The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1877-06-29

Kansas occupied by about 500 peo-
pie, two-thirds of whom had arriv-
ed during the preceding three
months. There was not postoffice
in the territory, and the comforta-
BILE grunt of the first hog had not
yet been heard in all the land. The
hog, you know, is the primal sign
stay: without pork, 1t is only an ex.
pertinent. But an election had al
ready been held for delegate to Con-
gress, and popular political meet
ings had been set in motion, and
two books had been printed about
the eOuntA. LeaVenwoFthi In few
months had grown to be q place of
two hundred people, with town lots
appraised at thirty dollars an acre,
and Boosting q saw mill, hotel, a
shoemaker, several carpenters, q
barber, some lawyers and doctors,
and two or three saloons. 1t was
time for another newspaper here,
peared. It was bright and able but
it had an unlucky habit of referring
to the two hundred slaves in the
4
its RIVAL, the Herald, insisted that
"niggers," and, after few months,
the Kickapoo Rangers came along
one night and buried 1T in the Mis-
souri, river. 1 was q lad then, learn
ing the printers trade in little
country town Ia Illinois. It was
court week, aud g public meeting
was held to encourage immigration
| to Kansas; and among the speakers
was a tall, awkward lawyer in q
cheap gray coat, with trowsers half
q foot too short, and q Whimsical
Bingham necktie, but with a voice
like silver bugle, and q smile that
was sweet az any school girls; and
be told US the editor of the buried
Register was his personal friend,
which brought the matter very near
home to us, you may be sure; and
then, remember, he said, GA dozen
papers will take the place of that
one destroyed, for free speech, in
the long run, beats brute force"
And he was right, as he always was,
for his was tho voice of the wlsest
man, and the best man, of the last
six thousand years
THE VOICE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN-
one of whose acts, when he became
president few years later, you re-
collect, was to make that editor
judge of the federal courts in Kan
sas.
Following the Register came the
Leavenworth Journal, Jack Hen
derson's paper, which the Kansas
annalists make but meager record
of, though it was conspicuous in its
time and had career which de-
serves to be redeemed from obliY-
ion. 1t was modelled after the bet
ter class of southern papers of that
time-genteel, but hair-triggered
chivalrous, but quick to smite when
slavery was assaulted. Its editor was
ripe scholar, with violent alcoholic
tendencies, and they found him one
morning hanging by the neck, stiff
and cold, in the outer stairWay-the
first suicide in Kansas. In this of
fee, too, was written and printed
the first Kansas book-"The Histo-
~ and Business Directory of Leav-
enworth"-the author stitching and
binding it with his own hands, and
using a smoothing iron, loaned him
by q colored washwoman, to take
the impression out of the printed
leaves. And
THE FIRST KANSAS BOOK
was success, for it yielded the ven
turesome publisher six hundred dol |
lars In cash, to say nothing Of the !
niche il secured for him in our Pam |
theon of first things done in our |
history.
The latter part of March was held |
the fret election for members of the |
legislature-an election in which |
our friends across the Missouri gave |
US so much of kindly, unsought,
neighborly help, that, with voting |
population of not quite three thous- |
and, we were enabled to cast over |
elk thousand votes. Leavenworth |
alone pOlled nearly q thousand |
votes. But for her newspapers, with |
their appeals to the patriotism and |
local pride of her citizens, it would |
hardly have been possible, appre-
bend, to achieve such q tvrn-out on |
election day in village of TIVE hun
bred inhabitantsl Of course the |
editor of the Herald was elected to |
the legislature, which was q bit of |
landable gratitude, but a very bad |
precedent, for editors have no bus |
mess to hsZ'rd the good name they |
ought to leave their children-since |
there is little else they can hope to |
leave them-by neglecting their pa
pers to go to the legislature.
THE TROUBLE BEGAN
In earnest with that election, and |
the newspapers were the plumes Of |
hot cd
aud strength TO the contending for |
ces. 1t was q summer to make hap
Ply the editorial heart, for things |
sas Judge soiemniy asserts-and |
what Kansas Judge solemnly as
serts, let no man deny-thRt the
people could not build houses, or
tend their crops, or hardly get to
frequency of rallies and conven-
those stirring times never lacked
for something to write about, nor
did they lack. on either side, the
nerve to say .squarely and the skill
to say vigorously just what they
thought. 1 am not going to say
that we, their successors, are behind |
In-NCbROSt ClbuoEf VI
or of capacity, for / don't believe It
bur am going to say that we snap
more caps and shoot at longer range
than they did, for do believe that.
am going to say, also, that those
early papers taught us In strike
ing way. that most important of all
lessons In journalism, the necessity
o ( making q paper reflect the local
and immediate in preference 10
the general and remote, The paper
which keeps closest to the people
and things of its own state or coun-
ty or neighborhood is always sur
est Of success. An editor who tells
faithfully ali that occurs in or con-
Germs any one county in Kansas
will have but little time to write
and no room to print column arti-
cles on the probable effect of Presi-
dent Hayes policy at the south, or
the possible course of England in
the Turko-Russian war. All edi-
fora HnOu avarvfhinC IN ha ouro |