Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-07-01
ABOUT A BOOM.
THE VALUE OF A SQUEEZE---THE
RESULTS OF A LULL.
A Hundred Men Can Secure a Hun
bred Million of Dollars for
Wichita.

eXperieLc2, so lar as trade goes, some Oh
them who have been here since the earliest
days, and who have consequently seen,
experienced and profited by twoor three OF
Wichita's greatest booms, who yet fail to
understand or comprehend the why's or
the wherefores Of these wonderful onward
sweeps which have been made by our city.
These men will readily detail the advan-
tages Of Wichita's location, the power of
her prestige in wealth and trade, the value.
of her ascendency and the superiority OF
her railway service and connections over
those of any city in the west. the prepon-
derance of her capital and Of the multi
piled stable interests which i'll growing
and developing must demand others, yet
who fail to grasp the encompassment Of
growth or advancement commonly nomi-
mated "a BOOM" The mediums of sub
stantial increase of population, of wealth
and trade they will accurately weigh and
analyze, Ia Of the synthesis or the unfit
cation o. the impulses, temper
and inspirations of boom which
lifts and spreads they seem
utterly ignorant and Obvious. How a
hope is implanted and developed into a
faith which begets concerted action they
know nothing, not even of their smaller
incidents and efforts, at least it seems So
We are not speaking now of the average
citizen but of the successful business men
who when things were going swimlngly
with them and with Wichita, not only i'm
agined they had something to do with 1t,
but who would proceed on the slightest
revocation to tell how they did it ali.
This class of boomers" have been at sea
for months, at sea with no compass, sea
which 10 them there is no bottom or hori-
zon. The editor of this paper has been
conferred with, bored, advised and direct
ed within ten months by hundreds of these
formerly self sufficient financlers, nine out
ten OF whom heard every word that we
said at the court house upon that memora-
bic night.
But we did not start out to tell our bust
ness men and property holders what IS
necessary to 'bOom," or why boom"
is impossible at one time and easy at an
other, or to even find fault with people
whose former blessings and good wishes
have been more lately interlarded with
curses, simply because they never under
stood either the source of their former
prosperity or later squeeze, but to say that
things are ripening again, not only
the crops, which are very, yet not abso-
lutely necessary, but THINGS, THE THINGS
upon which booms are predicated, yet
which are generally speaking so little IN
derstood.
If there should occur no bitches or en-
tirely unexpected drawbacks in the mat
tiers fixed or going forward most swingly
and which are in the unselfish hands
which have willingly and successfully
worked in the past with no demand for
pay or reward, and if the average business
man and property holder of this city will
be but true to his own interests and true
to himself, true only as it is made plain to
him, in the next few days to come, that IS
if the property holder will take care OF his
plain part, when plainly understood by
him, then Wichita viii have another boom
before snow flies, and which VIII run no
man can tell how long, nor how far, but
which will fill up scattered additions, add
population by the thousands, enterprises
of magnitude which have not even been
spoken of in the board of trade rooms,
swell out shrinkages, advance realty
prices over and beyond what they ever
were, and make sure to the
eyes and understandings of the commercial
world what he EAGLE has talked for
many years. the fact that the next great
link in the chain of commercial cities is
Wichita, whose next spring will be a
spring into a life. and holding an equal
importance with Kansas City, Omaha,
Minneapolis and Denver as such center.
The one side, the important side, which
a. cod
growth and development is all settled and
taken care of, and cannot be baked or dis
astrousiy effected, if the property holders
and business men but take care of the sub
sidiary enterprises which they can en-
compass and which viii be offered in an
open and above board manner in the inn
mediate future, even though the court
house text" alluded to should never again
be remembered save by the few who have
ever since faithfully acted upon it. OF
these last matters, or side, the president Of
the board of trade. its executive, and rail
road. and manufacturing committees can
give information. OF the other more i'm
portrait matters they will follow and
swiftly.
If the EAGLE ever failed in
in a single prediction touching any won
derful development or specific growth and
boom of Wichita, in seventeen years,
name the time. Touching the one great
lasting boom in the reserve of the Imme-
diate future, there is but one contingency
whereby it can fail, and that contingency
is the possible failure of those whose faith
may have been damped by ii lull-which,
by the way, will prove an absolute bless
ing in the end-we mean failure to rise
equal to the importance ofthe opportunity
of the hour and to resolutely meet its de-
mands: While no man in the community
can be as little hurt by this possible fail
ure as the writer, no man, nevertheless,
will more energetically take care of his
important part of the work or more enthus-
iastlcally rejoice in result which will
mean millions OF meney and victory
whose fruits can never again be ques-
toned or molested-fruits of which in
population, in new great enterprises, in
new IA lVoads, cable and cleo
tric street car lines, in whole
sale traffic and in great live stock mar
ket, will be unavoidable and unsought
sequences of mighty metropolis whose
destiny will be TO I'LL up IS surely as its
destiny was 10 spread out" Powerful
combinations and gigantic interests, whose
forces and influences reach from the At
lantic TO the Pacific, from the lakes
10 the Gulf ramifying all the financial
affiliations of the country and speeding
and swerving its wheels of commerce.
hinge upon events which have been beyond
reach for months but which are again
ours and which we, as a people, can con-
troi aud make our own finally-our own