The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-01-14


within year.
In the Early Days.
-School district bonds were issued for
the construction of school house, under
authority of the statutes. bearing interest
at the rate of ten per cent per annum,
for period of not more than five years,
and their sale prohibited at price less
than eighty cents on the dollar And it
is fact we'll known to those who lived
| in Kansas at that time, that this law was
only available to districts favorably Iocat-
ed as to population and cultivated sur
roundings Many could not place their
bonds at all under this twenty per cent
limit of discount Even as late as 1868
the city of Leavenworth, with its
known wealth and prestige as the
metropolis of Kansas, found it
difficult to sell $50,OU0 of its bonds to
erect high school building, at this legal
| limit of discount; and when purchaser
was found for them, he was hailed as a
! public benefactor, as we'll he might be,
for no man outside of the state could be
found with confidence enough in the un-
known future of Kansas to risk such a
sum.
Since that date the state has had
| strange, almost weird history and ex-
perience. Prosperity and adversely have
| followed each other in quick succession.
| We have had whitening droughts and
| devasting insects; "booms" of pros perity
and phenomenal speculation, followed
! by "boomerangs" of adversity and stag
nation. ave have touched the keystone
in the arch of hope, and sat upon the
mud-sill at the base of despair,'
The Hand of an Evil Genius.
| But from the worst, or all of these, we
have suffered far less than from the virus
of unrest, discomfort, and disloyalty, in
jected into our blood by the hand
of an evil genius to poison
| manly courage and self-reliant en-
ergy at the fountain of It's source. We
| have been tempted to despise the methods
/ and look with contempt upon the Iegiti-
mate fruits of honest industry and indi-
vidual enterprise; to lean upon the gov
| ernment and demand from it that which
can alone be maintained through Eer-
| sonal industry and rigid economy. The
lesson taught in the framing of our nom
! paternal government, that "a people gov
erned least is governed BEST" seems to
have remained unlearned still.
| The Greatest Triumph of Human En-
| deavOR
Yet, with all this, the fact remains,
that Kansas has moved on its course up
to the stars" 1t is safe to say as a truth,
| that so large measure of prosperity, SO
| rapid an accumulation of wealth and
| surrounding physical comforts, has never
before been realized from like invest
ment of money and labor, in the history
| of human endeavor, as has been accom-
| p;ished here in Kansas since her admis-
FAon Into the uniOn.
Then we had scarcely 100000 people;
now we have 100000 Then the total
assessed valuation of property was $24,-
| T44.563; now it is 1881. 501. .722 The
total taxes of 1851 were only $76 335 53;
| in 1898 they were SIS, ,102, 794. The en-
6tTe wealth of the state was then less than
$60,000,O 900; in 1890 the wealth of the
state, as shown by the United States cen
sus reports, was about $500 100000.
Then the center of population was at the
east boundary line of Douglas county;
now it is at the west line of Dickinson
county. Then there was not mile of
operated railroad within the state; no w
we have S,9OS miles, only Illinois and
| Pennsylvania, of all the states, exceed
| ing this in mileage.
A Remarkable Railroad Record.
We have a greater mileage than the
great Empire state, New York; more
than thousand miles greater than all
the New England states combined, with
their five and half million population,
and the accumulated Industries of more
than ID century, as the manufacturing CEN
ter of the continent. On these lines of
trans s-continental and lateral railways
| have sprung up more than 100 centers of
population and business. cities the least
of which contains more than d thousand
people, and in the aggregate 3S1, ,173.
domicIled in thrift and comfort, with
churches. school houses, court houses
water and light plants, not equaled in
towns of like population in any Of the
original states of this union. More than
two-thirds of these cities have increased
in population during the past year, not
withstanding the existing depression.
The Practical Monuments OF Education.
The national land endowment OF our
educational institutions has been man
aged by wise legislation and prudent ad-
mInistration known in the experience of
no other state, until we have an interest
bearing common school fund in bonds
and land contracts, of $9,6S6. .993; an
/ agricultural college fund of $502,-
927.35: State university fund of
$40, 751; and a State Normal school fund
of $I37,211. The State university has
received added endowments, by bequest,
of a greater sum than that from the gov
ernment. but which are not included in
the aggregate amount of interest earn
ing funds, making a grand total of all
funds sacred to education of $40, AS I, ,S02;
the annual income from which at six per
cent, amounts to the sum of $62S,07112,
as a current fund to aid in the problem
of education. There have been con-
!. structed 9,O8S public school houses, at an
aggregate cost of $40, 0,703, ,7J8, and chief
ly by the issue and sale of district bonds,
about S60J0,000 of which have been
paid and Cancelled. In these buildings
are employed II, 1888 teachers, at cost
| of So, ,U6J, ,459 45 year; the total tax levied
and collected for common school pur
| poses being $500, ,986.11 per annum
The total sum paid for educational pur-
poses for the past year, in the state, was
: about So, 100000 In 1899 we had 4,92C
: church organizations, with 1854 build
!. ings. valued at $7,447, 500
PAY as You Co. the Motto.
There have been expended for state
buildings the following sum. nearly al
> of which have been paid for from cur
rent levies. in cash: State university