Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-01-16
d. divers Defense of Bleeding
Kansas"

D. divers Defense OF Bleeding
kansas"
To the Grant County HERALD and
its readers and to whom it may con
Germ AS / promised in my last
letter, l write again, and in reply to
two letters published in your valuable
paper in reply to mine; the first sign
ed by a farmer of Lancaster, and the
second from Iowa. First, in reply to
my remarks as to the people which ]
left behind being scalawags. Well,
as | called myself scalawag, or did
before / left, the definition of scalawae
is anything below first or second
grade; as the pig that sucks the hind
teat and sells in market as scalawag,
or anything that is below valuable
grade. What / meant by scalawag
people was so many sucking the hind
teat. That is to say, their property
is mortgaged for about what it is
| worth; so the records will show. You
say, How did they get IN debt 80
Well, in answer, / will say they did as
dld-borrowed money to pay debt,
and by the failure of wheat by chinch
bugs. hog cholera, frost bitten corn,
wet weather, high waters to wash the
soil off the lands and ruin their crops
upon rich bottoms, which reached all
localities. But few escaped. All
went into corn and hogs, and pork
dropped, interest accommodating ali the
time, until at last they were closed
out or will be if compromise is not
made. As for miasmal diseases in
Kansas, / will admit that the first
settlers settled on some low streams.
such as the mouth of the Kansas,
Saline, Missouri, Arkansas and Smoky
rivers near their termini in the south
and eastern part of the state, IN early
days, among many rebs, and the first
settlers had hard road to travel, and
by exposure had the chills and fever.
Central and western Kansas was
called, in those days, the great Amer.
lean desert. have located in that
great desert. / find no miasmal di-
seases among the Oldest settlers, who
have been here from one to seven
years. As to grasshoppers, no one
denies their visit in 1874, also there
was drought the same year, and the
drought eau sed hot winds which made
spring crops of all kinds short. But
fall wheat ripened before the grass
hoppers came, and an average crop
of ten bushels to the acre all over the
state was harvested, which the. stats.
tics will show. For the last four years
the tide OF immigration has been set
thing in the great American desert,
and nobody as yet starving. In 1874
there was a great cry of hot winds
and starvation. Cattle herders in
particular cried starvation loud and
often; cried for aid and the American
people being naturally very hospita-
BILE people sent them aid, and SO did
Congress, as believe, send them aid,
and many of them drew aid when
they had year or more of supply on
hand, which can be testified by the
settlers at that time.
AS for my running down or discour-
aging the people I left behind me in
Wisconsin, it is for their benefit not
mine; for know well their situation
among the scalawags. as l was one of
those pigs which sucked the hind teat
for several years. In this country
scalawag can get him good home
upon free land, all it costs him is
about seventeen dollars for 100 acres
of choice land, in mild climate, and
a healthier country the sun never
sho ON. But advise people not
to settle upon low river bottoms for
the sake of getting timber, but go on
the high prairies as near the railroad
as possible, of which there IS plenty
OF land yet to be had in the western
part Of Kansas; and as for hot winds
and grasshoppers, there is no more
danger than in Nebraska, Iowa or
Minnesota. As for bluffs, if you want
to settle among them you can find
them in Kansas at the head of streams.
For my part, / was raised in Illinois |
and Wisconsin, lived Al years in Wis
consin, have travelled over a consider. |
able portion of both states, and have
travelled through southern Iowa and
northern Missouri and southern Ne
braska and found more poor land and |
poor people than l have yet seen or |
heard of in Kansas.
Those who have returned from /
Kansas belong to what we term here
the Grumbler family, who came here
poor, left the place they came from
poor, and were too lazy to work be-
tore they came here and did not work
here, got up great cry Of "bleeding
Kansas, wrote back to where they
came from for help, and finally got up
some kind of conveyance and went
back crying, Oh, that drouthy Kan.
sasl Their friends or their wives
friends OF course believed them, took
them under their wing, poor fellows,
and divided their morsel with them.
Such people are OF the Grumbler
family, some of whom / had seen
before came to Kansas find here
a different strina IF manila from ~,