The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-12-19
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ON THE
Chicago Inter-ocean.

Chicago Inter-Ocean.
There are certain eastern writers who
think they are in duty hound to belittle
the western states at every opportunity.
The last attempt of this kind is made in
the December number of the Atlantic
Monthly, and the writer's efforts are es-
pecially directed to the Kansas farmers
and Illinois dairymen. We can account
for this selection only on the ground
that the writer is Boston man, and that
recently large numbers of Massachusetts
mechanics have left the crowded cities
of the east and sought independence and
plenty on the broad and fertile prairies
of Kansas, and that within the past year
or two western butter has been sharply
competing with that made in the state
of Massachusetts, The writer seems,
through the courtesy of the acting land
commissioner of the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fee railroad" to have tax
en- little run through the west as
far as Pueblo, in Colorado. On his
way he stopped at Topeka, and because
an old negro accosted HIM and begged
for work, he arrives at the conclusion that
"selfbinders'' have taken all the work
away from farm laborers The country
he passes through is very generally de-
scribed as "hOt, dry and parched." the
cOrn-fields as having all the "life whip
ped out of Them" the wheat and oats as
not worth threshing. On his way to
Pueblo all he seemed to have observed
(all he chronicles, at any rate) was "emi-
grants fleeing from the country" while
he was told of others who would go if
they had or could find the means of get
ting away" In other places he seems
to have found both husband and wife
chatting in enforced idleness, want and
helplessness."
From such little incidents as those re-
lated above, without any real facts, the
Atlantic Monthly declares that old set
tiers are all "desirous to sell out" and that
recent settlers appear to be in desperate
strait, and the general opinion is that they
must succumb." None ofthese statements
are worth the ink and paper wasted in
printing them, because they are not
based on broad facts, but simply
on a few isolated cases that came
directly TO the writer's attention. As
well might a western man make gloomy
prophesies of the future of Boston be
cause a beggar accosted him on the
streets or because of the poverty and
Indebtedness he saw in the lower quar-
tiers of the city.
Did it occur TO this writer's mind,
when he wrote of the miserable condi-
ton OF the Kansas farmers-without
cows and pigs and the cOmmonest means
of farm life-that since 1878 the number
of horses in that state has increased 81
5l4; of mules and asses, 1919; mich |
cows, Al, 315; cattle, 73, S31 sheep, 81, S42, |
and hogs, 140,311s Did it occur to his |
mind, or did he take the trouble to look |
up the fact, that the pounds of butter
in the state during the |
year ending March, 1879, exceeded H.
500, 900; that nearly 100000 worth of
cattle were slaughtered and sold in the |
state; that at the time the writer was
picturing the "mud huts and bog cot.
tages," farm dwellings were being built
all around him? In the year ending
MarcS. 1879, ,952 houses were erected
in the state of Kansas. We have pre-
pared the following table from the of
icial returns: