Chapter X: Conclusion (2)

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.