Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-06-10
MORE RAILROADS NEEDED.

| ~ IHe Euitor VI Inc EasIe.
Wichita needs a railroad from Wichita
to Douglas on the southeast.
| Wichita needs a railroad from Andale
| to klngman or TurOn.
! Wichita needs a railroad to the Medi-
cine Lodge country.
| Wichita needs a railroad connection
with Harper.
! Wichita's commercial interests demand
! a railroad into the heart of that territory
| penetrated by the southwestern branch of
the Rock Island and Santa Fe railroads.
Let us be plain with each others and
| face facts-plain facts.
Facts. like figures, are stubborn things
and at times are endowed with faculty
| Of making things uncomfortable. How
ever proudly we may plume ourselves
on the vantages possessed by location,
wealth, population, railroad connections,
| manufacturing and industrial enterprises
| candor compels us to concede that 1.-THE
race is not always to the swift nor the
battle to the strong" and that other
rivals have railroad connections, some
wealth and energy industry and ambi-
ton. and that we are at present not adj
vancing. May we not be receding like
other towns! What is the gain to us to
hear fifty times day that we are the
best town in Kansas. and the most lively
in point of business in the west, and that
other towns are in worse condition than
we are? Where is the qualification in
knowing that other towns are on a stand
still, Or, financially, ''cloSe!'
Did we start out to be only the best
town in Kansas and agree with other
towns to quit when we reached that
point!
Do we run our own business with a
view to only keeping ahead of our fell
lows, or do we forge ahead year after
year as though we intended to get the
earth before we rested!
There is too much confidence in our
fate, too much blind faith in what we
feel to be oursdestiny. We have fallen
into the habits of boys with rich daddies
that everything will be provided with
out exertion on our part. Since securing
the Rock Island railroad our people as
an entirety have not seriously thought
on railroads. 1t may not be
out of the way to recall the
conception of Wichita's railroads
simply to prove that these things, as well
as others, We're the result of labor and
not of luck; not the gifts of fortune but
the rewa d of pluck.
Many believe and some assert that
these railroads intended to make Wich-
tia point, and concealed the intention
to work u.s. for bonds, hence we voted
bonds. foolishly, and received only what
was intended for uS-therefOre luck, not
labor, brought these railroads.
Let us examine the facts from 1871
down to 1887.
First-The Santa Fe had no induce
ment to come to Wichita but bonds. Its
landed interests on the main line were
damaged by the extention from Newton
to Wichita, Its cattle shipments were
not much advanced by the line. All the
cattle shipped were forced to cross its
line to ship on any other. The building
of the line retarded the sale of Land
grant" lands because a field was open of
better lands. Hence the labor of Mead.
Griffenstein, Steele, English, and others,
backed by bonds, obtained the railroad.
Second The Frisco, to reach US,
abandoned the southern tier of counties
and, except Wichita, made no town
point on its line which was better than
the towns abandoned. The business men
of Wichita worked assiduously to get
proposition irOu tne Ioau aiu d. id9s
succeeded. Foremost in this work was
c. Wood Davis, of Sedgwick county,
ably seconded by the then Business
Mems association.
Third. The Fort Scott railroad, ship
without a rudder, whose captain, a bold
bucaneer, was sailing without anchor
DER stormy seas, trusting to luck and
pluck, and constant to one idea from first
to last, viz: