The Wichita daily eagle., 1895-08-30
KANSAS HUMBUGGERY.

thousand dollars in some ten Of the
largest daily papers of the country, in
the way of page write-ups. The News
suggests that the city Of Hutchinson
should decline to contribute one dallor,
| venturing the opinion that the money
| would be scattered to the wind. The
News advises well.
There is either a grab in the game
or otherwise it is wild nonsense. The
day for advertising Kansas by cheap
descriptive write-ups has long since
passed. The world is pretty well posted
as to the bright and the dark sides of
Kansas. No state in the Union is bet
ter known. Kansas, her mortgage
debts and her big wheat yields; Kan
sas and her grasshoppers and immense
corn crops; Kansas and her drouthS
and prohibitory law; Kansas in all she
is, and in all she ever was and
in all she expects TO be, Is bet
ter known TO the people OF the
United States than is Massachusetts TO-
day. The people of the Pacific coast,
in visiting the east; the people of the
Atlantic coast In visiting the west; the
European traveller to China and Japan,
all take Kansas in, either in going or
coming. There are greater number
of big capitalists, in all of the great
nations of Europe who know more
about Kansas and her railways, Kan
sas and her resources, about Kansas
and her possibilities, than they do of
any other state in the United States,
simply because Kansas has greater
number Of miles of such roads in which
these capitalists are interested. Kan
sas is the central and pivotal state Of
the Union, traversed by the transcon-
tinental and by the midcontinental
highways, running from ocean to
ocean, and from lakes to gulf, and the
state cannot be hid away in a corner,
be lost sight of or go unadvertised.
Kansas does not have half as many
grasshoppers as Colorado, and has
three tines as much rain as Colorado,
or Mexico, or Arizona, or western Tex
as, or California, yet Kansas is adver-
tised and known as the grasshopperiest
and drouthy country on the globe.
What Kansas needs just now is
more business and less blow. more
everyday common horse sense and less
posing. While Kansas is putting in
her time boasting her prohibitory law,
a whisky town Of Missouri is stealing
every chance she ever had of becoming
great through the greatness of her COM
mercial cities. Kansas legislatures
put In winter after winter fighting over
amendments for the better enforce
ment Of "the law while the manage
ments Of the railways which she
should control by law are combining to
pour all that Kansas has or every will
have into the upbuilding OF Chicago
and Of Kansas City. Kansas states
men are for the most part owned by
foreign railway magnates. The states
man at the head OF her government
today was elected upon the pledge that
he would drop fool Improbable senti-
mentality and bury the utopian vagar-
les Of populiSm, but he has done little
else than distract and annoy the only
commercial centers Of the state and
destroy their business opportunities by
making changes in their police govern
ments Kansas is too old TO longer
play the role Of the pretty, immaculate
and innocent coquette successfully,
and the quicker she recognizes her
pubesence and stops playing the pre-
cocious child, the sooner will railway
arrangements cease to fleece her, and
her politicians 10 make fools Of her
people.
To the square inch Kansas has too
much politics and too little business;
too much Of the wishy-washy senti-
ment that characteMzes the statesmen
at Topeka and which runs that town
and dominates the state, and too little
of common, 1895 sense, such as con-
trolls this intensely material age This
Topeka advertising scheme is but 4
type Of the unreal, highfalutin, high
pressure profundity which is knocking
the stuifin' out Of the state. The rail-
ways Of the state by combined and
earnest effort could add a million to
the property values of Kansas where
the Topeka advertising scheme would
secure but few dozen more specimens
Of the pragmatical and the namby-
pamby who would seek TO live on Kan
SaS climate and Kansas water. and
what might be donated TO them by
Kansas people in the way of political
gratuities and honors for helping 10
swell the howl for reform and the bet
ter enforcement Of 1.-THE law"
BOSSES AND PLATFORMS.
Jerry Simpson in an interview at To-