The Wichita city eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1872-1883, 1878-07-25
For the Eagle.
The Market Question.
WICHITA, KANs., Ju'

WICHITA, KANs., July 8, '7S.
Hon. NJ. NJ. MURDOCH DEAR SIR:
The subject upon which l propose to
| address you a short communication
may be no especial concern of mine.
The reproach of fraud is, however,
common duty, commendable in the es-
TEEN of all honest men.
Our vast agricultural region is again
blessed with abundant harvests; and
again comes up the wall from our
farmers of antagonistic combinations,
false weights, unfair dealings,-of
sharp practices by which they are de-
frauded of the fair and equitable value
of the wheat they bring to this market
for sale. The public at large are well
aware of their well grounded lamenta-
tionE.
We came as an adventurer to this
hamlet in 1870. A few frame sheds
then marked the site where now the
city Of Wichita is. The great Ameri-
can desert, broken by few mouldy
"dugouts" upon her streams, spread
her vast solitude of waste whittier the
eye might gaze. The extraordinary
fertility of the soil, with the salubrlty
of the climate, offered happy homes
to willing industry, and they came in
thousands with their little treasured
all and honest sinewy hands, to do the
battle of life amid all the vicissitudes
of desert home. And we who know
them best know well the trials and
privations even now attending the
struggles of this honest industry amid
accommodating depression of dark
prospective future. 1t has not been
theirs alone to make the frowning
desert smile and the wide waste to be
glad and productive unto man and
their country, but they have built this
city; this wonderful new city; this
"Queen City of the West" But for
the persevering industry of the farm
ers in the region of the "Hs.ppy VAL
ley" the hamlet of 1871 would have
been the dilapidated Wichita of to-day,
and the pruned heads, the starched
shirts, the iron-fronts, the brick blocks,
the heaven-pointing spires, and the
tolling bells would have been sleeping
in the bosom of Mother Earth, or
basking upon dug-out. 1t is their
honest industry that has smitten the
bountiful earth with the hoe and the
plow- shear, and delved out the rich
treasures hidden there that have rear
ed this magic city and well filled the
pockets of the pauper adventures
who plow not, nor sow, but loiter |
around to seize the pauper's greedy |
share Of the ripe fruit of their sweat |
and anguish. Gratitude is a jewel. In
Justices does this city owe these farm
ers nothing but the abject privilege of |
buying bad whisky, poor goods, rent
ing money at ruinous rates of interest,
or sleeping in the calaboose at the ex-
pense of sore head and So or $40 per |
night if he chance to indulge a little
too freely in the tempting luxurles"
offered at every ''hole in the wall' or
alley Of the city.
Let the plow-shear rest but for two
short years and such an exodus would
ensue as the small pox never dreamed
of, and bankruptcy be the reversed rule
Of hor al
Then, if we persist in discarding the
gratitude we so virtuously owe the
country, let US cease to parricide our
selves. Unworthy as the city of
Wichita may be she is worthy of a
better fate than parricide. And, as
every dollar of the productions of the
country are the bone aud sinew of the
city, and only properly distributed by
a realization to the resident farmer of
the fullest value of every grain of his
crop, let it be the prompt aud imlne-
date duty of the guardians OF the city
TO adopt such measures and restric-
tons as will best conserve this pur-
pose. 1t has been the vocal theme of
the Council for at least tho last four
years but it is time this wind was
stopped off and sincere practical ac- {
ton taken Especially as the remedy
is more simple than the disease. T.
1t would be our Recommendation 10 I
secure at once an eligible, competent {