Chapter IX: Conclusion (1)

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.