Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-05-27
Kansas Letter.

are growing finely. Wheat is in head and
harvest will soon be upon Us. Corn looks
well and there is large acreage in Harper
county. We have had abuudf 1t rains since
last wrote, and farmers are corresponding
ly happy. In short, Kansas is appearing at
her best during these spring months, and
eastern people had better stay at home if
they do not wish to become enchanted with
her fields o; waving grain, her miles upon
miles of rolling prairie, and her orchards and
corn fields that they will be forever discomfort
ed with their homes, IRISH back, sell out and
come out hete at any cost. At this season of
the year it is no wonder that people are SO
Wild abort Kansas, for every thing ia at it,
best; more beautiful place is hard to imag-
inc and to one used to the confined atmos-
phere of the timber country with its narrow
contracted horizon, it seems as if all out doors
lay ready for the plow aud that literally, all
he had to do was to "tickle old mother earth
with hoe and she would laugh into har-
vest" 1t u amusing to an old timer-like
myself for iustance-to listen to new comers
talk. Their ignorance is something aston
ishing, and it is evident that they have swal
lowed whole all they have read in land adver-
tisements and all they have been told con-
cerning the west. But they will in turn laugh
at the new comers when they become "old
timers" themselves, and will forget that there
ever was time when they believed just as
absurd things as the greenest of the "tender-
feet"
Time works ohauges-with men and prair-
les slike-aud if men we-e slways as much
benefited as the p'airies by time, there would
be less of evil in the world. Yet the wild
west seems as distant here as it does in Ohio,
and no traces of it are visible. Life and
property are just as safe here as elsewhere,
cad the rights of men just as much respected.
The school and the church are just as acces-
sable in Kansas as in Ohio; in fact more so,
considering the difference in. the roads, for
here one can start off on ten mile drive and
think nothing Of it, while there for three o.
four months in the year The roads are inn
passable. 1t is amusing to hear the old set
tiers talk about the bad roads when it hap
pens to be little muddy. 1t seems as if
they had forgotten all about the mud of Ill.
or Ohio, and really thought the mud some
thing to talk about. To one who has as vivid
a remembrance of the mod in Henry county
as have, Kansas mud seems o: very small
account and does not interfere with travel
out very little. For instance, went to An
thony last Saturday after rain hard enough
to have made Ohio roads hub deep, and drove
over dry roads and made the distance-ten
miles-in an hour and hall and did not hur-
ry the team either.
Anthony has made vast improvement since
it has become the terminus of the st. Louis,
Ft. Scott and Wichita railroad. 1t is remark
able how one county can support two such
towns as Harper and Anthony, to say moth
ing of Attica with its fifteen hundred people.
Among the improvements at Anthony is the
new school house which will, when finished,
be one of the best in the State. 1t is two
stories above the basement, one hundred and
thirty eight feet long by seventy-five feet
broad; has ten school rooms and an assembly
room fifty by seventy-five in the center. 1t
is of brick with white stone trimmings, and
is as handsome structural as one would wish
to see.
One of the best hotels in the State is at
Anthony, the Montezuma; it is new and first
class, not in name but N actual fact. 1t is
splendidly furnished and well kept and one
can be sure of good treatment while a guest
at that place.
The only other large botel in the town is
the Bernet House, which has good reputa-
tion, but as have never stopped there can
not speak from actual experience as can in
the other case.
Kansas passed law last winter empower
ing cities to vote tax not to exceed one and
one-half mills for the support of public Ii
brary, and Harper was the first town in the
State to vote, carrying the measure by ma
jority of over three hundred votes. There is
now good library of nearly one thousand
volumes which is the property of the library
association; this will be turned over to the
city for beginning, and as the tax will give
an income of over one thousand dollars per
annum, in the near future Harper will have
a fine collection of books. How long would
it take an eastern town to work up a scheme
like that? 1t takes the west to keep up with
the times.
I saw Frank Rowan and his brother Elbert,
while in Anthony the 18th. The latter has
been here but few weeks, yet like Frank and
all who come, he is dead in love with Kansas.
1t does one good to see familiar faces once
in while, and to be called by ones first
name, it seems like old times and brings
thoughts of the old school house on Clinton
street where we used to beve so much fun.
The present generation of school children do
not know what royal times we used to have
in that old house, and it is a good thing for
their teachers that they don't. Frank and
Will Rowan, John Sidlinger, Will Allen and
dozens of others used to go to school in the
same room to Mrs. Williams (Aunt Lucy
and to Mrs. Saur; wonder if she remembers
us? And it is enough to bring up old memor-
les to meet an old school mate and be hailed
by the first name out here thousand miles
| from home in the midst of the 'Great Amer
| ican Desert" O. L. E.
The Cause of Hard Times.
Carroll D. Wright, chief of the nationa
bureau of Labor, attempts to give some O