Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1884-06-12

but had hard time Oh IL ioi ioi'!
wears, The Jews fail in Palestine,
their natl We land, and the African has Q
not made success in Liberia, his own y
country. But the Mennonite, stran- y
ger in language religion and country, :
does not fail in Kansas. He was an
apparently hopeless pilgrim in inhos'
pitable solitudes. But he has made
these hills to bloom, and is gathering
unto himself new wealth, fresh
content. Every specimen of diverse
humanity makes himself one with the
spirit of hope which is in the air. we
seem, in a certain sense to have q pros
perity that needed no beginning, and
to be possessors of a strange maturity
that was full grown at birth, and IN
these respects Western Kansas pre-
sents the most wonderful picture OF
all modern success.
In a little volume lately issued,
Cant. Steele makes this remark IN
foot-note to one of his chapters
'Somc fourteen years ago the Arkan-
sas valley, in Kansas, was traverseh
by the writer, principally accompan-
| led by an intelligent mule. Through
| its whole length there was not soul
or sound. There was not while this
| line was building. 1t was the grass
grown American Desert useless, ir-
redee,nable. There are now living
there more than half rs many people
as the famed. rich and beautiful val
lev of Mexico holds after civilized
occupation of more than three centu-
ries."
There are, indeed. many men who
understand The causes Of at least the
beginning of this uncommon CROWN
and continued prosperity. we are
not in ourselves phenomenal people.
We have come from everywhere, and
with common spirit of enterprise
and pluck we have made the most OF
what we found. The frontier, as i'm
provement advanced, was a region OF
: Robinson Crusoe, each with the
world before him, together with the
necessity of making the most OF 1t.
!. Women in all these scenes took upon
4 themselves their equal part. There
$ were no forests TO fell, no morasses
to drain, no roads TO hew out. Intel
l ligencc kept pace with improvement.
: Coming from everywhere, to land
!, without timber, fuel, or any Of the
e old-fashioned conveniences and neces-
u sites of a frontier life, there was an
d unusual means of bringing both peo-
e pie and conveniences. The idea that
/ originated in the mind of some origi-
: nal and now unknown genius of max
i ing the locomotive a missionary and
L pioneer, explains situation thai
" would otherwise puzzle the investi
c cations Of the most careful statistician
- The unadorned American truth Is that
n in a certain sense the railroad has
n made Kansas. 1t came first. 1t bort
lr the risk. 1t traversed a desert. Th'
n. COYOTES screnaded its camp-tires
h There was not human habitatioi
al ahead of its last rail.
r. II was ''land-grant road" Thu
b. fact has been descanted upon hundred
Sc of times, and made the text for innu
IN merable sermons. What would west
e. ern Kansas have been had it not beer
he land grant enterprise! There wa
Id perhaps never more useless territor,
IN to the government and to everybody
than the Arkansas valley, until the al
&C. ternate sections had been used L
at bring civilization to il. The faith i
We which its millions have been expended
a was based upon the hope that tina
r which was conceded 10 be almost ust
RS less before, might be brought undo
ms the uses Of civilization. IL it coul
n, not be, the Wanted Immigrant was a
be yalueless as town site Oh the Uko
IS river.
'e This faith has been borne out afte
years of waiting, and after this sam
great civilizer had brought the settler
L. to the alternate sections that still re
manned to the public domain. TheI
air but not until then, did their ''empirc
become valuable.
m The truth is that the thin lines {
ed steel, the slender threads by which wa
ng held a ma gnificent hope, lay along III
ng waste and looked lonesome among II
full cities of the prairie dogs and bcsid
d. the signing rushes of the Arkansas
Ith Ii was not the forethought of the sci
he tier entirely that afterwards cause
ne, the towns. schools and churches
IN spring up beside the track like gigaI
tic fungi.
,us To come nearer home. it was IL
Try railroad that produced Wichita, whic
M in old times and under ordinary CT
err cumstances would not have attaint
,ns its present size in fifty years. So it
ty' with every community still to Il
ill., west of us, until at last that older CT
the ilization is encountered which h:
on reached its elimination 4 couple
or centuries ago, and is now renew'
and made over by the same meal
the which made. at lsast indirectly, all Il
ew growth of Western Kansas.
ssh The high tide of success has an u
mt, fortunate tendency sometimes
nj ovcrwhelm the recollection of
{ a causes. Western Kansas has eve
us. reason to congratulate herself and
ff- feel honestly proud of her success
!. But she has also reason, in these da
nd of indiscriminate attacks upon ,
lso railroads because they come undo
nn- the head of corporations" to r
nal member that wherever railroad h
the been the pioneer, civilizatic
ern and success is comparatively cas-
MS. The old times of old kanss
all which ended distinctly when the "a
is- roads came, are as familiar TO the &c
Hts tor of the EAGLE as are these lat,
has days. We are sincerely glad they ca
ron tha IN