The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1891-01-27
AMERICAN KANS AS.
The Prairie state Assimilafes Foreigners
With surprising RaPIdIy.

Inc Prairie Sts-At
With surprising Rapidly.
Every one in the first days welcomed
the people from abroad. The Free
dom" people were certa n that Germans,
Hungarians and Poles would be on their
side, and so it turned out. Since those
days the gates have been open. The
Germans have come in, but have not as
such started any distinctiveiy German
communities. The Swedes have opened
their farms and built their homes in
Saline, Mcpherson and Republic Coun-
ties The French have started little
colonies in Franklin. Chase and Marion,
and there is village of Neuchatel in
Nemaha, which betokens French or
Swiss people about; and there are hun
1reds of French-Canadians in Cloud
County. and there are Welsh in Usage
and Lyon, and sprinkling of Italians
in Usage. and thousands of settlers from
Russia in Mcpherson, Harvey, Marion
and Butler. and others of different re-
ligion in Ellis. Beside in Rawlins there
are people from Galicia. who speak Ger
man, but are usually called Hungarians-
Looking over this collection of tongues
and peoples hasty observer might
conclude that Kansas was ''catch-all,"
and one of those Americans who de-
prives himself of all the comforts at
tached to his birthright by soaring
himself about the foreign inroad,"
might be ready to give up the ship.
Yet, after all, Kansas is a very Amer
lean country.
The reason that the 'Melican man."
as our Chinese visitors call him, is the
ruling figure in Kansas is because there
is a good deal the most of him, and be-
cause the American spirit fuses all the
materials that are cast into the Kansas
crucible. Whoever stays in Kansas
must become Kansan, and that means
An American of the most advanced type.
1t is IN the ar.
The Kansas citizen who loves 10
frighten himself and, if possible, alarm
the neighborhOod, was suffering two or
three years ago from apprehensiOns that
the soil of Kansas would be absorbed
by ''barons' of British extraction. A
baron" who bore the not very noble
name of Scully, and who was reported
a resident of London, was represented
to have bought large portion of Marion
and Butler Counties, and as reducing
the peasantry of that region TO a con-
dition worthy of the worst days of Ire
land. The Legislature was besOught TO
interfere as against aliens who might
buy Kansas land in quantity. but so
many Kansans were found who had land
to sell to aliens that the legislation
called for was not forthcoming. The
alarm has since subsidized.
In Kansas what has been discovered
in the course of ia years of free gov
eminent has been and is being put in
practice. 1t works we'll for native and
foreign born. All the nationalities have
been called in to work on the job. On
page 703 of Wilder's annals is found
this note:
Kansas is great because cosmopolitan. OF
the Officers of the city of Lesvenworth
George Ummethun. the mayor. was a Ger
man; Colonel Moonlight. the city marshal,
q Scotchman; Con Cartan, the weighmaster
10 an Irishman; Christian Beck, the street
commissioners, q Dane; DR.. Victor Biart, the
city physician, a Frenchman. OF the coun-
cilmen elected 8. Y. Burdett is an English
man; ii. A Wohlfstron, an Alsatian; John
o'Baren and owen Duffy lrishmen, and
Martin Smith Prussian.
What is coming is plainly to be seen.
They have taken to raising the Amer
lean flag on the school house and keep
ing it flying from sunrise 10 sunset like
a garrison flag. That is what young
Kansas thinks about il. Flag waves to
flag across the prairie, stripe reveals
itself to stripe, and star answers to star.
The fathers and mothers may have
gathered from the ends Of the earth, the
children are OF Kansas KanSan. In the
heart Of America shall blossom the per-
feet flower of patT .otism.-Noble L
Prentis, in Kansas City Star.