemed worthy of their highest
trusts. We honor them as men who have guided the State through
difficulties and dangers, onward and upward to the shining stars. We
testify, willingly and thankfully, our appreciation of the courage and
fidelity with which they discharged their always laborious and often
difficult and perplexing duties. We receive and welcome them as honored
guests of this occasion. And, speaking in the name of the people of
Kansas, and expressing, as I am sure I do, the sentiment which fills all
hearts, I fervently pray that their days may be long and peaceful, and
that prosperity may abide with and bless them to the end.
MEMORIES OF THE MARCH.
Response, made February 3d, 1887, at the meeting of the “Military
Order of the Loyal Legion,” in Topeka, to the toast,
“Reminiscences:”
“Words that bring back the feelings of our youth,
The words of men that walked in war’s red ways,
The simple words that, giving blame or praise,
Ring down the echoing avenues of life.”
I do not expect, Mr. Chairman, that any words of mine can “bring back
the feelings of our youth.” Time takes something from us, as the years
come and go, that it never gives back, and the lights and shadows of
twenty-five eventful years have fallen upon us since we first “walked in
war’s red ways.” But I may, perhaps, interest you for a brief time by a
description of one of those walks—the march of a day, which had its
counterpart in the marches of all armies, on many, many days.
A column is moving along a dusty road, with a long, free, swinging
stride, that seems as easy as it is masterful. It started out, before it
was light, in compact order, each man in his place, each company,
regiment, brigade and division following in its appointed order. It is
the middle of the forenoon now, and the solid formation is somewhat
disordered. The men have fallen into irregular groups; some hunt the
smoothest places in the road, and the paths thus formed, single or
double, are not always straight. Some are following the cow-paths along
the roadside; others keep the center of the highway. At intervals are
little groups of horsemen—the commanding officer, the adjutant, and an
orderly, at the head of the regiment; the next in command, with the
surgeons, in the rear. Midway between these mounted officers, always in
line, and always surrounded by a little group of non-commissioned
officers, are two soldiers carrying, not guns, but what seem to be long
poles encased in black oilcloth. They are the flags of the regiment—the
battle-flag and the regimental banner.
Sometimes, for hours, only the steady tramp of feet is heard. The men
are as silent as if they were dumb. Then something sets all their
tongues awag, and the woods and fields echo with their shouts and
laughter. They comment on everything—on the houses, the fields, the
trees, the road; they jibe at and joke with one another; they are a
moving mass of blue interrogation points, questioning everyone they see
about distances, country, and people; and their laughter is as care-free
and contagious as that of happy children.
Then a clear bugle-note comes floating down the line, and the column
dissolves on the road-sides. In an instant, almost, the men assume all
varieties of postures—some sitting, some lying down—for the bugle-call
meant a rest of five or ten minutes. The stragglers come up, one by one,
and drop in with their commands. Then the bugle sounds again, and all
start to their feet. They fall into line with the precision of a
machine, and move on, to again, in a few moments, fall into their old,
irregular, go-as-you-please step and route.
The hours come and go, and the miles slip by, five, six, ten, perhaps,
and then the bugle sounds another call—a welcome one, for it is greeted
with a shout. But this time the moving column does not dissolve so
quickly. It closes up in compact order, and the guns are stacked in
groups of four; on these are hanged cartridge boxes, blankets, and other
incumbrances. A few moments later, little volumes of smoke—hundreds or
thousands of them, as far as the eye can reach along the road—roll up,
and the atmosphere is filled with the perfume of burning pine, the aroma
of coffee, and perhaps the savory smell of bacon.
With what crude and meager utensils—at most, a tin pot or cup, and a
small skillet—it is all done; and yet how quickly and deftly. But no
dinners these men have ever since eaten were more enjoyed than those
their own hands prepared as they halted by the roadside a quarter of a
century ago.
The dinner cooked and eaten, the march begins again, with the same
routine of shouting and laughter, or silence and meditation. It is
business, all of it—simply moving along, hour after hour, and mile after
mile, until the sun drops low in the west, or perhaps for hours after
the night has gathered and darkness has fallen upon the earth. Fifteen,
twenty, twenty-five, and occasionally thirty miles—these were the
distances frequently covered by these long blue columns, each man
carrying his house on his back, like a snail, and in addition, his gun,
forty rounds of ammunition, three days’ rations, his cooking utensils,
and his bed.
Sometimes these marches were made in pleasant weather, when the air was
full of the perfume of flowers and melodious with the songs of birds.
Sometimes they were made when the skies were leaden, and the clouds hung
low; when rain poured down, hour after hour, and the roads became
quagmires, and the men were soaked and chilled to the bone. Sometimes
they were made in midwinter, when the ground was frozen, and the north
wind cut like a knife, and at every step the road was stained with the
blood of bruised and broken feet. Sometimes the route lay along pleasant
lanes, or dim old country roads, or through quiet and shadowy woods,
rich with odors of fir and pine; sometimes it followed, for days, the
hard, white pikes, over which the dust hung like a cloud, thick, heavy,
stifling. But no matter what the weather or the roads might be—whether
the rain poured down in torrents, or the sun beat upon the column like a
fiery furnace, or the cold of winter chilled and froze—the regiments
formed and marched whenever orders came.
The long lines dwindled steadily and fatefully. Regiments that had once
mustered a thousand men, were reduced to two or three hundred; companies
that had answered to roll-call an hundred strong were mere squads of ten
or fifteen. But as their long columns shrank, and each soldier’s place
in the line drew nearer and nearer to the faded and tattered flag in the
center, it seemed to grow dearer and more precious to their hearts. They
followed it, upheld it, loved it, with an earnestness and devotion
without parallel. Following it, hardships and privations were welcomed;
upholding it, dangers and sufferings were laughed at; and to protect it
the humblest and roughest of them all would have cheerfully and proudly
given his own life. I have heard men, of late years, deny the existence
of such a thing as disinterested patriotism. But the soldiers of the
Union exemplified this splendid sentiment during every moment of their
lives. No difficulty could dampen their ardor, no repulse could shake
their confidence in final victory, no toil or suffering could perplex
their faithful loyalty. The flag represented the Republic; to serve it
was a soldier’s duty; to die for it was a soldier’s fate.
The months rolled on and lengthened into years, and still these men
marched, and fought, and suffered, and died. And at last came Victory,
and Peace, and Home. Their toils and privations, their trials and
dangers, were over at last. They had filled the world with the splendor
of their achievements. They had exalted and glorified the American name.
They had preserved, for all the generations of men, the priceless
heritage of free government. They had lifted the old flag into the very
heavens, its blue field glistening with every star that had ever
sparkled there, its crimson stripes bathed in the red blood of five
hundred thousand patriot heroes, and its pure white folds as stainless
as the shining souls of those who had died to save it. They had broken
the shackles of four million slaves. They had enriched history with such
a record of great deeds as never before illuminated its pages. And then,
quietly and modestly, they went back to their homes—
——“Satisfied to pass
Calmly, serenely from the whole world’s gaze,
And cheerfully accept, without regret,
Their old life as it was.
“They who were brave to act,
And rich enough their action to forget—
Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw, and keep their simpleness intact,
And all unconscious add more lustre yet
Unto their victory.
“On the broad Kansas plain,
Their patriarchal life they live anew—
Hunters as mighty as the men of old;
Or harvesting the plenteous yellow grains,
Gathering ripe vintage of dusk branches blue,
Or working mines of gold.
“Or toiling in the town,
Armed against hindrance, weariness, defeat,
With dauntless purpose not to swerve or yield,
And calm, defiant strength, they struggle on,
As sturdy and as valiant in the street,
As in the camp and field.
“Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams,
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land
Of knightly deeds and dreams.”
KANSAS DURING THE WAR.
Address, read at the annual meeting of the “Military Order of the
Loyal Legion,” held at Fort Leavenworth, June 24th, 1887.
COMMANDER AND COMPANIONS: It is impossible, within the brief limits of
an after-dinner talk, to fairly respond to the toast assigned me.
“Kansas, in peace and in war,” is a vast theme. It is the meridian of
American progress and American heroism. “_Ad astra per aspera_”—to the
stars through difficulties and dangers, but always to the stars; upward,
onward, higher, highest, no matter what it cost of labor, sacrifice, or
danger—the record of Kansas, through every step and stage of her
marvelous history, has been an illustration of her motto.
The Kansas of peace you who have gathered here to-night know something
of. Its growth has been phenomenal in the history of American
Commonwealths. Four hundred miles long by two hundred miles wide, this
great heart of the American continent throbs with warm, ardent, and
aggressive life and enterprise, and has sent pulsing through every
artery of the Nation the inspiring blood of its splendid example, and
the quickening vigor of its magnificent energy. Attracting the best
brain and brawn of the civilized world, Kansas has fused all into a
homogeneous and cosmopolitan people, whose achievements have been a
wonder and a model for all the generations of men. In less than three
decades the men and women of Kansas have wiped a desert from the map of
America and replaced it with eighty-two thousand square miles of
cultivated fields, and fragrant meadows, and towering forests; have
dotted the whole of this vast territory with prosperous cities, towns
and villages; have sent a locomotive whistling through nearly every
county; have planted school houses and churches in every township; and
have accumulated greater and more equitably distributed wealth than is
possessed by any other equal number of people on the face of the globe.
Fairly but very briefly summarized, this is the record of Kansas in
peace.
In war, the history of the young State was no less eventful and
distinguished. The flash of the gun at Sumter was, to the people of the
country generally, like a thunderbolt out of a serene and cloudless sky.
But in Kansas its echoes fell upon the ears of a people ready for the
contest. The slave power had invaded this State with fire and sword.
Around the homes of the pioneers of Kansas, during seven long and tragic
years, the fierce tides of civil war had surged and roared. The conflict
had drawn hither a host of bright, enthusiastic, daring young men, and
had inured them to the hardships and dangers of camp and field. They had
illustrated, in their daily walk and life, the sublime virtues of
courage, patience, endurance, and self-sacrifice. They had measured the
desperate ambitions of slavery; they understood its intolerant and
destructive spirit; and when it finally assailed the life of the
Republic, they were neither surprised, dismayed, nor unprepared.
The call to arms was, therefore, responded to, by the people of Kansas,
with unparalleled unanimity and enthusiasm. Long before the President’s
official notification reached the Governor, military companies had been
organized in every city, town and hamlet in the State, and the first two
regiments sworn into the service of the United States were not
recruited—their companies were selected out of enough offered to form
half a dozen regiments.
From that day until the close of the Rebellion, the representatives of
the young State at Washington were kept busy importuning and begging the
War Department to accept and muster in the rapidly-forming military
organizations. The official records of the war show that, reducing the
troops furnished to a three-years standard, only one State in the Union
filled the quotas assigned it, and that State was Kansas. The General
Government called on Kansas, during the four years from 1861 to 1864,
for 12,931 men, and she furnished a total of 20,661—nearly double the
number called for. Reduced to a three-years standard, Kansas furnished
18,706 men, or 5,775 in excess of the number called for.
The quotas assigned all the States were based on their population. The
census of 1860 gave Kansas a population of 107,206, and of this number
only 59,178 were males, and only 28,097 between the ages of twenty and
fifty years. At an exciting election held in the fall of 1860, the total
vote of the State was less than 17,000. The young State, therefore,
contributed to the Union army nearly 4,000 more soldiers than it had
voters in 1860. Such a record of devotion to a cause is, I venture to
say, unexampled in the history of any other war that has ever occurred
in any age or country.
Under the call of April 15th, 1861, for 75,000 three-months men, no
quota was assigned to Kansas, but she furnished 650.
“Abra was ready ere I called her name,
And though I called another, Abra came.”
Under the second call, that of May 3d, 1861, for 500,000 three-years
men, the quota assigned to Kansas was 3,235, but she furnished 6,953.
Under the call of July 2d, 1862, for 300,000 three-years men, Kansas’
quota was 1,771, but she furnished 2,936. Under the calls of October
17th, 1863, and February 1st, 1864, for 500,000 three-years men, the
quota of Kansas was 3,523, but she furnished 5,874. Under the call of
March 14th, 1864, for 200,000 three-years men, Kansas’ quota was 1,409,
but she furnished 2,564. Under the calls of July 18th, and December
19th, 1864, the quota of Kansas was 1,222, and she furnished 1,234. The
only call to which Kansas did not respond was that of August 4th, 1862,
for 300,000 nine-months men. The volunteers of Kansas went in for three
years. The only enlistments for a briefer period were those of the
Second Kansas for three months, under the President’s first call for
troops, and the greater part of this regiment, immediately on its
muster-out, reënlisted for three years; a battalion of 441 men,
recruited in the autumn of 1864, for the hundred-days service; and 622
men, furnished in December, 1864, for one year. Of the 20,661 volunteers
furnished by Kansas during the Rebellion, all except 1,713 enlisted “for
three years, or during the war.”
These cold official records illustrate, more eloquently than any
language can describe, the splendid enthusiasm with which the patriotic
people of Kansas “rallied around the flag.” But impressive and wonderful
as they are, they do not tell the whole story. Kansas was called upon,
during the first year of the war, to furnish only 3,235 men, and is
credited, on the quotas of that year, with 7,603, but she actually
furnished nine full regiments and one battery before the close of the
year 1861. During the second year of the war she was called upon for
1,771 three-years and 1,771 nine-months men, and she responded with four
full regiments and a battery for three years—none for nine months.
During 1863 and 1864, her quotas aggregated 6,154, and she furnished
five full regiments and a battery for three years, a battalion of nearly
500 men for one hundred days, and over 600 men for a year. Thus the
young State furnished, during the war, nine regiments of infantry, nine
of cavalry, three batteries, and five companies; and 1,209 of these
men—mainly of the First, Seventh, Eighth and Tenth regiments—reënlisted,
in 1863, as veterans. Thus every call made upon Kansas was filled at
once, and, during the first two years of the war, doubly filled, by her
eager, brave and patriotic sons.
With what dauntless courage and unselfish devotion the soldiers of
Kansas followed the flag; with what confident faith and sublime
self-sacrifice they marched and fought, and suffered and died, the
unexampled losses they sustained in battle will conclusively prove. In
January, 1867, the Provost Marshal General of the army, Gen. J. B. Fry,
made a report showing the proportion of soldiers killed in battle, per
thousand men, from each loyal State. Kansas headed the list with 61.01;
Vermont ranked second, with 58.22; and Massachusetts third, 47.76.
General Fry, in commenting on this notable record, says:
“Kansas shows the highest battle mortality of the table.... The same
singularly martial disposition which induced about half of the
able-bodied men of the State to enter the army without bounty, may
be supposed to have increased their exposure to the casualties of
battle after they were in the service.”
In all that I have said concerning the record of Kansas during the war,
I have simply quoted the official figures. But these are a eulogy far
above and far beyond the compass of words. They establish three
remarkable facts: First, that Kansas was the only State in the Union
that filled, and more than filled, the quotas assigned her; second, that
she furnished more soldiers, in proportion to population, than any other
State; and, third, that the proportion of her soldiers killed in battle
was larger than that of any other State.
But not alone in the number of soldiers furnished and their casualties
in battle, was Kansas a notable figure during the civil war. With
Missouri on her eastern border, the Indian Territory south, and westward
the vast plains, swarming with savages, the young State was almost
surrounded by foes, and the position of her people was one of extreme
exposure and peril. Her volunteer regiments were soon ordered to distant
points. The First and Seventh were in the Army of the Tennessee; the
Eighth was serving in the Army of the Cumberland; the Tenth was with the
Army of the Gulf; the Fifth was with the Army of the Southwest; and
nearly all the others were attached to the Army of the Frontier. Thus it
happened that the borders of Kansas were frequently left exposed to the
fury of her enemies, and were repeatedly invaded by swarms of
guerrillas. More than a dozen cities and towns of Kansas were sacked and
burned by the cowardly, brutal miscreants who followed Quantrell,
Anderson, Todd, and other border chiefs. And at last, in October, 1864,
the strong army of the Confederate General Price moved northward to
invade the State, expecting to capture Fort Leavenworth, and drive from
this region of country all the loyal people.
But Kansas was prepared even for such an emergency as this. The
isolation and perils of her position were fully comprehended by her
people, and in every city, town and neighborhood within her borders,
companies of well-armed and fairly-drilled militia had been organized.
The flower of the young State’s youth and manhood was in the volunteer
service, but the boys and the old men, and those whose physical
conditions or personal duties prevented them from enlisting for
continuous service, were ready for this emergency. The Governor’s call
to the militia for active service was responded to, at once, by
twenty-four well-organized regiments, numbering fully 16,000 men, and
for twenty days this force did duty in the field. It invaded Missouri;
it confronted, with sturdy firmness, the veteran legions of Price;
several regiments participated in severe engagements, in which they
sustained heavy losses; all were honorably mentioned by the Commanding
General of the United States forces; and their numbers, enthusiasm and
valor contributed largely to the utter discomfiture of the Confederate
army, and its hasty retreat.
“States are not great
Except as men may make them.
Men are not great except they do and dare.
But States, like men,
Have destinies that take them—
That bear them on, not knowing why or where.
* * * * *
“All merit lies
In daring the unequal.
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Fame loves the State
That, reckless of the sequel,
Fights long and well, though it may lose or win.
“Than in our State
No illustration apter
Is seen or found of faith, and hope, and will.
Take up her story;
Every leaf and chapter
Contains a record that conveys a thrill.”[4]
* * * * *
Footnote 4:
From Eugene F. Ware’s poem, “John Brown.”
ODD-FELLOWSHIP IN ATCHISON.
Address delivered October 18th, 1887, at the celebration of the
thirtieth anniversary of Friendship Lodge, I. O. O. F., Atchison.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thirty years ago, yesterday, Friendship Lodge, No. 5, I.
O. O. F., was organized, under a charter granted by the Sovereign Grand
Lodge of the United States. Its charter members were Cornelius A. Logan,
Edward K. Blair, A. J. Petefish, Alex. McKewn, and James Dillon. Nearly
two years later, in 1859, the first official report of the Grand Lodge
of the State shows a membership of thirty-eight, fifteen by initiation
and nine by card. So that its total membership, at the date of its
organization, must have been fourteen.
The meetings of the lodge, when I was admitted to membership, early in
1860, were held in an odd-looking cottonwood building near the corner of
Commercial and Eighth streets. And Eighth street, at that time, was out
in the country. There were no pavements in those days, and the streets
were quagmires. Reaching the lot on which the hall was located, you
found the building oddly placed upon its rear half, and approached by an
odd-looking cottonwood bridge, spanning a deep ravine, and nearly always
in a condition of general dilapidation and decay. Passing over this
bridge—and on dark nights it was a passage attended with fear and
trembling—you reached the building. Then, oddly still, you had to go
around it, to the rear, where an odd, rickety, cottonwood stairway,
built on stilts, led to the second story. The steps of this stairway had
an odd habit of turning up, unexpectedly, and the victims of this
perverse disposition were inclined to declare, in their wrath, that
never again, until that infernal old man-trap was fixed, would they
attend another lodge meeting.
Reaching a platform at the head of the stairway, you passed into the
ante-room—a room about as large as a good-sized dry-goods box; and
thence made your way into the lodge-room.
We confidently believed, in those old days, that it was a comfortable
and commodious place. In reality, it was not more than one-third the
size of the present lodge-room. It was dimly lighted by coal-oil lamps;
its floor was covered with the oddest—not to say the most
atrocious—pattern of a carpet ever woven; and the tawdry hangings of
ten-cent red-and-blue chintz over the officers’ chairs were agonizing in
their cheap affectation of adornment. The walls were rough, and black
with smoke, until the lodges finally, in a moment of puffed-up wealth,
covered them with wall-paper whose figures must have conveyed to the
initiate, when his eyes were first opened to the light, the impression
that a house-painter’s apprentice had essayed high art, and ended, in a
fit of disgust, by hurling his paint pots and brushes at the canvas.
This old lodge room had a roof which, like that of the Arkansas
gentleman, didn’t leak when it didn’t rain and couldn’t be mended when
it did rain. Some one of the Masonic brethren—who met in the same
room—had been prowling about in the loft, and, making a misstep, had
left in the ceiling a ragged, yawning hole. This served, for years, to
impress outsiders, on occasions like the present, with the suspicion
that some mysterious and perhaps awful event had occasioned that break.
Repairs were rarely made, for the very excellent reason that the
treasury of the lodge, in those days, resembled the pocketbook of a
tramp. There was no danger of defalcations, and an official bond was
entirely superfluous.
It is not my purpose, however, to abuse that venerable lodge-room. It
was a pleasant place, notwithstanding its numerous deficiencies, for it
was warmed and lighted by the true spirit of Odd-Fellowship. The
brethren who came there, did so because they enjoyed the meetings. They
had for each other a genuine feeling of mutual regard. They did not
quarrel over non-essentials; they valued each other’s good name, and
took a sincere pleasure in the prosperity or success achieved by any one
of their number, in any vocation or pursuit. The town was a straggling
cottonwood village, but they had an abounding faith in its destiny;
their lodge was weak and poor, but they had unfaltering confidence in
its future. I think some of the most pleasant meetings I have ever known
were those held in that old lodge-room.
The war came, and its fierce enthusiasm swept nearly all of the younger
members into the army. The years that followed were indeed dark and
perilous to Friendship Lodge. I was told, when peace dawned on the land
again, that frequently, for months in succession, a quorum could not be
obtained for a meeting; that when the Grand Lodge dues were payable, a
few of the members had to advance them; and that when the semi-annual
election nights came around, it was frequently difficult to find enough
members to fill the offices—an odd-enough thing, even in Odd-Fellowship.
With the return of peace came better times for the old lodge. The town
began to grow, and the order kept pace with it. Its roll of members
rapidly lengthened, and in a few years there was talk of removal to more
commodious quarters. These were obtained, after much discussion, in the
third story of the building on Second street, now the St. James Hotel,
and on the 17th of March, 1868, the new lodge room was formally
dedicated in the presence of a large assemblage of members, with their
wives and daughters.
Less than a month after this removal, on the 7th of April, the lodge, by
resolution, granted permission to its German members to withdraw and
organize a new lodge, and shortly thereafter Schiller Lodge was duly
organized.
The two lodges met, for five years, in the hall on Second street. But in
1873, another change occurred. A large and beautiful room in the
building on the corner of Commercial and Sixth streets, was leased for a
term of years, elegantly fitted up, and dedicated, with appropriate
ceremonies.
Ten years later, in 1883, the building of the present Odd Fellows’
Temple was commenced, and on the 20th of November, 1884, it was formally
dedicated. It is an enduring monument to the enterprise and public
spirit of the Odd Fellows of Atchison. It is worth fully twenty-five
thousand dollars, and the debt contracted in building it has been, in
less than three years, almost extinguished. The lodge has one hundred
and forty-four members in good standing, and its future prosperity is
assured.
One of the charter members of Friendship Lodge, and its first Noble
Grand, Dr. C. A. Logan, attained the highest position known in
Odd-Fellowship, that of Grand Sire of the United States and Canada; and
afterwards represented this country, with distinguished usefulness, as
Minister Plenipotentiary to Chili. Others of its members have filled
many official positions of dignity and importance. Two of its members,
John M. Price and Charles H. Krebs, have been Grand Masters of the Order
in Kansas; two, Samuel H. Kelsey and your speaker, have been Grand
Patriarchs of the Grand Encampment; and two, John M. Price and S. H.
Kelsey, have frequently been elected delegates to the Sovereign Grand
Lodge of the World. Eleven of the eighteen Mayors of this city have been
members of Friendship Lodge, and its rolls have always included a very
large number of our most prominent and public-spirited citizens, engaged
in all branches of business. The whole history of Friendship Lodge has
been creditable to the Order and its principles, and it is to-day one of
the most prosperous lodges in the West.
I have neither the time nor the disposition to discuss the principles,
influence, and aims of Odd-Fellowship. The Order needs neither defense
nor eulogy. I have never believed that initiation in any secret society,
no matter what its principles or purposes might be, would make a good
man out of a person who is inherently mean, vicious, or depraved. But
the vast majority of men are not naturally bad, and a very large
proportion of those whose lives are hopelessly wrecked, fall because of
their surroundings. Pliant and weak, they are insensibly but
irresistibly swept into wrong-doing and vice by the force of example and
associations. Upon this class of men, I do sincerely believe, such
societies as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows exert a restraining,
reforming, and always wholesome influence. The lessons taught in the
ritual, the principles on which the Order is based, the virtues that are
constantly exalted in every ceremony of Odd-Fellowship, and, above all,
the strengthening and inspiring associations of the lodge-room—all these
wholesome influences must exert, upon the minds and hearts of Odd
Fellows, and especially upon the younger members, a strong and helpful
control. Every lesson and precept of Odd-Fellowship exalts the homely
virtues of industry, frugality, truth, benevolence, kindliness to
others, fidelity to duty, respect for law, and consideration for the
rights of all men. True Odd-Fellowship exalts manhood, enjoins sobriety,
demands charity, inspires patriotism, and teaches the universal
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of man. No man can be a good Odd
Fellow who is not a good citizen, a true husband, father, son, and
brother, a helpful friend, and a truthful, sober, kindly, honest, and
industrious man.
I do not assert that all these virtues can be said to distinguish all
Odd Fellows. Members of the order are only human. They have the same
passions and self-control, the same strength and weaknesses, the same
virtues and frailties, that are common to the whole human race. But I do
assert that membership in the Order—its teachings, its principles, the
noble examples it is constantly exalting, and the virtues it holds up as
the best and highest qualities of humanity—cannot fail to exert a
beneficent influence upon the lives and conduct of its members. I
believe Friendship Lodge has exerted such an influence upon many men. It
has aided them to see the right, and influenced them to do right, often,
perhaps, when they did not themselves realize the subtle but powerful
control of its teachings. It has been a useful organization in this
community, and such, I fervently hope and trust, it will ever be. Its
old members, I am sure, have only pleasant memories of its past; its
younger members will, I believe, find equal enjoyment and profit in its
future growth and usefulness.
MODEST KANSAS.
Address delivered at the Kansas City Exposition, October 31st, 1887.
MR. PRESIDENT: When the managers of this Exposition invited me to visit
it on “Kansas Day,” I said that I would be very glad to do so if I could
be permitted to come to see, and not to talk. Less than two days after
this covenant was made, I read, in the veracious and enterprising
journals of this city, the announcement that I was to make “an address.”
Perhaps that may be the Kansas City way of doing things. I hope,
however, it is not. Because, on our side of the line, there are very few
such orators as Warner is. So if you make a practice of inviting Kansans
to visit you to see something you have to show, and then call on them to
talk, you may not be able to catch them again. Kansans are not
accustomed to blowing their own horns. You never heard a Kansan exalting
the wealth and prosperity of his State, did you? Or telling any one that
Kansas was the center, the glory, the bright particular star of the
Universe? Or declaring that its soil was the richest and deepest, its
atmosphere the purest, its people the most intelligent, enterprising,
and energetic, and its women the most beautiful in the known world? Or
asserting that the development of Kansas was without parallel in the
history of American States? Or affirming that there were more railroads
to the square mile, and more corn and wheat to the acre, and more
prosperous and growing cities per county, and greater wealth per capita,
in Kansas, than in any other section of the civilized globe? These facts
are told in histories, census reports, geographies, and other official
records, but you never hear a Kansan boasting about them! We are a
modest people, and are not puffed up, even if we have the best and
greatest State in the Union.
What, then, shall I talk about? Here in this great building, surrounded
by this vast display of the products of agriculture, industry,
invention, commerce, and art, the eye and the mind, not the tongue,
should be busy. This Exposition is a modern object lesson—a school for
the instruction of old and young alike. It illustrates the social and
industrial progress and prosperity of the West—the arts, trades,
sciences, literature and philosophy of our people, as well as their
great commercial and agricultural pursuits. The useful and the
beautiful, the products of skill and of industry, of the studio, the
factory, the field and the mart, are here blended happily together, for
the inspection of the curious and the study of the thoughtful. Such
exhibitions are of the greatest value to all classes of the people. They
instruct and inspire. They suggest new ideas. They diffuse a better
knowledge of the natural resources of the country, and of the methods,
industries and progress of its people. The Exposition, therefore, needs
no orator. It speaks for itself. It is its own advocate and eulogist.
Look around, and admire.
I heartily congratulate the originators and managers of the Exposition
upon the brilliant success they have achieved. They have inaugurated a
great enterprise; an enterprise of vast and permanent importance and
value; an enterprise worthy of this great and prosperous city.
I rejoice, also, to see that here, as at all previous exhibitions of
similar character, commencing with the Centennial at Philadelphia, the
displays made by Kansas attract general attention and comment. Kansas
has never been ashamed or afraid to appear in any presence, or on any
proper occasion, and exhibit samples of her products; and every true
Kansan is sure that wherever Kansas sits, there is the head of the
table. Perhaps this may be a clansman’s pride and enthusiasm. But I
believe it is measurably shared by the people of a small section of
Missouri. Is not this so? For if Kansas were not where and what it is,
what would Kansas City be? I have been informed that fully three-fourths
of the trade of this city comes from Kansas. I have also been told that,
excluding their circulation within the corporate limits of the city,
fully four-fifths of the readers of the Kansas City papers are found in
Kansas. And if these are facts, surely no people outside of Kansas can
have a larger interest in the development, prosperity and victories of
the Sunflower State than have the people of Kansas City.
Gentlemen of the Exposition management, I thank you sincerely for the
kind invitation you gave me to inspect this wonderful exhibit. People of
Kansas City, I salute you, and acknowledge with gratitude, the cordial
and generous reception you have given me. Fellow-citizens of Kansas, I
know you will enjoy your visit to the Exposition, and I am assured that
its officers and all the people of Kansas City are glad to greet and to
welcome you. And now, fervently hoping that the future may bring returns
of a fruitful harvest to the originators and managers of this great
enterprise, and that the Exposition may increase in interest and
importance year after year, I bid you, one and all, good-bye.
THE FARMERS’ PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION.
Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Farmers’ Protective
Association, held at Atchison, February 7th, 1888.
MR. CHAIRMAN: When I was visited, a few days ago, by a committee of
Atchison county farmers, and requested to welcome the members of this
Association to my home, I very cheerfully assented. I was glad to
gratify my old neighbors and friends, and, in their name, bid their
fellow-members of the Protective Associative a cordial welcome to
Atchison. I knew that their greeting, their reception, their
hospitality, would supplement and emphasize my words, and so, if I
should fail in fairly expressing the pleasure they feel in having you
for their guests, their kindliness and generosity would atone for my
failure. I greet and welcome you, therefore, in the full assurance that
your brief sojourn here will be made enjoyable by all the gracious
courtesies that inspire generous hearts, and that you will return to
your homes carrying with you only pleasant memories of your visit to
Atchison, and of the hospitality of your hosts, the members of the
Atchison county branch of your organization.
I cannot claim a close familiarity with the aims, principles, and
workings of your Association. But I have learned, from its constitution,
that its objects are “the protection of the person and property of its
members, and to assist the civil authorities in the enforcement of law.”
The uninitiated speak of it as an “anti-horse thief society,” and it
seems to exercise a wholesome influence over those individuals who
entertain communistic ideas concerning property rights in horseflesh.
And if your organization had no other or broader aims than to make
horse-stealing unprofitable and horse thieves unsafe, it would be a
useful society. A Western sheriff in pursuit of a horse thief will ride
faster and go further than will an officer in search of any other
criminal, because he knows that his tenure of office largely depends
upon the energy, activity, courage, and success of his pursuit. He
knows, too, that he is backed by a public sentiment which holds
horse-stealing to be one of the gravest and meanest of crimes, and so he
is impelled to activity and vigilance by the strongest incentives—his
sense of official duty, his desire to win the approval of his
fellow-citizens, and his fear of popular condemnation should he fail in
his mission.
But your constitution does not pledge your support to the enforcement of
the law against horse-stealing alone. It explicitly declares that the
objects of your association are, “the protection of the person and
property of its members, and to assist the civil authorities in the
enforcement of law.” The wisest and greatest of Americans said that this
government of ours was a government “of the people, by the people, for
the people.” In this country, all power, all authority, is vested in the
people. They make and unmake laws. He, therefore, who derides or
disregards law, is not contemning or defying a despot or an autocrat—he
is antagonizing the sovereign power of the people.
Law may not be, as Coke defines it, “the perfection of wisdom.” I have
known laws, indeed, that were rather the perfection of folly. But, good
or bad, as laws in this country are merely the expression of the
people’s will, they should be respected as long as they remain laws. For
law is just as necessary to the human race as is the air we breathe or
the food we eat. William Pitt truly said that “where law ends, tyranny
begins.” Contempt for and disregard of law naturally lead to anarchy,
and anarchy, soon becoming intolerable, invites despotism. Nations
prosper, peoples thrive, as their laws are wise, humane, and just; but
even a bad law is better than no law at all. Lawlessness means disorder,
tumult, crime; it means the oppression of the weak by the strong; and,
in the end, it means despotism. A people who cannot make and obey their
own laws will, just as certainly as the sun will rise to-morrow morning,
at last invite the rule of an autocrat who will make laws for them.
No system of government is perfect. I doubt very much whether a system
of laws can ever be devised that will be perfect. But human nature is
weak and selfish, and law, with its pains and penalties, is necessary to
restrain its passions and subdue its violence. Until the sublime lessons
of the Sermon on the Mount become the inspiration of every human
heart—that is, until the millennium shall come—mankind must be governed
by law, and the laws must be made by human beings who have all the
frailties and imperfections of their fellows. Wisely and honestly as
they may legislate, they will make mistakes. Carefully and intelligently
as they may frame codes, they cannot fit them to deal with every vice,
and folly, and imperfection, and passion of poor humanity, and so
injustice may be done in the very temples dedicated to law.
But, after all, the law-makers of America, State and National, have done
and are doing fairly well. Wrongs exist that should be rooted out.
Selfishness, and greed, and rapacity, are always active and aggressive,
and when they are curbed or beaten back in one direction, they seek new
fields and pastures in which to gorge themselves. Corporate power and
privilege needs to be firmly and effectively limited and regulated.
Those latter-day crimes against the people, the so-called “trusts,”
should be prohibited, in every section of this country, by National as
well as State laws. Men who combine to regulate the supplies of this
country; who purchase or lease, and then lock up a manufactory of
linseed oil, as was done in this city only a brief while ago, and thus
not only destroy an important municipal industry, but destroy the
products of thousands of farms in half a dozen surrounding counties—the
men who are responsible for such things as this, no matter what excuse
they may make, are criminal in the sight of God and man, and should be
punished, not by fine alone, but by imprisonment. The meanest horse
thief who ever invaded a farmer’s stable at midnight is not more
dangerous than are the men who organize and manage such “trusts” as
these. Let us have laws, severe, far-reaching, swift, and merciless in
their operation, to punish the greedy cormorants who are, under the
guise of regulating production and supply, organizing “trusts” to
control everything that is produced in America. And, if necessary, let
us have “Protective Associations” everywhere, to “assist the civil
authorities in the enforcement of law.”
Of late years, too, this country has been invaded by a horde of alien
malcontents who, under the guise of a new philosophy, are sedulously
preaching the gospel of universal hate and promiscuous robbery. All laws
should, according to their theories, be repealed; every man who, by his
thrift or industry, has accumulated property, is a thief; the real
criminals are not those who steal horses, but those who pretend to own
them; all forms of government are tyranny; and there can be no true
liberty, no real freedom, until governments and laws are all utterly
obliterated. This is the doctrine of one wing of these malcontents. But
another gang, going to the other extreme, preach the theory that the
government should be everything and do everything. They would blot out
the individual, utterly. The government should own all property, conduct
all business affairs, monopolize all industries. Everybody and
everything should be reduced to a dull, dead level; every man, woman and
child should be controlled, in all he does, by the State; should do
nothing except in the service of the State, and have nothing except by
permission of the State.
These anarchic and socialistic forces are, however, although as wide
apart as the poles in their theories, allied like Siamese twins in their
common hatred of the existing order of things, and howl, in sympathetic
tune, “Down with the government;” “Down with law;” “Down with property
rights.”
Every thoughtful, sensible American citizen, native-born or naturalized,
should unite in demanding that these apostles of hate and lawlessness
should be suppressed. They outrage the liberty of the land. They degrade
our boasted freedom of speech. They abuse the generosity of our laws.
They are public pests. They should be regarded and dealt with as
criminals. Organizations such as yours should hold them to be public
enemies, as obnoxious to public order and safety, and far more
dangerous, than are the horse thieves who invade your barns or your
fields. Is not a man who preaches and advocates wholesale murder, arson,
or robbery, a more vicious criminal than the man who murders, burns, or
steals in a retail way? And why should the rope of the scaffold dangle
and the doors of the penitentiary open for the one class of criminals,
who actually perpetrate these crimes, while the other and more vicious
and cowardly class are permitted to run at large, and howl their
atrocious doctrines through the press or on the stump?
It is time that the law-respecting, intelligent citizens of the United
States were awakening to a sense of the dangers that menace our country.
They are strong enough to deal with all these dangers—strong enough to
throttle, with one hand, the preachers of hate and lawlessness, while
with the other they beat down the allied trusts and the grasping
monopolies of the land. The people of America are slow to anger, I know.
They are patient, industrious, and inclined to laugh at the cry of
“wolf.” They did not believe, until the civil war had burst upon them,
that it would ever come; and even when the roar of hostile cannon was
thundering in their ears, both sides thought the conflict would end in
sixty days. But these sober, patient, industrious people, when once
aroused, are terrible in their anger, and as remorseless as fate. And
they can fight! The bloodiest battles, the most desperate conflicts the
world has ever known, attest their valor, their endurance, their sublime
patriotism, and their love of our country and its institutions. I trust
the coming years have in store for us, and for our children, no renewal
of such scenes of strife and bloodshed and destruction as marked the
period from 1861 to 1865. But it is not wise to shut our eyes to the
dangers that menace our laws and our form of government, nor to fail or
refuse to adopt measures for the preservation of the public peace and
the punishment of those who are seeking to disturb it.
I have, perhaps, wandered away from the subjects you have met to
discuss. But your constitution furnished the text, and I am sure you
will pardon the digression. You meet, as law-abiding, law-respecting
citizens, to organize for the protection of your own interests under the
laws. An American citizen can have no higher aspiration than to see his
country governed by just laws, justly administered by just men. When
this aspiration is realized, the person, the property, the inalienable
rights of every American citizen will be safe against aggressors. To
realize this aspiration, a healthy, intelligent public sentiment is
necessary, and I verily believe that your organization, if its announced
objects are kept steadily in view, will have a tendency to create such a
sentiment. I trust your deliberations may be pleasant and harmonious,
and that you may, one and all, return to your homes and your work
inspired with a firm determination to do whatsoever you can to secure
just laws, and to see that they are justly administered by just men.
ADDRESS.
Delivered in Representative Hall, May 25th, 1888, welcoming the
“Northwestern Editorial Association.”
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In arranging your excursion, did any of you
remember that this year is, or ought to be, an anniversary of notable
interest to newspaper men? It is true that there is now some question
about it, but it was for many years accepted as a fact, and is still
asserted by many authorities, that the first English newspaper ever
printed made its appearance in 1588, just three hundred years ago. It
was called _The English Mercurie_, was published under the authority of
Queen Elizabeth, and its purpose, as stated, was “the prevention of
false reports.”
This tri-centennial anniversary year ought, therefore, to be a year of
jubilee for editors and publishers. You, ladies and gentlemen, are first
among the fraternity in Kansas to celebrate it. I am glad to see you,
and proud that to me has been assigned the very pleasant duty of
formally welcoming you to the capital. I shall not, however, tax your
time and patience with a lengthy address. I know the craft too well to
attempt anything of that kind. It is said that the American people will
stand more speech-making, and, seemingly, enjoy it, than any other
people on earth. But my experience is that editors, in this regard, are
exceptional—especially when they are enjoying a holiday. You don’t need
to be told how vast is the domain and how electric and irresistible is
the influence of the newspaper press. You do not care to listen to a
lecture on the duties and responsibilities of your profession. You would
“jeer me with jeers”—or ought to—if I discussed, on this occasion, such
hackneyed themes as “the independence of the press,” or the beauty of
“impersonal journalism,” or the turpitude of “delinquent subscribers,”
or the criminal stupidity of the man who don’t advertise, or that
curious and interesting but never solved arithmetical puzzle, “what
paper has the largest circulation?” All these things may interest the
editor at home. But the editor abroad wants to forget them. At home, you
are engaged in a serious and laborious vocation; but abroad, here and
now, you want your holiday to be a real holiday—not such an one as the
miserly old farmer gave his boys when he said to them: “My sons, this is
the Fourth of July, and when we finish grubbing that acre of hazel-brush
on the hillside, and get the hay from the bottom meadow into the barn,
we’ll have some apples and cider.”
Every Kansan, Mr. President, is proud of Kansas, and has a right to be.
But above all other Kansans, the men of the newspaper craft have a just
right to be proud and happy. This great commonwealth of ours has not
been builded without effort. Dangers and difficulties, trials and
vicissitudes, have marked every step and stage of its growth and
development. But no Kansas editor ever saw a season so gloomy or
disastrous that he wanted to run. No Kansas editor, within my knowledge,
ever saw the time when he was willing to write Ichabod on the face of
his paper, and turn his face to the east. Day after day, week after
week, the editors of Kansas have sung the praises of Kansas, and
glorified her name, and neither border wars, nor Indian raids, nor
drouths, nor grasshopper invasions, have ever for a moment discouraged,
dismayed or disheartened them.
I welcome you, then, as representatives of a craft whose courage,
enthusiasm, earnestness and ability have been conspicuously illustrated
in the struggle which made Kansas one of the greatest and proudest of
American States. I welcome you as representatives of that profession
which is the representative of every industry, the voice of every art,
the controlling power of every civilized government. I welcome you, as
fellow-citizens, to the Capital of the State, and I sincerely trust that
your journey, and every incident or event connected with it, may be
thoroughly enjoyable and enjoyed. I know that the Press Club of Topeka,
the municipal committees, and all the people of the Capital, will do
everything in their power to make your visit pleasant. In their name, I
bid you welcome, and with their full and cordial assent, I say: “If
anything you want is not in sight, ask for it.”
ADDRESS.
At the Annual Meeting of the State Temperance Union, held at Topeka,
June 12th, 1888.
I do not intend to make a speech. I so informed your Secretary when, a
few days ago, he invited me to be present. But it has seemed to me that,
on an occasion of this character—the annual meeting of the organization
which conducted the canvass for the prohibition amendment, and to whose
zeal, energy and influence the success of the temperance legislation in
Kansas is so largely due—it has seemed to me that, at this meeting, I
might appropriately present a few facts concerning the progress of the
temperance cause in Kansas.
During the past four years I have had, I think, a fair opportunity to
learn what has been accomplished in this State. I have visited nearly
every section of it, and have talked with officers or citizens from
every county. I have watched, with interest, the course of events, and
the development of public sentiment touching the temperance question. I
certainly have no reason to misrepresent the condition of affairs in
Kansas. I have never made any secret of the fact that I voted against
the prohibition amendment, and I cannot, therefore, be suspected of a
desire to vindicate my own original judgment when I declare, as I do,
that in my opinion this State is to-day the most temperate, orderly,
sober community of people in the civilized world. I realize, fully, the
force of this statement, and am prepared to sustain it, here or
anywhere.
_First_, I assert, in the most positive language, that the temperance
laws of Kansas are enforced as earnestly, as fully and as effectively as
are any other laws on our statute books, or as are the criminal laws of
any other State in the Union.
_Second_, I do not believe that there is, to-day, an open saloon within
the limits of the State of Kansas; nor do I believe that such a saloon
has existed within the borders of this State, for more than a year past.
I do not mean to say that intoxicating liquors are not sold in Kansas.
But I do assert, with earnestness and emphasis, that the open saloon, as
it existed here at the State Capital three years ago, and as it is known
to-day in all other States where the liquor traffic is legalized or
licensed, has been banished from Kansas, utterly.
_Third_, I assert that whenever or wherever liquors are sold in Kansas
at all, they are sold just as all other crimes are committed, namely, in
secret—just as houses are robbed or horses are stolen—and by men who
live in daily and hourly terror of the law.
_Fourth_, I affirm that, as a rule, arrests of those who violate our
temperance laws are as swift and certain, and their punishment, when
arrested, as sure and full, as are arrests and punishments of any other
class of law-breakers or criminals.
_Fifth_, I believe and declare that, as a result of the enforcement of
our prohibitory laws, and the banishment of the open saloon, fully
nine-tenths of the drinking and drunkenness prevalent in Kansas eight
years ago, has been abolished; that thousands of men who were then
almost constantly under the influence, more or less, of intoxicants, are
now temperate and sober; and that, in thousands of homes all over this
State where want, wretchedness and woe were then the invited guests of
drunken husbands and fathers, plenty, peace and contentment now abide.
_Sixth_, I assert that, in every town and city throughout the State,
arrests for drunkenness are annually decreasing, notwithstanding the
fact that their populations are steadily increasing.
_Seventh_, I affirm that public sentiment in nearly every section of
Kansas has been steadily strengthening in favor of rigid temperance laws
and their rigid enforcement, and that this growing sentiment is due to
the plainly-apparent and now generally-conceded fact that our temperance
laws have largely abolished drinking and drunkenness, and the poverty,
wretchedness and crime of which the open saloon is the fruitful and
certain cause.
_Eighth_, I assert that this development of public sentiment has made
drinking unfashionable. The abolition of the saloon has practically
abolished the American habit of treating. Young men in Kansas no longer
regard drinking as an assertion of manhood. They know that the use of
intoxicating liquors is more or less a bar to confidence, employment or
preferment, and especially to political preferment. The way to office
does not lead, as it did eight or ten years ago, through the open
saloon. The saloon as a potential factor has been eliminated from our
political system. Society does not make excuses for nor coddle the man
whose breath smells like a distillery. Men of confirmed drinking habits
are, as a rule, ashamed to be seen drinking, and the bad example of
their habits is thus not flaunted before the public eye, to seduce and
debauch young boys and callow youth. All these things have had their
influence, and have wrought the happiest results in making drinking not
only unfashionable, but, in large measure, unpopular and discreditable.
And the effects are plainly seen in the marked sobriety of a Kansas
assemblage of any character, civil, military, or political. Public
sentiment is often more powerful than statutes, and in Kansas, law and
public opinion unite in regarding sobriety as the highest virtue of
manhood.
The enemies of all temperance laws are constantly asserting that
prohibition is a failure; that more liquor is used in Kansas than was
used when the saloons were open; and that drinking and drunkenness have
not been reduced. And it is a mournful and shameful fact that such
statements are often reiterated, indorsed or applauded by a class of
so-called prohibitionists who seem to be determined that prohibition
must be a failure if they are not the direct agents employed to make it
a success. So far as the speech and actions of this class of persons
indicate their views and purposes, they would prefer to see a saloon on
every hill-top and in every valley, rather than see the Republican party
continued in power. During the civil war, the Copperheads of the North,
professing to be better-Union-men-than-you-are, kept up a fire in the
rear that was as discouraging to the men at the front, and often as
dangerous, as was the fire of the armed Confederates. The prototypes of
these Northern peace-sneaks, the Copperheads of the war for the
suppression of the liquor traffic, are those prohibitionists who work,
or talk, or vote in such a way as to encourage or elevate to power the
party that is, here and everywhere and always, the opponent and enemy of
any and all laws intended to either regulate, restrict or abolish the
liquor traffic. A third-party vote is half a vote for free whisky,
whether it is cast in Kansas or any other State of this Union, and the
man who does not know this fact is either stupidly or maliciously blind.
I avail myself of this occasion, also, to make some suggestions which,
it seems to me, are worthy of consideration by your organization, and by
all sincere friends of temperance in Kansas.
Whenever or wherever the laws are not honestly enforced, the local
judicial officers—that is, the county attorneys and sheriffs—are the
responsible parties. It is practically impossible for any one to sell
intoxicating liquors as a beverage, in any town or city in Kansas, if
the county attorney and sheriff of the county do their duty. These
officers, coöperating together, can make the illegal sale of liquor
impossible. A sheriff who is indifferent or hostile to the laws, can
largely nullify any efforts of a county attorney to enforce them, and
_vice versa_. These are the two officers who, above all others, have the
absolute power, if they have also the will, to abolish liquor-selling.
Both should be in harmony with the spirit of our laws, and resolved to
see that they are obeyed, or liquor-selling cannot be wholly prevented.
Of course the police force of any city can do a great deal to suppress
the liquor traffic, but even a police force earnestly endeavoring to
accomplish this result, can be thwarted in its endeavors by a county
attorney and sheriff who will wink at or encourage violations of the
law.
In nearly every county of Kansas, I am glad to say, the local judicial
officers are in sympathy with the spirit of our laws, and prosecute,
with vigor and sincerity, all who violate them. In only a few counties
are the sheriffs or county attorneys opposed to the prohibition law, and
do little or nothing to enforce its provisions.
What is needed in Kansas is not more laws on this subject, nor more
rigorous laws, but simply a sincere and vigorous enforcement of the laws
we have. It is a mistake to change or modify laws at every session of
the Legislature, and the friends of temperance should not make such a
mistake.
In conclusion, I want to thank the officers and members of your
organization for the generous and helpful support they have given me, as
the Executive of this State. It is natural, I know, that men and women
devoted, as you have been and are, to a great cause, should at times
imagine that everything was not being done that could be done to promote
its success. Great reforms move slowly. Great results are never
accomplished in a brief time. In Kansas we are attempting to abolish a
business that has been legalized or licensed for centuries; a business
whose large pecuniary profits tempt thousands of men; a business that
has, to sustain it, the appetites, hereditary or cultivated, of tens of
thousands; a business that custom, sentiment, and even law, have
regarded as a necessary evil. The wonder is, therefore, not that so
little has been accomplished, but that so much has been done to banish
from this great Commonwealth this monstrous evil. I have endeavored to
state the accomplished results, as briefly and as clearly as is
possible, and I feel confident that the facts I have summarized—and they
are facts beyond dispute—will be a source of joy and pride to every
honest, sensible, practical friend of temperance in this State.
RESPONSE.
To a toast, at a banquet in honor of the 36th session of the
“International Typographical Union,” given at the Hotel Victoria,
Kansas City, Mo., June 14th, 1888.
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND GENTLEMEN: The advertisement of Webster’s Unabridged
Dictionary asserts that the book contains 180,000 words. I have read,
somewhere, a statement that even Shakespeare’s wonderful vocabulary
embraced only 10,000 words. And yet, on an occasion of this character,
while it seems to me that I could make use of at least a million, I am
humiliated by the consciousness that the command of five hundred words
would be an opulence of language that would make me rich indeed.
I am confounded, too, by the printed text of your programme. The local
committee telegraphed me, this morning, that I was to respond to the
sentiment, “The Sunflower State,” but on arriving this evening, I was
handed a programme, in which the toast, “Our Country,” is assigned me.
This reminds me of a story I heard, years ago, concerning a tramp
printer. He had walked all the way from Denver, and, on arriving at a
frontier Kansas town, was arrested as a horse thief. It seemed to him a
cruel irony of fate, and he indignantly protested. Taken before the
Mayor, whose office was the printing office of the village, he readily
established his innocence, and was discharged. He then asked: “Who owns
this printing office?” The Mayor replied: “I do.” Said the typo: “Who is
the foreman?” The Mayor responded: “I am the foreman.” Said the typo:
“Don’t you want to hire a printer?” The Mayor responded: “No, I am the
printer, and the pressman, also.” “Well, my friend,” said the wandering
typo, “you seem to be spread out a good deal for one man.”
It seems to me that I had better ignore the toasts, and not attempt to
spread out too much. I would like, indeed, to tell you something of
Kansas. Better still, I wish you could see Kansas; and I give you a
cordial invitation to visit the Sunflower State, and learn, by practical
observation, something of the resources, the development, and the
possibilities of that diamond set in the heart of the American
continent. Kansas is gridironed by 8,335 miles of railway. It is a State
of common schools. It has the smallest percentage of illiteracy shown in
any State of the Union. Its people believe in printer’s ink. There are
eight hundred and fifty newspapers published in Kansas, and seventy-two
of them are dailies. Fully four-fifths of the Kansas newspapers are, I
think, owned and edited by practical printers. And within the borders of
the State are gathered 1,650,000 intelligent, energetic, industrious
people, who believe in school houses and popular education, who
patronize the printer, who believe in printer’s ink, and have spread it
everywhere in advertising the State of their love and their faith.
Mr. Chairman, I accepted the invitation of your local committee, to be
present at this banquet, with sincere pleasure. I have a right, indeed,
to hail the guests of this occasion as fellow-craftsmen. I entered a
printing office, in the old town of Brownsville, Pa., at the age of
fourteen, and served a three-years apprenticeship. Those of you who are
graduates of an old-time printing office, before the era of patent
outsides or plates, know what such an apprenticeship meant. During those
three years I was, in succession, office-boy, typesetter, pressman, job
printer, and foreman, and, occasionally, I enjoyed the keen delight of
seeing some item of local news I had written, printed in the paper on
which I was employed.
I have come to believe that the stains of printer’s ink on a man’s
hands, though invisible, are indelible. Certainly one who has been
educated in a printing office can never forget or outgrow his training.
Cases, type and presses have for him an undying fascination, and the
cunning of a printer’s nimble fingers, once acquired, is never lost. I
might not be able, just now, to set type as rapidly and accurately as
many of you can, but it is, and always has been, a source of
satisfaction to me to believe that, after a few weeks’ practice, I could
“hold a case” in almost any office.
I greet and welcome you, therefore, with a craftsman’s pleasure. I
welcome you as the accredited representatives of one of the largest
bodies of American workmen. I welcome you as representatives of a craft
whose knowledge of affairs, and familiarity with events of current
importance, is more general and intimate than is that of any other body
of American workmen. I greet you as men whose art preserves all other
arts; whose skill is the voice of every craft; whose labor instructs all
other laborers; whose work exalts and inspires the active brains and
trained fingers of every man and woman employed in any of the activities
of this busy world. I trust your deliberations will be pleasant and
harmonious, and that, above all, they may be distinguished throughout by
that practical common sense which ought to be, and, as a rule, is
characteristic of men who have been trained as you have been, in a broad
field of intelligence, where hands and brains move together, and where
all the faculties are educated and disciplined.
A PRESENT TO THE SOLDIERS’ HOME.
[On the 4th of July, 1888, Col. Sam. Scott, of Kansas City, Mo.,
presented to the Soldiers’ Home, at Leavenworth, a large wagon,
fitted with reclining chairs for the sick and maimed members of
that institution, and four horses. Governor Martin was selected to
acknowledge this generous gift, and did so in the following
speech:]
Those who have seen Joseph Jefferson in his great character of Rip Van
Winkle, will recall the tender, touching pathos of his simple words:
“Alas, how soon we are forgot!” There are tears in his eyes as he utters
this sorrowful plaint, and tears in the eyes of all who hear it. Even to
the wild, improvident, careless vagabond, the consciousness of oblivion
is a grievous wound.
There are times, I am sure, when this mock grief of the play-actor is a
real grief in the hearts of thousands of Union soldiers. Time was when
they were central figures in the grandest drama ever enacted on the
world’s great stage. What they thought or said was the inspiration of
millions; what they did lifted manhood to sublime heights, and filled
the eyes of women with tender, happy tears. Thousands gathered to see
them as they marched away to the war, while every window and housetop
blossomed with the colors they loved, and every tongue voiced the
grateful thankfulness and exultant pride of those who watched them go.
For years thereafter they enriched the annals of the age with their
splendid deeds, and every word that came to them was fragrant with
praise. The bells in every steeple rang with jubilant triumph, and eager
throngs of people, gathered in every city, town and hamlet throughout
the land, shouted, danced and wept with joy when the bulletins from the
front told how the soldier boys, amid the fierce storms of battle, had
kept unstained the fervor of their faith and the valor of their
aspirations, and carried the old flag to victory. Their glory was the
theme of exulting songs, and the thanks of legislatures and of Congress
were showered upon them in unstinted measure. And when at last they
marched back to their old homes, their faded and tattered battle-flags
radiant with the lustre of victories greater and grander than men had
ever before won, how the generous welcomes that everywhere greeted them
touched and warmed their brave and simple hearts. These were so fervent,
so spontaneous, so universal, that it was as balm to the sore hurts of
sickness or wounds, and blotted out all recollection of the hardships,
privations, perils and sacrifices of their service. They had saved the
Republic, they had exalted the Nation to sublime heights, they had
preserved Liberty with its blessings, and brought back the joys and
contentment of Peace. This was their glory and their reward, and in
their exultant strength and happiness they asked nothing more.
But alas! “how soon we are forgot.” Not a quarter of a century has
passed and gone, and all the glorious memories and still more glorious
deeds of the great war are as “a tale that is told.” The men who then
“rallied around the flag” are growing old, and seem, at times, to have
outlived their age. The far-away days that are so real and so vivid to
them, are a dim and misty past to the new generations. They hear and
read and see many things that wound them as did the bullets of their
country’s foes. This practical, pushing era looks askance when they
“fight their battles o’er.” The old stories of march, and camp, and
battle-field, so full of never-ending interest to them, fall on dull
ears and cold hearts unless they are told at some reunion or camp-fire
where only their old comrades hear, and sympathize, and understand. At
times it seems to them as if the Nation exulted in forgetfulness; as if
the thousands of their countrymen, enjoying the peace and prosperity
their valor won, regarded it as a crime to talk of the war; as if the
men of to-day esteemed their victory over armed treason a moral wrong,
to be regretted and apologized for, rather than a glory to be cherished
and remembered forever. They find the children at school—even their own
sons and daughters—reading histories in which the heroism, the love of
country, and the military genius of Greek, Roman, French, German and
English soldiers and generals are eulogized in eloquent and fervid
language, while the valor, the patriotism, the skill and ability of the
soldiers and commanders of the Union army are “damned with faint
praise,” or dismissed with the most meager statement of facts. They hear
cruel sneers about “the old-soldier racket,” and loud complaints
concerning “the burden of the pension lists.” And, most grievous of all
to their sore hearts, they see men whose bullets laid their comrades low
in death, men who waged a bloody and relentless war against the life of
the Nation, men who were glad when the Union army suffered defeat and
mourned when it was victorious—they see these men exalted to high
places, and honored above those who suffered, endured, and braved so
much that the Republic might live. It is not strange, in view of all
these things, that the soldiers of the Union often think themselves
forgotten, and cry out, in bitter grief, that their sacrifices and
services were all in vain.
It is true that, in many respects, the Nation has not been unmindful of
or ungenerous to its soldiers. No other country, in any age, has paid to
its maimed defenders such pensions as our Government pays. In no other
land are such Homes as this provided for the care and comfort of
disabled veterans. Nearly two thousand men, torn by wounds, or enfeebled
by disease, or broken by the infirmities of old age, are here sheltered,
fed and clothed, and in the five Homes now established, fourteen
thousand are thus cared for. But, after all, the mere necessaries of
life do not make a home. The members of this institution have a right to
expect something more than these. They have a right to know that they
are not forgotten by the people who enjoy the fruits of their perils and
their sacrifices. They have a right to feel that the citizens of the
Republic kindly remember and gratefully appreciate their heroic
services. This knowledge, this consciousness that they are not
forgotten, will, I am sure, warm the cockles of their hearts, and make
the bare walls of every barrack glow with the soft, sweet light that
shines in the dearest, happiest homes in all the land—the light of
peaceful content, and trusting, confident love.
I am glad and proud to be the bearer of such a message of remembrance
and gratitude to the members of this Home. It comes, too, from an old
comrade—from one who carried a musket during the far-away days of the
great war, and who shared, with you, the just pride of duties well
performed. Time and fortune have dealt kindly with him. It is said that
he is a rich man. I have not cared to verify this story by an
examination of the commercial reports. But that he is a thoughtful and a
generous man, the useful and costly present he makes to this Home is
conclusive evidence. He has not forgotten the men who once touched
elbows with him in the forming lines. The music of battle-bugles still
rings in his heart, and he hears, in his dreams, the steady tramp of the
marching columns and the hum of the camp when the evening fires were
lighted. Thus remembering, and thus inspired with a true soldier’s
sympathy, and a true man’s thoughtful generosity, he has brought to you
a gift that will, for many years to come, relieve the suffering and
brighten the daily life of hundreds of the sorely stricken members of
this Home.
In the name of all the officers and members of the Western Branch, I
thank you, Colonel Scott, for your generous gift. No language at my
command would, I am sure, fitly express their thankfulness and their
gratitude. But the prayers and blessings of all the stricken men who
enjoy your gift, will, I know, be for you and with you; and the
consciousness of having brought into their lonely and broken lives some
rays of joy and contentment, and given to these old and war-worn
veterans the dear assurance of remembrance and appreciation, will be
your rich reward.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
PENNSYLVANIA AND KANSAS, 7
THE FIRST KANSAS VOLUNTEERS, 14
THE WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 17
EIGHTH KANSAS VETERAN VOLUNTEERS, 36
ACCEPTING NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, (1884,) 45
ADDRESS BEFORE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF ATCHISON COUNTY, 47
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 50
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884, 63
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 67
THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, 69
A WAR-TIME PICTURE, 72
HOW KANSAS IS ADVERTISED, 74
BIRTHDAY OF GENERAL GRANT, 75
THE STATE UNIVERSITY, 77
THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, 80
GENERAL GRANT—MEMORIAL ADDRESS, 84
KANSAS FARMS AND FARM INTERESTS, 91
AMERICAN SOLDIERS, 100
THE KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD, 106
ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THE A. O. U. W., 108
THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE, 110
THE SCHOOL TEACHER, 112
INSTALLATION OF OFFICERS OF LINCOLN POST, G. A. R., 115
QUARTER-CENTENNIAL ADDRESS—“The Development of Kansas,” 119
OUR DUTY TO THE UNION SOLDIER, 137
IN MEMORIAM, (Address at Wichita on Memorial Day,) 140
BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN, 155
THE SWEDES IN KANSAS, 158
ACCEPTING NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, (1886,) 166
REPUBLICANISM IN KANSAS, 168
ADDRESS BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA, 196
COMPLETION OF WATER WORKS AT CLAY CENTER, 197
MEXICAN JOURNALISTS, 200
THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF TOPEKA, 201
THE KANSAS PIONEER, 202
FLORAL FESTIVAL, 206
DEDICATION OF “SNOW HALL,” (State University,) 207
WELCOMING TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION, 208
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS—“The Governors of Kansas,” 210
MEMOIRS OF THE MARCH, 213
KANSAS DURING THE WAR, 217
ODD-FELLOWSHIP IN ATCHISON, 222
“MODEST KANSAS,” 227
FARMERS’ PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, 229
NORTHWESTERN EDITORS—WELCOME TO, 234
TEMPERANCE LAWS IN KANSAS, 236
ADDRESS AT THE THIRTY-SIXTH SESSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL
TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, 240
A PRESENT TO THE SOLDIERS’ HOME, 242
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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