The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-11-29
KANSAS FARM MORTGAGES.
From the Chicago Inter-ooean.

KANSAS FARM MORTGAGES.
From the Chicago Inter-Ocean.
Those Pefferized and pessimistic agita
tors in Kansas who recently succeeded
in fouling their own nest in the hope OF
making political capital out of the fnan-
cial ruin of which they were the proph.
cts, have not been much heard of since
it became known that the bosom of the
Hopper" state is teeming with the
varied fruits of fertile soil and of a
prosperous and enlightened system OF
agriculture. Kansas had a wheat crop
that was wonderful and now has a corn
crop which is surprisingly bountiful, and
for which there seems to be new mar
ket opened in Posen and other parts of
Germany, where the people who for
merly used Russian rye are now pTepar-
| ing to make American corn into good
and wholesome bread. Kansas is in luck
and the jeremiads of PETER and of the
Sockless Jerry Simpson are quenched by
the hum of the thresher and by the
merry-making of the corn huskers.
! But the most complete answer which
the calamity howlers of Kansas have
yet received is the publication of Stats
tics on farms and homes in the Census
Bulletin No. IA just issued from Wash
ington under date of Oct 20. This bull
| letin shows the number of mortgages
placed on record during the past ten
years and the gross amount of farm in
debtedness to be 1882, 1896 OF this
II. II per cent has been on what is term
ed ''acres," by which is meant almost
entirely farms, though it is probable that
the term includes many "acre" lots con-
tiguous to or abutting upon large towns.
The remaining $3.50 per cent, or $780,
431 ,4O6, includes mortgages on town lots,
village, city, or other real estate, IN
volving a species of industry or specula-
ton to be considered wholly apart from
the business of farming, In respect of
which only the cry was raised. The
existing debt of the state of Kansas as
shown by this official investigation was
in January, 1890, S235, 4S5, 1913, and
the proportion of this applying to farms
is stated on the same aut .ority to be
$167, 146, 039. As two harvests have in
tervened since that time, and that of
1891 was exceptionally abundant, it is
safe to say that many of the then exist
ing mortgages are now substantially
diminished.
But even if such liquidation of farm
Indebtedness be impossible, every acre of
land in Kansas, taking the arid lands of
the western counties and the loamy
tracts of the east and north into account,
is worth S12 an acre on an average. Mr..
Henry Gannett, the special agent of the
tenth census, after a thorough investi-
cation, placed the true value of all prop
erty in the state at S760,000, 900 in 1880,
and it is assuredly not worth less now.
But taking only the bare agricultural
value of Kansas, and at the very
lowest estimate, this would make
a total of $500, 374, 400 So that in
stead of the value of the state being
swamped by mortgages. as has been SO
frequent represented, Kansas farms are
not mortgaged to greater extent than
about 20 per cent of their value, which
is happily also increasing as the mort
cages are being paid up 1t is probable
that the value OF Kansas lands is nearer
$50 an acre than S12, and as is limited at
on good authority in the bulletin before
US, that the total assessed value of all
property in Kansas would be 81 ,393, $685.
no, it goes without saying that the esti-
mate of its agricultural value Is very low
and that Kansas property has been badly
aSsailed BY those who should have been
first to defend its credit in the public
mind. Property, like individuals. is hurt
by receiving bad name, especially from
those who interests entitle them to speak
of it with experience. Again, built
etin No. II states that ''of the
total debt in force against acres 81 per
&c 1Or,srorfa1 IN, ~ lands -,
the western part of the state where
was made but few years ago largely
upon public land" The motives also f6r
mourning these debts were the desire to
purchase other land or 10 make improve
ments or TO extend busness-aIl of
which reasons are purely optional and
essentially speculative in their charac-
tern eighty caeS out of hundred in
one county, and eighty-two in another.
Indeed the Investigations show that
Of the entire debt of the
state OF Kansas was incurred for pur-
chase money or improvements, the
greater portion Of which were expended
in sources Of reproductive industry
within the state Itself.
The case of Kansas if strikingly like
that Of an individual newly starting In
business and who has been forced to
borrow. She has borrowed and is now
getting squarely and firmly on her legs
and after improving her fields and con- /
her railroads Is rapidly paving |
away her debts, which at no time have |
been IN such proportion to her actual 1
means as 10 justify the PETERS and the |
the Simpsons in making a cry about her |
bankruptcy for the sake of creating a /
panic and reaping q temporary and |
evanescent political triumph out OF her |
ruin. Such conduct was dIsgraceful, II /
not treacherous, and seems e wise !
jUstihable in the light Of the invsstiga- /
tious revealed by the census bulletin 1
No. "a. which deals very fully with the 4
property statistics Of this growing and /
prosperous state.
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