The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-01-28
MISUNDERSTANDING KANSAS.


MISUNDERSTANDING KANSAS.
IL is but rarely that visitors TO Kan
sas from eastern States, or elsewhere,
speak of her unfavOrably. Almost al
ways she receives enthusiastic praise.
Now and then man comes among us
with perhaps morbid nature, who can
see no beauty in our landscape, can ex-
ercise no belief in the fertility of our
soil or the salubrity of our climate, can
discover no honesty in our people,
no reality in the thrift of our towns,
accordingly goes home and reports him.
self as heartily disguised, and pronoun-
ces Kansas humbug. This man is an
example of one class of misrepresenters.
II is possible he is honest in all he says
but, seeing through a glass darkly, he
does not show Kansas in her true light,
and therefore misrepresents her.
Another man, frightened lest the
stream of emigration that is pouring
out from the place at which he resides
toward Kansas shall unfavorably affect
his interests, visits this State for the ex-
press purpose of being able to tell all
the faults about her he can possibly
rake up, believing this to be the best
way TO check this rush to Kansas. This
is n second type of misrepresenters.
1t is not difficult to explain the mis-
representations of these two classes.
But there is still another class of fault
finders whose dispraise of Kansas is al
together inexplicable. A traveller starts
forth from the frozen zone, away up in
Iowa, to seek a more genial cline, and
having arrived at Emporia, Kansas,
stops, and says, 'Here is my future
home; this is the Elysium of my past
dreams. ! shall gonofurther. EUekar'
lie tells his friends living here that be-
fore three moons shall have rolled
around he shall have become perma-
nently located i'm Emporia. He starts
back to the frigid North to reduce his
worldly goods to portable stock"
lie tells his intimate friends that he has
found The place, and then turns square
ly around in the face of all this and
writes a letter to his home paper, in
which he strongly urges all of the peo-
pie of his county who are in any wise
possessed of the Kansas fever to allow
the same to speedily abate, advising
them to stay where they are; that al
though the climate of Kansas is far
more delightful than their own, old set
tiers had told him that the beautiful Ia
BILE lands Of Kansas were sterile and
unproductive that failure of crops &C.
CURED two times in three years; that
land agents were reaping rich harvests
out of the credulity of deluded immi-
grants, covering the whole territory
over with mortgages which when hard
times come on will make n most woful
slaughter of the hard-gotten gains OF
farmers that even now farmers cannot
pay their taxes and much more of like
Justification. Without stopping to ex.
press our establishment at falsehoods sc
deliberately made from whole cloth, be
ing in every case and in every particu
FAR the exact reverse of the facts, we
simply stand aghast at the paradox
which such n case as this affords. Thit
same individual is making all possibl,
haste, we are told, TO dispose of his rea
estate III Iowa, intending to come t
Emporia, Kansas, early ia the spring.
Another individual comes from som
inland town in Ohio to EmpOria, Kan
sas, purchases property, we believe, o
at least makes arrangements to max
this his home, and, in fact, goes into bu
siness here. He writes letter back I,
his county paper in which he upbraid
Kansas in unvarnished terms. II
scolds at railroads and railroad officials
speaks derisively of the Cottonwoo,
and Neosho rivers, comparing them t.
Il little stream about the size of DR.
creek with some trees on both o
them;" says EmpOria is fortunate in tn
possession of few board walks ant
two wells, the water of which, unfortu
lately, is unfit for use. He ais
SAYS lots on Commercial" street sci
for two to four thousand dollars; tina
board is eight dollars per week ant
''six by seven feet good sized bed
ROOM" thinks farms are as dear her
as in Ohio, that although the land ca
he had for nothing, every stick of fenc
ing must be bought at exorbitant price;
I'VE should think so, if his statemen
lie true. We formerly lived in Obi
ourselves and know something abou
tho prices of land there, which scarcel
ever falls below fifty dollars per acr
for the poorest and least improved an
rarely falling below a hundred dollar
per acre. Counting the land ut nothin
Kansas fencing material is indeed eX
.orbitant). lie gives a most satisfactor
reason for the rapid settlement of tn
West, viz: After people get here the
never get able to get away. This wis
Young man concludes his article b
warning Eastern readers to place II
confidence in what western papers So
of the West.
This same correspondent is to-day
resident of Emporia, and perhaps doin
thriving business, at least we hope {
rs we wish him no i'll. But why in I'll
name of all that is sensible, truthful an
honest he should have written back
his former home a letter so replete wit
Misrepresentation and falsehood, an
especially thai portion of it which n
iates to Emporia, we certainly cann'
divine.
GRAVE CHARGES.
Charges of the most grave and sc