The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1883-02-01
4Bo1T KANSAS

y tGI ~-a Va AAa4-l%@' /
Kansas. thougll bat twenty-five years
old is getting to be an elderly common.
wealth. She is Large of her age and
in the twenty-five years last past has
made a great deal of history, and done
more than any ether state in the same
length of time When older states, Ohio
aad Illinois and Indiana were twenty
two years old they were rude, raw com
munities. wearing jeans ana drinking
corn whisky, aud building log school
houses, and INDUCING in fist fights and
iatboat navigation, but Kansas at tweu-
ty-two years has a university with $50
students; and new capitol filed with
statesmen and fresco work and state
Normal school, and state Agricultural
college. and state penitenliary with
growing attendance; and more railroads
than can be regulated; aad more state
money than can be invested, and more
newspapers than can be read; and the
towns haYe opera houses, and street
railways and public libraries, and cleo
trio lights and everYoo1y Is full of pro-
gress and knowledge and smartness, ex-
cept few greenhorns who come from
the interior towns in New Englaud, and
who haye to learn something after they
get here.
We have not gained all this without
much trouble. The admission of Kan
sas as state did not end her troubles.
The young state was destined TO under
go several outbreaks of Missouri savag-
cry after this; the worst being the
Quantrell raid
The war over, there came a poor
spell" and then boom, and the build
ing of railroads, and boom aud backset
have alterna,ed with each other, but
there has been considerably more of the
former than the latter, and SO here we are
on our tweniy-second birthday with a
million of people who are reasonably
certain 20 stay.
The freedom Of the country from
marshes and malaria has been often com
mented on, and the Kansas man on GO
ing up 70 the temple has been prone to
say "We thank thee, oh Lord, that we
do not have the 'ager,' even as these
Missourians,'' but the state has its own
troables. 1t is high, dry, nervous
country, and the people are prone to get
high-strung aud cranky, and "dy off
a. the haudle," and we go
crazy faster than they can build asylums
for us Hence our senatorial convnl-
sions: our numerous scares about grass
hoppers, Indians AID drouih; our fran
TIC and fraudulent appeals for aid"
aud great moral movements that sud
denly turn tail on themselves; our
shrieks of "vote the bonds,'' on one Gay,
and our agonizing cries of control the
Inonopohes," on the next. But we are
getting quieter. They elected Plumb
senator, the other day without any
"stufing" for an investigation, and there
is peace and harmony all around, and
our politicians, for once, are not brand
ishing their hatchets and screaming for
the scalp of some brave who has accu-
mulated more ponies and dogs than the
others.
Kansas has done very well, wonder
fully we'll, in. twenty-five years; she has
got nearly all she needs in the way of
state institutions, aud ought to save
money from this on. 1t is time to grow
conservative and rich. We know what
tie state is worth now; what our stock
in trade is; and should be prepared 10
make the most of it. There is room for
more people here; a million, perhaps,
but there is no occasion for rending
heaven and earth to get them here; let
them come as they get ready. Fill the
high plains with cattle and sheep; Irri-
gate the Arkansas valley without regard
TO the Hutchinson grist mill; fill eastern
Kansas with corn and wheat; go slow
on voting bonds; build up the institu-
tons we have instead Of starting new
ones; double up the school fund; finish
the Capitol; put thousand students in
the State University; these are things
upon which to employ our active Kan
sas minds for twenty-five years 10 come.