The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-05-11

81 look back, my friends, few years
| aud can scarcely believe that where L
! stand on the 22nd of April, 1889, there was
nothing but a few meu gathered. Ana /
| believe you gave those who came in the
! forenoon the name of 'sooners [Iaughterl,
what they used to call in the old states Il
! little too previous But they were here.
! After II O'Clock, looking over where the
trains are. and looking along towards the
Cherokee strip, there came rolling IN,
under the proclamation or the president,
-, coo people-ccming from the norta.
coming from the south, east aud west
TO found new state. There had not
been . plow III the ground;
there had never been heard the
song of the harvester; there had never
been heard the seEg Of the reaper, four
wears ago. And again, when the Sac and
| Fox country was opened there was the
same scenes the same multitude coming
in to build up your TERRITORY. And, again,
| in the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country,
there " as the same scene. 1t was won
Gerful example not only Of enterprise, but
all the people coming together Tor new
! homes seeking TO better their condition.
Men who had lost everything came here
expecting 10 build them up; men who had
something came here TO endeayor 20 in
crease it; men OF all nations, Of all colors,
OF all conditions in life, came together.
1DSg dII CGIlc Oub OF GIG DJSULl VI LIIC
great American people.
Now what happened If they had
been any other people in the world, from
any other country, on an occasion when
every man was filed only with the desire
OF increasing his fortune; when 10 settle
upon quarter-section was to own il;
when there were SO many rushing back
and forth In wagons, on horseback and on
foot, seeking to gain something, each one
for himself-most nations, | undertake to
say, If they had sent colony forward like
that, would have looked forward at that
time for blood and dead bodies. But the
American had learned his lesson before he
came to Oklahoma; he had learned il at
bis mothers knees and by his fathers ex-
ample; he had learned it in the older
states:he had learned this one great lesson:
that the only reliance under the repu ublican
form of government is in reverence for
ard obedience to law and he determined
to have them. [Applausel
You may talk OF the great battle6eids
or the Union, where meu were bleeding
for liberty, where our men barred their
bosOms to the enemy's bullets TO preserve
tor us independence and freedom. But in
this there was 4 great difference. We
would expect that every man would be
filled with the desire and purpose to seize
and hold what he could, aud to fight down
and Kill any man that opposed him; but
no such feeling prevailed. Every man
said 10 himself, Today will be an exam
pie TO my children in the future am an
American citizen. acting today under the
greatest temptation, but l Will obey the
law lApplause.I That feeling was COM
mon; the people were one in that idea. It
was then that from my office | wired to
yon that he who obeyed the law would be
supported, aud that the man who under
took to break it would gain nothing by it.
That was carried out as long as | was in
the chair, to the best of my ability. It.
was enforced under the attorney general
aud your own able district attorney, Mr..
Speed,