The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-03-22
LIES ONLY LIES.
How Wichita Suffers From Impossible Ex
aggeration.

Probably no city Of its age in the coun-
try has ever been as much misrepresented
and in every conceivable direction. The |
| result is that every stranger who happens
within her borders is surprised more than |
he can express. Her shortcomings and |
disadvantages, if indeed she has any, have |
| been exaggerated, her excellencies distor- |
toned out of all proportion. For instance
it is often declared that Wichita has forty
thousand people. That is not true as the
late census returns of the United States
gave her but twenty-three thousand and
/ four hundred We saw a printed state
ment the other day that all the streets OF
| Wichita were paved III asphal0,
| brick and jasper, when everybody
ought to know that but three prln-
cipal business streets ara so paved,
not counting cross streets. An eastern
spectators circular announces that Wlch-
tia has three public buildings that cost
half million each, when the facts are that
the county building cost but bare
quarter of a million, the government
court house but little more than two hum
dred thousand and the new city hall just
round hundred thousand We saw map
the other day that showed seventeen rail-
roads running into and out of Wichita
when there are but ten actually built and
in operation. An migration circular sets
it down that Wichita has seventy-flve
miles of electric railway and one hundred
and fifty miles of sewerage mains and
latterals, while the facts are all the electric,
moter and horse lines OF street railways
combined measure less than seventy
five miles and the new sewer
system Just completed measures but a lit
tie more than sixty-four miles. 1t Is gen.
orally understood by outsiders that Wlch-
tia has blocks upon blocks of five and SIX
story buildings, when the bald truth is,
but one six story and a half-dozen i've
story buildings and blocks in all the town,
the majority of the business houses being
two, three, and four stories high, only. A
pamphlet on Education in the West
| credits Wichita with ten university, col
lege and academy buildings, when there
, are but six of such buildings not counting
the parochial school building and the four
teen public school buildings. A table in
, the Topeka Capital the other day showed
Wichitas bank clearings to be upwards OF
= two millions, when the official reports
show them to be little less than million
weekly.
9 The Commercial Reporters Gazette in
defining the jobbing fields of the south
a west says Wichita has fifty or more ex'
elusive wholesale houses, when, as oul
f.. own advertising columns attest, there
are but twenty-seven such concerns IL
y the city and their trade does not touch
Colorado, Mexico and Arizona, as claimed
Y in but an intermittent and scattering
manner, the trade of these firms in the
4 main being confined to south Kansas, tC
Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, and the
;, Panhandle with a few lines running into
Arkansas and northern Texas. A packer
| circular to foreign trade, during the win
ter, declared that upwards of million
hogs were being packed per year a
Wichita when in fact the entire
l stock yard receipts have not reached tina
number for a single year, and, OF
an average of but 1000 hogs or less pc
. day are packed at this point. The Boston
= Herald some time since announced tina
the Burton Car works at Wichita EN-
- ploved fifteen thousand hands. when ou
people know that less than three hundred
, workmen can be found in all the shops o
that company. Only last week visitor T.
' this city said that he was reliably in
- of two hundred people, and that the circu
~ lation of the paper was coextenslve VIII
trans Missouri country, reaching into tn
r hundreds of thousands, when in trutl
j. this paper has not had as many as on
hundred on its pay rolls for many months
IS and the circulation never reached, for an
s. considerable length of time, but llttl
more than seventeen thousand four nun
ho
And so we might go on.
These inflated misrepresentation ar
ID more harmful in the long run than thos
of a derogatory character. The truth
good enough and the truth is what WI
IN win in the end The final estimate OF tn
y man who invests approXimates the exist
ing fact, and if he has been misled IN Tn
a, directions indicated his disappointment
IL fatal: while upon the other hand II 1t
all better and brighter than he had ante
pated or had reason to believe, he is NOR
~ than content to cast his lot and fortune
~ with us While the EAGLE has been az
cused of blowing for and about Wichita
as no one ever came forward with the accuse
Ct ton that we had stretched the truth III
N experience has been that the response
of strangers were, you haven't tol
" us half of the real advantage
Il, half of the solid facts boosted by the city.
81 1t makes no difference how great may
the prejudices and how enormous the col
C ceptions of the home seeker If he ol
as comes himself upon the ground, there
,s- not one place in thousand that Will
quickly captivate as Wichita. The max
ND of the town, its situation. the una
d. proachable maguificence of its rich vale
ce, surroundings, its substantial metropolis
or air. its business-street life, its reslden
street adornments. all weigh in wa
which all species of exaggeration fail