Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1890-10-25
] PUT DOWN to ROCK BOTTOM PRICES!

radius of ten miles from the chair in
which write. Within that same cir
Gle are ten other towns of which time
and space will not permit me to speak
in this letter but which have their sew
eral kinds of manufactures.
This is birds.cye view of single
spot IN this wonderful land. Thirty
years ago it was farming and some
manufacturing. Now il is nearly all
manufacturing and very little farm.
ing. They rely upon the west for all
they eat. a general strike on all the
railroads would produce famine in
three days in New England such as
Ireland never witnessed.
This change from agriculture TO
manufacturing has changed the pop
ulation. A very large foreign element
has been called 10 these factories
and her own sons and daughters are
now found scattered in every state
from the beautiful Hudson to the Pa
cific coast.
Ina former letter, l think / said
that Kansas was more New England
than this home of my childhood. l
think from what / have already said
YOU may infer the reasons. Once she
was noted for the high moral charac-
ter of her people. Such is not her
Leading characteristic to-day. Once
she was moral and educational force
in the world. To-day she may be the
latter but not the former.
Many of my old students in Baxter
are familiar with the writings of j. g.
Holland. For many years he was a
writer and editor of the Springfield
Republican, aud it was republican
pure and indebted. That paper has
always been the leading journal of
western New England. l was sur
prised to notice The change in its NOR
al tone. Once it could not be bought
with gold to-day it is the organ OF The
whisky aristocracy. With many other
journals it is well paid to make the
east believe that prohibition in Kan
sas is failure; that our hard times
are all the results of prohibition.
What greater lie could hell invent
than such a sentiment? Every Kan
sas man knows that partial failure
of crops for several years and the low
prices for which they have been COM
PEELED to sell their products are the
real causes. When stated such 10 be
the fact, a very intelligent reader of
the Republican expressed his surprise.
He then asked many questions. some
of which were very amusing to me. l
can find more bloated faces and ruined
homes in one day anywhere in Massa-
chusetts than / have seen in seven
years in Kansas. 1t is no wonder that
her criminals are increasing at fear
full rate ard that her two old political
parties are as corrupt as the heart Of
Chicago or New York city.
AS l gaze over the hills of New Eng
land and look into the numerous
towns and cities where the population
is almost as dense as on the banks of
the Nile or the Euphrates three thou
sand years ago, / am forced to ask
myself, what is to be their future? Is
this fair civilization of my childhood
and my manhood to pass away and an
other to take its place? Are these
towns and cities 10 lie in ruin ut no
distant day? Are not the same causes
to work in our own day that worked
the ruin of ancient Athens and the de-
struction of the Roman Empire. see
in New England that same love of lux
ury, ease and vice that marks the de-
cadence ofall those ancient cities, from
the Euphrates to the cities of the Tt
Der. see also many causes of war
and famine that did not exist IN an
cient DAYS. There is the labor ques-
tons; there Is the whisky question
more dangerous than slavery,
because it is national while slavery
was sectional there is the race ques-
ton which is considered in the south
the question of all question; then the
question of foreign emigration, may,
in few years, become so complex as
| to lead to q universal war.
As Gen. Sherman said in Boston,
"There will always be wars" so 1t APP
pears that the representatives of the
American nations who met at Wash
iAgtOn and talked of settling all ques-
tions by arbitration went home and
went to war. Europe has held her
great counsels for arbitration and now
they are all preparing for war on
scale never witnessed before. The
signs of the times all 60 strongly to
indicate universal war and the truth
fnlness of tho Generals statement.
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