The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-01-29
A Fairy Tale. but One That Well Applies to
the Queen of States.

PlUCKY KANSAS.
A Fairy Tale. but One That Well Applies to
the Queen OF States.
There was girl queen born myriad
ages ago, in the day OF fairy land. and
at her birth the stars singing together
in the morning of time bethought them
of the gift they should bring her, to be
woven by the great shuttle of events
into the girl queens destiny. And
one star said: Let us give her beauty"
And they sang of beauty, but it is such
an old story and such short story
that they tired of it; and another star
said: Let US give her wealth." but
the song they made up to go with that
gift was such feeting song that
they rejected it. Said another
Fame" but the song of fame was hol-
low. and the song of glory which an
other star began faded into an echo.
So the stars were silent, and the girl
queen, in her crib swinging upon q
spider web, languished for an hour
without destiny, and then up spake
one quiet star and said: Let us give
the girl queen gift such
as the gods receive" and thus
it was the girl queen was given
the gift of Pluck; and the stars changed
martial brass and booming drums and
bloOd-tingling flies into her baby
ears, and 10! when she came into the
fullness of her heritage the queens
brave eyes glowed in beauty. Wealth
was her handmaiden, while Fame sang
songs of her through all the world,
and Glory printed her name upon the
everlasting hills And as the years
flew past the pale, quiet star which
gave the queen her destiny watched
over her and led her upward and on
ward-ad astra per aspera.
When the myth tales of the sister
mood of states shall be told this will be
the story of Kansas.
It was nearly forty years ago that
Arson Burlingame, Standing on the
;mprovised rostrum in the streets of
the pioneer town of Leavenworth,
said: eff I had it in my power I
would blaZon over every school
house in this great territory, Pluck,
Pluck, Pluck" Some unseen power
seems to have made these words an
oracle and battle cry. Pluck is the
watchword of Kansas, the talisman
by which she overcomes all her diff
culties. A generation ago a barren
waste stretched from the Missouri to
the Rockies. The adamantine prairie
soil sprouted few sickly patches of
fuzzy buffalo grass-the last struggle
Of nature with the inevita bic sterility-
and along the streams jagged growth
Of underb brush crouched lower and
lower under the merciless beating Of
the summer sun, and the fretful lash
ing of the winter wind, until the
streams crept beneath the soil or only
ran along the sand by titful spells and
left the stunted elms and sickly cotton
woods to perish in the desert where
the faithless streams had lured them.
This was the Kansas of the latter day
pilgrims who
Crossed the prairies, as OF old
Their fathers crossed the sea"
1t was bleak, hopeless wildness. re-
pulsive to life, rebuffing man and his
civilization with almost the ferocity of
wild beast. 1t was harsh, offensive,
cruel, and thousands upon thousands
Of good men and women have died in
the struggle that came with the tanning
If this spirit of the desert. To-day for
three hundred miles garden stretches
In the mild sun OF the first month. In
ten thousand happy homes the twinkle
Of the twilight lamp follows the west
sripg light. million happy people
live upon the soil that under natures
charge yielded only the dwarfed and
stunted products of sterility, and Pluck
nas conquered, and Pluck has fortified
the land.
Pluck has made the flower blow
where the dusty rag weed choked itself
to death along the bone-strewn high
way. Pluck has armed the tender
blue grass against the hard, tough, yet
eowardly verdure of the buffalo wal
low" Pluck has won the great fight
for Kansas, and by the token of the
creaking windmills far ont on the high
prairie the battle is still going on
Year by year the line Of march goes
further ahead Year by year Pluck
plants her ensign on a ridge nearer 20
the mountains. Year by year the
flowers bloom where the bones of fall
are b'eached a few short months be-
fore.
And this IS the history of Kansas
such a. is worth the telling Ad astra
per aspera, and over every schoolhouse,
L.