The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-06-05

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pregnably fortified in the judgment OF
the people. Rash and misguided indeed
would be the aspirant for public favor,
who would now attempt to propitiate
any constituency by parsimony in any
just appropriation for the state univer-
slty, whose triumphs are more useful
than those of Mammon, and more glorl-
Gus than those upon the field of war.
1T ia most fortunately situated in this
lovely and liberal city, rich in culture
and refinement, indissolubly associated
with the names and deeds of the pio-
neers, surrounded by an Incompatible
landscape of which it is the gem and
crown.
'In its development it fltly represents
and typi1es the marvellous intelligence,
the personal civilization of Kansas; that
vast marvellous aggregation of forces as
sembled upon this focal area or the con-
tinent an unexampled conhux from
earth's nearest and remotest habitation,
representing every nationality beneath
the armament
IAN accumulation of energy restless
but persistent and tenacious that has
performed in thirty years the work of
centuries elsewhere, that has pushed
westward from the Missouri, building
cities and towns, constructing highways,
all religions, accepting nothing because
1t was new; judging men by
what they can do, abrogating
venerable dogmas; carrying the
theory of self government to its
logical conclusions; leaving every man
and woman to make any experiment in
politics, society, morals or religion and
everywhere in the tranquil valleys of the
slow streams, upon the vague illimitable
fluctuations of the prairies and upon the
melancholy plains that stretch to the
sunset shadows of the mountains of Col
orado building the church and the school
to provide all her children with means
OF acquiring a thorough knowledge of
literature, science and arts; sowing broad
cast that most profta Bile seed which no
blizzard can blast no drouth can parch,
no hot wind scorch, to terminate in the
preceptlve minds of her progeny; bring
ing forth first the blade, then the ear,
then the full corn on the ear, and yield
ing perpetual harvests of good deeds,
better lives and purer manhood and
womanhood so long as time shall endure.
you are justly to be congratulated,
gentlemen of the graduating class, upon
your choice of profession. The three
main avenues to that which mbitious
and aspiring men regard as success in
WAS X O-LAOnOJ9 4dU1Os l1nOouCSs DOWSIg
are law, journalism and railroad man
agement. The leader of the bar in a
metropolis, the proprietor of great in
dependent newspaper, the management
of solvent trunk railroad system, have
at their command the richest prizes and
rewards, from the material and practical
worldly point of view that the nineteenth
century affords
"Ihey are the monarchs of thought
and action; and of these three occupa-
tons in the verdict of mankind and the
judgment OF history the law unqualifiedly
takes rank as the first in importance and
estimation. And this is especially true
in the United States, where the artificial
distinctions of birth, caste and station are
abolished, and the battle of life is fought
hand to hand with no inherited weapons
or armOr.
"This supremacy has been apparent
from the beginning of our annals. Poll
tics have been largely in its hands, and
must remain SO as long as political ques-
tiOns continue to be involved with the in
depreciation of the constitution. For the
first sixty or seventy years the leading
statesmen were lawyers as a whole, mold
ed and led the public opinion of the
country. And this is as true now as then.
All of the presidents but four have been
lawyers; not less than 80 per cent of the
senate are members of the bar, and the
preponderance in the house and the state
legislatures has been SO marked and uni
form as to forbid the assumption that il
has been due to either caprice or acct
dent"
In speaking of the responsibilities OF
lawyers in the future he drew a dark
picture of the coming conflict between
penury and opulence. The violence and
disorder of late years, the destruction oil
property, the bloodshed, indicated, he
said, the dangers that might come should
Samson bow himself between the pillars
of the house. The sullen mutter of dis
content came closer and closer, and it re-
quired the conservative elements of So
ciety to unite to prevent radical changes
in the nations institutions.