Title: Address delivered at the quarter-centennial celebration of the admission of Kansas as a state
Author: John Alexander Martin
Release date: March 30, 2016 [eBook #51607]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
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Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
In Grecian mythology it is related that Zeus, warned by an oracle that the son of his spouse, Metis, would snatch supremacy from him, swallowed both Metis and her unborn child. When the time of birth arrived, Zeus felt a violent pain in his head, and in his agony requested Hephæstus to cleave the head open with an ax. His request was complied with, and from the brain of the great god sprang Athena, full-armed, and with a mighty war-shout. She at once assumed a high place among the divinities of Olympus. She first took part in the discussions of the gods as an opponent of the savage Ares. She gave counsel to her father against the giants; and she slew Enceládus, the most powerful of those who conspired against Zeus, and buried him under Mt. Ætna. She became the patron of heroism among men, and her active and original genius inspired their employment. The agriculturist and the mechanic were under her special protection, and the philosopher, the poet and the orator delighted in her favor. The ægis was in her helmet, and she represented the ether—pure air. She was worshipped at Athens because she caused the olive to grow on the bare rock of the Acropolis. She was also the protectress of the arts of peace among women. She bore in her hand the spool, the spindle, and the needle, and she invented and excelled in all the work of women. She was the goddess of wisdom and the symbol of thought; she represented military skill and civic prudence. In war she was heroic and invincible; in peace she was wise, strong, inventive, and industrious.
Kansas is the Athena of American States. Thirty-six years ago the Slave Oligarchy ruled this country. Fearing that the birth of new States in the West would rob it of supremacy, the Slave Power swallowed the Missouri Compromise, which had dedicated the Northwest to Freedom. 2The industrious North, aroused and indignant, struck quick and hard, and Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war-cry of Liberty, and nerved with invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed a high place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of Slavery; she gave voice and potency to the demand for its abolition; and she aided in burying Secession in its unhonored grave. The war over, she became the patron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism, and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within the shelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist and the mechanic were charmed by her ample resources and inspired by her eager enterprise. Education found in her a generous patron, and to literature, art and science she has been a steadfast friend. Her pure atmosphere invigorated all. A desert disfigured the map of the Continent, and she covered it with fields of golden wheat and tasseling corn. She has extended to women the protection of generous laws and of enlarged opportunities for usefulness. In war she was valiant and indomitable, and in peace she has been intelligent, energetic, progressive and enterprising. The modern Athena, type of the great Greek goddess, is our Kansas.
It is not a long lapse of time since the 29th of January, 1861. A boy born during that eventful year cast his first Presidential vote at the last election. But no other period of the world's history has been so fertile in invention, so potential in thought, so restless and aggressive in energy, or so crowded with sublime achievements, as the quarter-century succeeding the admission of Kansas as a State. During that period occurred the greatest war the world has ever known. An industrious, self-governed, peace-loving people, transfigured by the inspiration of patriotism and freedom, became, within a twelve-month, a Nation of trained and disciplined warriors. Human slavery, entrenched for centuries in law, tradition, wealth, and the pride of race, was annihilated, and five million slaves were clothed with the powers and responsibilities of citizenship. The continent was girdled with railroad and telegraph lines. In 1860 there were only 31,186 miles of railway in the United States; there are now fully 130,000 miles. Less than 50,000 miles of telegraph wires were stretched at the date of the admission of Kansas; there are now nearly 300,000 miles. The telephone and the electric light are fruits of this period, and the improvements and inventions in farm implements, in books and newspapers, in all the appliances of mechanical industry, and in the arts and sciences, have revolutionized nearly every department of human activity.
When this marvelous era dawned upon the world, Kansas was a fiction 3of the geographers. On the map of our country it was marked as a desert, and the few explorers who had penetrated its vast solitudes described it as an arid and sandy waste, fit only for the wild bison or the wilder Indian. There it had lain for centuries, voiceless and changeless, waiting for the miracle of civilization to touch and transform it.
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill made Kansas the central figure in a tremendous conflict. It became not only the child of a marvelous epoch, and heir to all the progress, the achievements and the glory of that epoch, but it stood for an idea; it represented a principle; and that idea and principle thrilled the heart and awakened the conscience of the Nation. That a State cradled amid such events, schooled during such a period, and inspired by such sentiments, should, in its growth and development, illustrate these mighty energies and impulses, was inevitable. The Kansas of to-day is only the logical sequence of the influences and agencies that have surrounded, shaped and directed every step and stage of the States material and administrative progress.
I am not, however, the historian of this occasion. Very properly the committee assigned to my honored predecessor, the first Governor of the State—who has been with and of it during all the lights and shadows of thirty-one revolving years—the duty of presenting an historical sketch of the difficulties and dangers through which Kansas was "added to the stars," and became one of the brightest in the constellation of the Union. To me was allotted another task—that of presenting, as briefly and as clearly as I am able, the material development of Kansas, and her present condition and position. It is at once a delightful and a difficult task. The growth of Kansas is a theme which has always enlisted my interest and excited my pride. But I cannot hope to present any adequate picture of the Kansas you know so well—the Kansas of your love and of your faith; the imperial young State, at once the enigma and the wonder of American commonwealths.
The development of Kansas, it seems to me, has had three periods, which may properly be called the decades of War, of Uncertainty, and of Triumph. From 1855 to 1865, Kansas was an armed camp. The border troubles, outbreaking late in 1854, continued until the rebellion was inaugurated. Kansas, in fact, began the war six years before the Nation had fired a shot, and the call to arms in 1861 found here a singularly martial people, who responded with unparalleled enthusiasm to the President's demands for men. In less than a year ten full regiments were 4organized, and before the close of the war Kansas had sent over twenty thousand soldiers to the field, out of a population of but little more than a hundred thousand. Fields, workshops, offices and schools were deserted, and the patient and heroic women who had kept weary vigils during all the dark and desolate days of the border troubles, now waited in their lonely home for tidings from the larger field of the civil war.
It is doubtful whether Kansas increased, either in population or wealth, from 1861 to 1864. But the young State grew in public interest and reputation, and when the heroic men, whose valor and patriotism had saved the Republic, began to be mustered out, Kansas offered an inviting field for their energy, and they came hither in great numbers. The population of the State, which was 107,206 in 1860, had increased to 140,179 in 1865. The assessed value of its property increased from $22,518,232 to $36,110,000 during the same period, and the land in farms from 1,778,400 to 3,500,000 acres. It was not a "boom," nor was it stagnation and decay. Yet it is probable that nearly the whole of the growth shown by these figures dates from the Spring of 1864.
The real development of Kansas began in 1865, and it has known few interruptions since. The census of 1870 showed a population of 364,399—an increase of 124,220 in five years, or nearly double the population of 1865. Railroad building also began in 1865, and 1,283 miles were completed by 1870. The home-returning soldiers and the railroads came together. Immigrants to other States came in slow-moving canal boats or canvas-covered wagons, but they came to Kansas in the lightning express, and most of them went to their claims in comfortable cars drawn by that marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Our State has never had a "coon-skin cap" population. It is the child of the prairies, not of the forest. It has always attracted men of intelligence, who knew a good thing when they saw it. They brought with them the school, the church and the printing press; they planted an orchard and a grove as soon as they had harvested their first crop; and if they were compelled to live in a dug-out the first year or two, they were reasonably certain to own a comfortable house the third.
The period from 1865 to 1875 was, however, a period of uncertainty. Kansas remained an experiment. The drouth and grasshopper invasion of 1860, a menacing memory for many years, had just begun to grow dim when the drouth of 1873 and the still more disastrous drouth and locust invasion of 1874 revived its recollection, and intensified the uncertainty it had inspired. The intervening years were not, it is true, without their exaltation and triumphs. Luxuriant harvests followed the disaster 5of 1860, year after year in unbroken succession, until 1873, and we indulged in much jubilant boasting and self-gratulation over our fruitful soil, our benign climate, and our gracious seasons. But over and through it all brooded and ran a feeling of question or uncertainty, which manifested itself in many ways. The newspapers, while affecting to sneer at those who did not believe Kansas to be a country where rains always came just when they were wanted, nevertheless recorded every rain with suspicious prominence. Even the corner-lot speculator watched the clouds while he was denouncing the slanderers who asserted that Kansas was "a dry country." "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," might have been said of the Kansans who, from 1865 to 1875, vehemently maintained that the normal condition of Kansas was that of a quagmire.
And in the midst of it all came 1873 and 1874, with their twin devastations and calamities. A fierce sun rose and set for months in a cloudless sky; the parched earth shrank and cracked; and the crops withered and shriveled in winds as hot as the breath of a furnace. But as if the destruction thus wrought was not enough, out from the northwest came clouds of insects, darkening the sun in their baleful flight, and leaving the very abomination of desolation wherever they alighted. It was then that the bravest quailed, and our sturdiest farmers abandoned all hope. Thousands of people, now among our most prosperous citizens, would have sold everything they possessed for one-sixth of its value, during the year 1874, and abandoned the State forever. But they could find no purchasers, even at such a price.
Somehow—and I mention the fact to their everlasting credit—many of the newspapers of Kansas never lost heart or hope during that distressful season. They lauded the State more earnestly, if possible, than ever before. They asserted, with vehement iteration, that the season was exceptional and phenomenal. They exhorted the people to keep up courage, and confidently predicted abundant harvests next year. And to their influence more than any other, is due the fact that Kansas survived the drouth and grasshopper invasion of 1874 with so little loss of population.
The period of triumph began in 1875. While the world was still talking of our State as a drouth-powdered and insect-eaten country, Kansas was preparing for the Centennial, and getting ready for a great future. And in 1876, she sprang into the arena of Nations with a display of her products and resources which eclipsed them all, and excited the wonder and admiration of the whole civilized earth.
From that time to this the development of Kansas has never known 6a halt, nor have the hopes of our citizens ever been troubled by a doubt. More permanent and costly homes have been builded, more stately public edifices have been reared, more substantial improvements have been made on farms and in towns, more wealth has been accumulated, during the decade beginning in 1875, than during the two previous decades. No citizen of Kansas, from that day to this, has ever written a letter, made a speech, or talked at home or abroad, with his fellow-citizens or with strangers, without exalting the resources and glorifying the greatness of the State. No Legislature, since that time, has ever doubted the ability of the State to do anything it pleased to do.
A new Kansas has been developed during that period. The youth of 1875 has grown to the full stature and strength of confident and intelligent manhood. The people have forgotten to talk of drouths, which are no more incident to Kansas than to Ohio or Illinois. They no longer watch the clouds when rain has not fallen for two weeks. The newspapers no longer chronicle rains as if they were uncommon visitations. A great many things, besides the saloons, have gone, and gone to stay. The bone-hunter and the buffalo-hunter of the plains, the Indian and his reservations, the jayhawker and the Wild Bills, the Texas steer and the cowboy, the buffalo grass and the dug-outs, the loneliness and immensity of the unpeopled prairies, the infinite stretching of the plains, unbroken by tree or shrub, by fence or house—all these have vanished, or are rapidly vanishing. In their stead has come, and come to stay, an aggressive, energetic, cultured, sober, law-respecting civilization. Labor-saving machines sweep majestically through fields of golden wheat or sprouting corn; blooded stock lazily feed in meadows of blue-stem, timothy, or clover; comfortable houses dot every hill-top and valley; forests, orchards and hedge-rows diversify the loveliness of the landscape; and where isolation and wildness brooded, the majestic lyric of prosperous industry is echoing over eighty-one thousand square miles of the loveliest and most fertile country that the sun, in his daily journey, lights and warms. The voiceless Sphynx of thirty years ago has become the whispering-gallery of the continent. The oppressed Territory of 1855, the beggared State of 1874, has become a Prince, ruling the markets of the world with opulent harvests.
I am not, in thus exalting the growth and prosperity of Kansas, speaking recklessly, as I shall show by statistics compiled from the census and agricultural reports of the United States and our own State. Figures are always dry, I know. But when they tell the pleasant story of the march of civilization into and over a new land, surely they cannot fail to interest 7men and women who have themselves marched with this conquering army of industry and peace.
The growth of Kansas has had no parallel. The great States of New York and Pennsylvania were nearly a hundred and fifty years in attaining a population Kansas has reached in thirty years. Kentucky was eighty years, Tennessee seventy-five, Alabama ninety, Ohio forty-five, and Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, and North and South Carolina each over a hundred years, in reaching the present population of Kansas. Even the marvelous growth of the great States of the West has been surpassed by that of Kansas. Illinois was organized as a Territory in 1810, and thirty years later had only 691,392 inhabitants, or not much more than one-half the present population of this State. Indiana was organized in 1800, and sixty years later had a population of only 1,350,428. Iowa was organized as a Territory in 1838, and had, at that date, a population of nearly 40,000. In 1870 it had only 1,194,020 inhabitants. Missouri was organized in 1812, with a population of over 40,000, and fifty years later had only 1,182,012. Michigan and Wisconsin, after fifty years of growth, did not have as many people as Kansas has to-day; and Texas, admitted into the Union in 1845, with a population of 150,000, had, thirty-five years later, only 815,579 inhabitants.
In 1861 Kansas ranked in population as the thirty-third State of the Union; in 1870 it was the twenty-ninth; in 1880 the twentieth; and it is now the fifteenth. During the past quarter of a century Kansas has outstripped Oregon, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Arkansas, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, Mississippi, California, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Wisconsin, and New Jersey—all States before the 29th of January, 1861. Of the Northern States only eight, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Iowa, and of the Southern States only six, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas, now outrank Kansas in population. At the close of the present decade Kansas will, I am confident, rank as the eleventh State of the American Union, and will round out the Nineteenth Century as the sixth or seventh.
In the following table the population of Kansas, as shown by the first census of the Territory, taken in January, 1855, and the official enumerations made every five years thereafter, is shown. The figures also exhibit the proportion of white and colored, and of native and foreign-born inhabitants; the increase of population every five years, and the density of population per square mile of territory at the close of each period. The 8State census taken in 1865, however, did not show the proportion of native and foreign-born citizens:
| Year. | Total population. | Increase. | Density of population. | White population. | Colored. | Native population. | Foreign-born. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1855 | 8,601 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| 1860 | 107,206 | 98,605 | 1.3 | 106,390 | 816 | 94,512 | 12,694 |
| 1865 | 140,179 | 32,973 | 1.6 | 127,270 | 12,909 | ... | ... |
| 1870 | 364,399 | 224,220 | 4.4 | 346,377 | 18,022 | 316,007 | 48,392 |
| 1875 | 528,349 | 163,950 | 6.5 | 493,005 | 35,344 | 464,682 | 63,667 |
| 1880 | 996,096 | 467,747 | 12.2 | 952,105 | 43,941 | 886,010 | 110,086 |
| 1885[1] | 1,268,562 | 272,466 | 15.4 | 1,220,355 | 48,207 | 1,135,887 | 132,675 |
1. Census of March, 1885.
In 1860 there were only ten towns and cities in Kansas having a population in excess of 500 each; only three having over 1,000 each; and only one having over 5,000 inhabitants. In 1880, ninety-nine towns each had a population in excess of 500; fifty-five towns and cities had each over 1,000 inhabitants; six had each over 5,000; and three had over 15,000 each. In 1885, each of one hundred and fifty-four towns had over 500 population; ninety-one towns and cities had each over 1,000; twelve had each over 5,000; six had each over 10,000; four had each over 15,000; and two had each more than 20,000.
The origin and character of the population in Kansas is, in this connection, worthy of special note. Every State in the Union and every Territory except Alaska, contributed to the population of this State. The United States census of 1880 shows that 233,066 persons born in Kansas were then living in the State. The singular fact that native-born Kansans were then living in every State and Territory, is shown by the same authority. Illinois contributed 106,992 to our population; Ohio, 93,396; Indiana, 77,096; Missouri, 60,228; Pennsylvania, 59,236; Iowa, 55,972; New York, 43,779; and Kentucky, 32,979. Three other States, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, each contributed over 15,000; and all others less than that number.
The same authority shows that the so-called "exodus" from the South has been greatly exaggerated, Louisiana and Mississippi furnishing only 4,067 of our colored population, while nearly 19,000 came from the three States of Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.
The colored people constitute, at the present time, less than four per cent. of our total population, and the inhabitants of foreign birth a little more than ten per cent. of the total.
The growth of our State in population has not, however, equalled the development of its material resources. The United States census of 1880 shows that while Kansas, at that date, ranked as the twentieth State in population, it was the eighth State in the number and value of its live stock, the seventeenth in farm products, the fourteenth in value of farm products per capita, the twentieth in wealth, the thirteenth in education, the seventeenth in the amount of its indebtedness, State and municipal, and the twenty-fourth in manufactures. Only one State, Nebraska, shows a smaller proportion of persons unable to read and write. And in twenty-eight of the forty-seven States and Territories, taxation, per capita, was greater than it is in Kansas.
In 1880 Kansas was the sixth corn-producing State of the Union. Only Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio then produced larger crops of this cereal. But the corn product of Kansas, that year, was only 101,421,718 bushels, while for the year 1885 it was 194,130,814 bushels, or nearly double the crop of 1880.
In the following table the aggregate of the corn, wheat, oats, potato, and hay products of Kansas, for the years 1860 and 1865, and for each year thereafter, is given. The figures, prior to 1875, are compiled from the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture; those following, from the reports of the secretary of our own State Board of Agriculture:
| Year. | Corn, bushels. | Wheat, bushels. | Oats, bushels. | Potatoes, bushels. | Hay, tons. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 6,130,727 | 194,173 | 88,325 | 296,325 | 56,232 |
| 1865 | 6,729,236 | 191,519 | 155,290 | 276,720 | 118,348 |
| 1866 | 6,527,358 | 260,465 | 200,000 | 243,000 | 123,082 |
| 1867 | 8,459,000 | 1,250,000 | 236,000 | 314,000 | 162,000 |
| 1868 | 6,487,000 | 1,537,000 | 247,000 | 850,000 | 118,000 |
| 1869 | 16,685,000 | 2,343,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,500,000 | 250,000 |
| 1870 | 17,025,525 | 2,391,197 | 4,097,925 | 2,342,988 | 490,289 |
| 1871 | 24,693,000 | 2,694,000 | 4,056,000 | 3,452,000 | 687,000 |
| 1872 | 46,667,451 | 3,062,941 | 6,084,000 | 3,797,000 | 728,000 |
| 1873 | 29,683,843 | 5,994,044 | 9,360,000 | 3,000,000 | 977,000 |
| 1874 | 15,699,078 | 9,881,383 | 7,847,000 | 4,116,000 | 530,000 |
| 1875 | 80,798,769 | 13,209,403 | 9,794,051 | 4,668,939 | 1,156,412 |
| 1876 | 82,308,176 | 14,629,225 | 12,386,216 | 5,611,895 | 809,149 |
| 1877 | 103,497,831 | 14,316,705 | 12,768,488 | 3,320,507 | 1,228,020 |
| 1878 | 89,323,971 | 32,315,358 | 17,411,473 | 4,525,419 | 1,507,988 |
| 1879 | 108,704,927 | 20,550,936 | 13,326,637 | 3,521,526 | 1,551,321 |
| 1880 | 101,421,718 | 25,279,884 | 11,483,796 | 5,310,423 | 1,534,221 |
| 1881 | 80,760,542 | 20,479,679 | 9,900,768 | 2,055,202 | 2,122,263 |
| 1882 | 157,005,722 | 35,734,846 | 21,946,284 | 5,081,865 | 2,293,186 |
| 1883 | 182,084,526 | 30,024,936 | 30,987,864 | 6,812,420 | 6,002,041 |
| 1884 | 190,870,686 | 48,050,431 | 20,087,294 | 7,861,404 | 7,105,132 |
| 1885 | 194,130,814 | 10,859,401 | 30,148,060 | 7,398,465 | 7,685,340 |
In presenting these figures it is worthy of note that while, as already stated, the U. S. census reports for 1880 show that Kansas ranked as the 10twentieth State in population and the sixth in its corn product, it was also the eleventh wheat-producing State of the Union, the eleventh in its oats product, sixteenth in barley, tenth in rye, eighth in hay, and seventeenth in potatoes. Thus the rank of Kansas, in agricultural products, was far ahead of her rank in population.
The total area of Kansas is 52,288,000 acres. In 1865 only 243,712 acres of this vast territory were under cultivation; in 1870 the area aggregated 1,360,000 acres; in 1875, 4,749,900 acres; in 1880, 8,868,884 acres; and in 1885, 14,252,815 acres. In the following table I have compiled figures showing the area under cultivation, and the value of the crops produced in Kansas each year, from 1865 to 1885, inclusive:
| Year. | Acres in crops. | Value of crops. |
|---|---|---|
| 1865 | 243,712 | $5,347,875 |
| 1866 | 273,903 | 6,023,849 |
| 1867 | 397,622 | 8,129,590 |
| 1868 | 562,120 | 10,467,163 |
| 1869 | 855,801 | 15,807,550 |
| 1870 | 1,360,000 | 18,870,260 |
| 1871 | 1,322,734 | 17,335,120 |
| 1872 | 1,735,595 | 15,498,770 |
| 1873 | 2,530,769 | 28,311,200 |
| 1874 | 3,179,616 | 30,842,630 |
| 1875 | 4,749,900 | 43,970,494 |
| 1876 | 5,035,697 | 45,581,926 |
| 1877 | 5,595,304 | 45,597,051 |
| 1878 | 6,538,727 | 49,914,434 |
| 1879 | 7,769,926 | 60,129,780 |
| 1880 | 8,868,884 | 63,111,634 |
| 1881 | 9,802,719 | 91,910,439 |
| 1882 | 11,043,379 | 108,177,520 |
| 1883 | 11,364,040 | 106,707,529 |
| 1884 | 13,011,333 | 104,297,010 |
| 1885 | 14,252,815 | 92,392,818 |
The value of the farm crops of Kansas, for the five years ending with 1870, aggregated $59,298,414; for the next succeeding five years their value was $135,958,214; for the next five years, $264,334,824; and for the five years ending with 1885 the farm crops of Kansas aggregated in value $503,485,316. Thus during the past twenty years the farmers of Kansas have produced crops whose aggregate value reached the enormous sum of $963,076,768.
The increase in the value of farms, of farm implements, and of farm products, (including farm crops, products of live stock, and market garden, apiarian and horticultural products,) is shown in the following table. It will be seen that these values have generally doubled every five years:
| Year. | Value of farms. | Value of farm implements. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value of farm products. | |||
| 1860 | $12,258,239 | $727,694 | $4,878,350 |
| 1865 | 24,796,535 | 1,200,720 | 10,653,235 |
| 1870 | 90,327,040 | 4,053,312 | 27,630,651 |
| 1875 | 123,852,466 | 7,935,645 | 43,970,414 |
| 1880 | 235,178,936 | 15,652,848 | 84,521,486 |
| 1885 | 408,073,454 | 9,604,117 | 143,577,018 |
11The value of the farm products of Kansas, from 1876 to 1880, inclusive, aggregated $356,557,802, while their value from 1881 to 1885, inclusive, aggregated the enormous sum of $738,676,912.
The steady development of the State is further illustrated by the figures showing the increase of taxable acres. In 1860 only 1,778,400 acres were subject to taxation; in 1865 this area had been enlarged to 3,500,000 acres; in 1870 to 8,480,839 acres; in 1875 to 17,672,187 acres; in 1880 to 22,386,435 acres; and in 1885 to 27,710,981 acres.
In the number and value of its live stock, Kansas ranked, in 1880, as the eighth State of the Union. In 1860 the live stock of Kansas aggregated in value only a little over three million dollars; in 1865 it aggregated over seven millions; in 1870, over twenty-three millions; in 1875, nearly twenty-nine millions; in 1880, over sixty-one millions; and in 1885, nearly one hundred and eighteen million dollars. The following table gives the number of horses, mules, cows, cattle, sheep, and swine, and their aggregate value, for the years 1861 and 1865, and every year thereafter to and including 1885:
| Year. | Horses. | Mules. | Cows. | Cattle. | Sheep. | Swine. | Value of live stock. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1861 | 20,344 | 1,496 | 28,550 | 74,905 | 17,569 | 138,224 | $3,332,450 |
| 1865 | 32,469 | 2,490 | 71,996 | 130,307 | 82,662 | 95,429 | 7,324,659 |
| 1866 | 38,968 | 2,863 | 82,075 | 139,428 | 108,287 | 127,875 | 9,127,306 |
| 1867 | 39,968 | 2,936 | 85,120 | 140,560 | 106,287 | 132,750 | 10,081,590 |
| 1868 | 42,859 | 2,405 | 89,461 | 146,399 | 101,789 | 140,662 | 9,962,311 |
| 1869 | 50,573 | 2,597 | 109,142 | 165,430 | 107,896 | 137,848 | 12,902,830 |
| 1870 | 117,786 | 11,786 | 123,440 | 250,527 | 109,088 | 206,587 | 23,173,185 |
| 1871 | 156,000 | 14,900 | 162,000 | 345,000 | 115,000 | 304,800 | 31,823,484 |
| 1872 | 180,900 | 16,300 | 191,100 | 397,400 | 116,100 | 381,000 | 28,488,704 |
| 1873 | 198,900 | 17,400 | 214,000 | 457,000 | 123,000 | 457,200 | 30,013,898 |
| 1874 | 220,700 | 19,100 | 231,000 | 507,200 | 141,000 | 484,600 | 31,163,058 |
| 1875 | 207,376 | 24,964 | 225,028 | 478,295 | 106,224 | 292,658 | 28,610,257 |
| 1876 | 214,811 | 26,421 | 227,274 | 473,350 | 143,962 | 330,355 | 32,489,293 |
| 1877 | 241,208 | 32,628 | 261,642 | 519,346 | 205,770 | 704,862 | 33,015,647 |
| 1878 | 274,450 | 40,564 | 286,241 | 586,002 | 243,760 | 1,195,014 | 36,913,534 |
| 1879 | 324,766 | 51,981 | 322,020 | 654,443 | 311,862 | 1,264,494 | 54,775,497 |
| 1880 | 367,589 | 58,303 | 366,640 | 748,672 | 426,492 | 1,281,630 | 61,563,956 |
| 1881 | 383,805 | 58,780 | 406,706 | 839,751 | 806,323 | 1,173,199 | 69,814,340 |
| 1882 | 398,678 | 56,654 | 433,381 | 971,116 | 978,077 | 1,228,683 | 83,869,199 |
| 1883 | 423,426 | 59,262 | 471,548 | 1,133,154 | 1,154,196 | 1,393,968 | 104,539,888 |
| 1884 | 461,136 | 64,889 | 530,904 | 1,328,021 | 1,206,297 | 1,953,144 | 115,645,050 |
| 1885 | 513,507 | 75,165 | 575,887 | 1,397,131 | 875,193 | 2,461,520 | 117,881,699 |
Kansas is an agricultural State. It has no gold or silver, no iron, and just coal enough to furnish fuel. It is the farmers' and stockmen's State. Its development simply shows what good old Mother Earth, when in her happiest vein, can do. "Agriculture," says Colton, "is the most certain source of strength, wealth, and independence; commerce, in all emergencies, 12looks to agriculture both for defense and for supply." The growth and prosperity of Kansas afford a striking illustration of what intelligent farmers, with a productive soil and a genial climate for their workshop, can accomplish—what wealth they can create, what enterprise they can stimulate.
It is difficult, however, to comprehend what the figures I have given, showing the amounts and values of Kansas products, really represent. When we read that Kansas produced, last year, 194,130,000 bushels of corn, the nine figures set down do not convey any adequate idea of the bulk and weight of this crop. But when it is stated that the corn crop of Kansas for 1885 would fill 485,000 freight cars, and load a train 2,847 miles long—reaching from Ogden, Utah, to Boston—we begin to comprehend what the figures stand for.
The wheat crop of the State, last year, was called a failure. It was, for Kansas. And yet it would fill 31,939 grain cars, and load a train 189 miles in length. The oats crop of the State, for the same year, would fill 44,335 cars, and load a train 260 miles long; while the hay crop would load 768,534 cars, making a train 4,510 miles long.
These four crops of Kansas, for 1885, would fill 1,329,808 grain cars, and load a train 7,804 miles in length. In other words, the corn, wheat, oats, and hay produced in Kansas last year would load a train reaching from Boston to San Francisco by the Union Pacific route, and back again from San Francisco to Boston by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé route.
In speaking of the value of the farm crops and farm products of Kansas, I can present a dearer idea of the wealth our farmers have digged out of the earth by some comparisons. In 1881 the products of all the gold and silver mines of the United States aggregated only $77,700,000; for 1882 they aggregated $79,300,000; for 1883, $76,200,000; and for 1884, $79,600,000—making a total, for those four years, of $312,800,000. The value of the field crops of Kansas, for the same years, aggregated $411,092,498; and the farm products of the State for the same period, aggregated in value $595,099,894—or very nearly double the aggregate of all the gold and silver products of all the mines of the country.
The gold and silver products of the world average about $208,000,000 per annum. The farm products of Kansas for 1885 aggregated $143,577,018, or nearly three-fourths the value of the gold and silver product of the world.
For the past four years the farm products of Kansas have aggregated in value each year more than double the annual yield of all the gold and silver mines of the United States.
13The gold and silver products of Colorado, for 1883, aggregated only $20,250,000; those of California, $16,600,000; of Nevada, $9,100,000; of Montana, $9,170,000; of Utah, $6,920,000; of Arizona, $5,430,000; and of New Mexico, $3,300,000. The corn crop of Kansas for the same year was alone worth more money than the combined gold and silver products of Colorado, California and Nevada; the oat crop of Kansas was worth $705,000 more than the gold and silver product of Arizona; and the Irish potato crop of Kansas was worth more than the gold and silver product of New Mexico.
The property valuations of Kansas have increased in steady proportion with the growth of the State in population and productions. In 1860 the true valuation of all the property of the State was estimated at $31,327,891; in 1865 it was estimated at $72,252,180; in 1870 it had increased to $188,892,014; in 1875 to $242,555,862; in 1880 to $321,783,387; and for 1885 the true valuation, at a very moderate estimate, was $550,000,000.
The following table presents the assessed valuation of all the property of the State for the years mentioned, and also the assessed valuation of all the real, personal, and railroad property. It will be seen that the increase in the total assessed values from 1865 to 1875 was $85,434,344, while from 1875 to 1885 it was $127,300,928.
| Year. | Total. | Real estate. | Personal. | Railroad. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | $22,518,232 | $16,088,602 | $6,429,630 | ... |
| 1865 | 36,126,090 | 28,133,276 | [2]7,992,814 | ... |
| 1870 | 92,100,820 | 65,499,365 | [2]26,601,455 | ... |
| 1875 | 121,476,352 | 89,775,784 | 19,422,637 | $12,277,931 |
| 1880 | 160,891,689 | 108,432,049 | 31,911,838 | 20,547,802 |
| 1885 | 248,845,276 | 161,791,641 | 56,685,818 | 30,367,817 |
2. In 1865 and 1870, the railroad property was assessed as personal, and is included under that head.
Kansas is not a manufacturing State. Its prosperity is based upon the plow. It has, however, coal deposits equal to the needs of its population, valuable lead mines in the southeast, and salt and gypsum in abundance. But the manufacturing establishments of the State are steadily increasing in importance as well as in number. In its flouring and grist mills Kansas ranked, in 1880, as the thirteenth State of the Union; in meat packing, as the twelfth; and in cheese products, as the fourteenth.
In the following table the number of manufacturing establishments, including mines and railroad shops, their capital, products, etc., is given for the years named:
| 14 | |||||
| Year. | Establishments. | Capital. | Employés. | Wages. | Value of products. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 344 | $1,084,935 | 1,735 | $880,346 | $4,357,408 |
| 1870 | 1,470 | 4,319,060 | 6,844 | 2,377,511 | 11,775,833 |
| 1880 | 2,803 | 11,191,315 | 10,062 | 3,995,010 | 30,843,777 |
| 1885[3] | 3,900 | 19,000,000 | 16,000 | 6,300,000 | 48,000,000 |
3. Partly estimated.
The transportation facilities of Kansas are unsurpassed. Only seven States of the Union, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, have within their borders more miles of completed railway than has Kansas. For fully two hundred miles west of our eastern border, every county except one is traversed by from one to six lines of railway. There are eighty-six organized and eleven unorganized counties in the State, and of these all except fourteen organized and seven unorganized counties have railways within their limits. In 1864 Kansas had not a mile of completed railroad. In 1870 we had 1,283 miles; in 1875 over 1,887 miles; in 1880 an aggregate of 3,104 miles, and there are now 4,750 miles of completed railway in Kansas.
Education has gone hand in hand with the material growth of Kansas. It has been the boast of our people, for twenty years past, that the best building in every city, town or hamlet in the State was the school house. The census of 1880 revealed the fact that only 25,503 inhabitants of Kansas, over ten years of age, were unable to read. The growth of our school system is shown by the following figures:
| Year. | Scholars enrolled. | School houses. | School districts. | Teachers. | Amount paid to teachers. | Value of school houses. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 5,915 | 154 | ... | 189 | ... | ... |
| 1865 | 26,341 | 640 | 721 | 899 | $86,898 | $122,822 |
| 1870 | 63,218 | 1,501 | 1,950 | 2,210 | 318,596 | 1,520,041 |
| 1875 | 141,606 | 3,715 | 4,560 | 5,383 | 689,906 | 3,742,507 |
| 1880 | 231,434 | 5,315 | 6,134 | 7,780 | 1,088,504 | 4,049,212 |
| 1885 | 335,538 | 6,673 | 7,142 | 8,219 | 1,989,169 | 6,704,176 |
In 1861 the amount expended for the support of common schools was only $1,700, while the expenditures for the same purpose, during the year 1885, aggregated $2,977,763. For the five years ending with 1865, the expenditures for public schools aggregated $262,657.21; for the next succeeding five years they aggregated $2,259,497.89; for the next five, $7,552,191.43; for the next five, $7,509,375.23; and for the five years ending with 1885 the expenditures for public schools aggregated $12,630,480.64. Thus Kansas has expended for the support of her 15common schools, during the past quarter of a century, the enormous sum of $30,214,202.40.
The table following shows the expenditures each year, from 1861 to 1885, inclusive, and illustrates not only the growth of Kansas, but the general and generous interest of its citizens in public education:
| Year. | Expenditures. |
|---|---|
| 1861 | $1,700 00 |
| 1862 | 11,894 45 |
| 1863 | 26,867 03 |
| 1864 | 81,221 30 |
| 1865 | 137,974 45 |
| 1866 | 225,426 27 |
| 1867 | 364,402 50 |
| 1868 | 431,316 54 |
| 1869 | 565,311 17 |
| 1870 | 673,041 41 |
| 1871 | 1,074,946 09 |
| 1872 | 1,701,950 44 |
| 1873 | 1,657,318 27 |
| 1874 | 1,638,977 99 |
| 1875 | 1,478,998 64 |
| 1876 | 1,165,638 80 |
| 1877 | 1,394,188 11 |
| 1878 | 1,541,417 12 |
| 1879 | 1,589,794 30 |
| 1880 | 1,818,336 90 |
| 1881 | 1,996,335 64 |
| 1882 | 2,194,174 65 |
| 1883 | 2,579,243 62 |
| 1884 | 2,882,963 53 |
| 1885 | 2,977,763 23 |
| Total | $30,214,202 40 |
Churches have multiplied and newspapers increased as have the schools. In 1860 there were only 97 church buildings in Kansas, and they had cost only $143,950. In 1870 the number of churches had increased to 301, valued at $1,722,700; and in 1880 they numbered 2,514, costing an aggregate of $2,491,560.
There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of these only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, of which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 20 dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation aggregated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers, and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to the State.
And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quarter of a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer, with confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been broken by the plow—ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply the present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of the Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining upon our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual, permanent settlements in the counties along our Western frontier—not 16settlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organized counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river to the Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic changes, and questioning whether the western third of Kansas is fit for general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton counties entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge or barometer, but he sees the buffalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint sending its long roots deep into the soil; he sees the trees growing on the high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and waving its green guidons of prosperity in the wind; he sees the clouds gathering and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof—and he knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to stay.
On the 7th of May, 1856, a great American, learned, sagacious, and confident in his faith that right and justice would at last prevail, said, in a speech delivered in the City of New York:
"In the year of our Lord 1900, there will be two million people in Kansas, with cities like Providence and Worcester—perhaps like Chicago and Cincinnati. She will have more miles of railroad than Maryland, Virginia, and both the Carolinas can now boast. Her land will be worth twenty dollars an acre, and her total wealth will be five hundred millions of money. Six hundred thousand children will learn in her schools. What schools, newspapers, libraries, meeting-houses! Yes, what families of educated, happy and religious men and women! There will be a song of Freedom all around the Slave States, and in them Slavery itself will die."
Read in the light of the present, these eloquent words of Theodore Parker seem touched with prophetic fire. The ideal Kansas he saw, looking through the mists of the future, is the real Kansas of to-day. The marvelous growth, the splendid prosperity, the potent intellectual and moral energies, and the happy and contented life he predicted, are all around us. At the threshold of the year A. D. 1886, fifteen years before the limit of his prophecy, Kansas has cities like Providence and Worcester; has more than double the railway mileage Maryland, Virginia, and both the Carolinas could then boast; has land worth, not twenty, but fifty and a hundred dollars an acre; has wealth far exceeding five hundred million dollars; has schools, newspapers, libraries and churches rivaling those of New England; and has 1,300,000 happy, prosperous and intelligent people.
The prophecy has been fulfilled, but the end is not yet. The foundations of the State, like those of its Capitol, have just been completed. 17The stately building, crowned with its splendid dome, is yet to be reared. Smiling and opulent fields, busy and prosperous cities and towns, are still attracting the intelligent, the enterprising and the ambitious of every State and country. The limits that bound the progress and development of Kansas cannot now be gauged or guessed. We have land, homes, work and plenty for millions more; and for another quarter of a century, at least, our State will continue to grow. For we are yet at the threshold and in the dawn of it all. We are just beginning to realize what a great people can accomplish, whom "love of country moveth, example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, and glory exalteth."