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

ncS0ByS June 18TH, I'LL.
lam going to test your indulgence
this evening, in my clumsy, ram
bling way, with some talk about the
press and the State, and want to
begin with what is uppermost in
my mind by thanking You with q
full heart for the favor and conf
dence to which / owe this excep-
tlonable honor. Then, / want to
tell you that after several wears OF
carousal in o.itics and ohice-hold-
ing, / come back, q jaded and re-
pentant prodigal tired OF the mock
cry and the emptiness of the thing,
it's husks and its swine, to say that
the happiest years OF my life have
been spent in Kansas printing Of
flee. And then 1 want to congratu-
late you upon the felicitous and sig
nificant choice of this superb city
as your place OF meeting-a city so
rich in historic memories, so noted
for its connection with interesting
and important events, 80 clustered
about, in particular, with newspa-
per associations.
1t was here, you known the
alien stiffness of our primeYal Sep
TENDER, not quite twenty three years
ago that
THE FIRST KANSAS PAPER
finttered out from among the scrub
oaks and hazel brush Of what was
to be the future metropolis Of the
State. 1t was something of an an
achronism, that first paper west of
the Missouri. How q printing press
CHANGED TO be in sach place at such
q time, we have never been told. /
suppose that human nature needed
1t, and so Ii was sent here as q sort
of special providence, for somehow
what human nature needs the God
OF human nature always provides.
At any rate II was the frat of our
things. IL came In even before our
sins. The TOWNSHIP folks found it
here when they were stalking off lots
and tossing coppers for. choice of
building spots. 1t was under an elm
tree down by the river, and the In
dian summer sunshine gave q touch
of gold TO the printed sheets and
the absurd tympan swaying to and
fro there in the open air. There was
not q house within thirty miles, not
so much as COW path for street,
not field of plowed land, near or
far, in all Kansas. Pierce was pres
ident then, and JET. Davis was his
secretary of war, and William N.
Tweed was q member of Congress
from New York. The bill to organ
ize the territory had become . law
on the Goth of May preceding QS54)
james II. Lane, Wilson Shannon
aud Fred. z. Stanton all voting for
it in the lower house, and Thomas
III. Benton against it; the first Kan
sas governor had been commission
ed on the Both of June; the first
pioneer party of thirty persons from
Boston had reached the WakarusS
on the LIST of August. But here was
q printing press In the very van of
affairs, standing upon the yet IN
trOdden weeds, and canopied by the
leaves and the sky, waiting TO catch
and record the earliest
WHISPERS OF HISTORY
in this new land of promise; and
on the 18th OF September the first
number of the Leavenworth Her
aid went out in search of patronage.
L never saw copy of that first Kan
sas paper, but / GaVe little doubt that
its leading editorial was puff of the
DalaWare lands, then soon coming
into market; that Il had paragraphs
about the rainfall, about running
streams through every quarter sec
ton, and about stock living aud tat
tenning all winter on the prairies,
You may be sure, however, that it
said not q word about the grasshop-
pers that good Father Shoenmaker
had seen settling down upon the
the month befOre''like
q fall of snow"-Nebraska grass
hoppers they were, of course; and
no reference was made to
the valuable coal deposits since so
literally advertised, though Lieut..
Emory, travelling across the plains
as early as the autumn of 1916, had
found o coal mine "on q branch of
the Wah-Karrusi, where the Oregon
trail strikes it." and met an Indian
4" driving an OK cart loaded with
coal to Westport." The Herald was
in favor of slavery, 1 am sorry to
say, and It's press and types were
used nine years later to print treas
on, and so had to be destroyed; but
with ali its faults and misfortunes,
1t was the subtle power which fore
told all our subsequent greatness
prophet in dumb wilderness pro-
claiming the novel and vital truth
that here was to be iitHt ~E
A STATE BASED UPON THE PRESS,
aud drawing all its best inspirations,
all Its bravery and it's energy, all its
fortnitute and it's glory of triumph,
from its newspapers. Whatever
Kansas is to-day she owes it to the
press. Every step of her progress
has been marked by printers ink I;
her whole history is outlined in the
story of her journalism.
just month after the advent of
the Herald, the Kansas Tribune ap-'
peared at Lawrence, then q settle
ment but few weeks old, which
had been named only ten days be-
fore; and about the same time, at
the same place, the Herald of Free
dom and the Kansas Free State were
issued. The first number of the Tri-
hume was printed in Ohio, and the
first number of the Herald of Free
dom In PenDsylvania-so alert was
this new and potent force even in
the very genesis OF the State; and
so anxious, perhaps, were the edi-
tors to get q start in season to man
ipnlate our primitive politics. Think
of 1t. Here was q town which was
q little more than q group of tents
ON the raw prairie, not larger than
the nightly corral of an overland
freight trans town that was al
most an absurditY in everything but
the spirit of Its people-and yet
here, la this camp like, wagon-cover
hamlet that could hardly tell ITS own
name without stopping to think,
there were already three newspa-
pers. And with them, or soon after
them, came |f''
THE FIRST KANSAS SCHOOL,
taught In q Lawrence sod house,
with . prairie hay roof, and the
greensward for q floor. Do you
suppose that sod school house would
ever have grown into the elegant
university which now sits like
throned queen on Mount Dread, If
those newspapers had not been there
in the sunrise OF events to lay its
fOundation2 don't. Neither do