The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-09-04

lions.
It is no disparagement of this yeo-
man-Who perhaps offers US in his COM
munitteS as close an approximation to
the industrial Arcadia as we shall ever
See-to say that in dealing with the
complicated problems of government
or ethics or social reform he is the
raShest of all men. The whole disci-
pine of his life has taught him a daunt-
less directness which goes at an OBJ
StructOn or an evil with a grubbing
hoe or a sub-soil plough
He has built with his muscles
IN an incredibly short space of time
ana IN spite of almost insuperable diff
ncuItles, an opulent commonwealth; he
has seen independence wrung from
the wilderness, an art and culture COM
ing to sit down by his doorstep. It is
always a practical achievement in his
eve and, now that he is called upon to
be no longer executive but reflective
he attacke the complicated problems of
modern life with the same faith in him
self, the same primitive convictions
and the same grubbing hoe that has al
ways been his wand and his weapon.
This IS the man of dangerous enthu-
slasnns, because his zeal always rests
upon one or two incOrrigib1e cOnVic-
lions. This is why his temperance re-
FORM assumes the aspect of a prairie
IRE; This is why he likes an
orator, who, whether she is is
praying down rum seller or an
sWer1ng BOurke Cochran. earns her
applause by the sweat OF her brow
This is why there is a horny-handed
oratOry coming in a reflex wave upOn
us from the west This mans view Of
the veXed intricacies of all the great
problems may be called the furrow
view He turns it over in his unerring
way with faith in himself that is ex-
pected to remove mountains. It is in
tellectually impossible for him to IN
derstand the mental attitude of a man
who can see more than one side of this
question, and who has learned to hest
tate and to weigh all the vexed fac
tors in an industrial or moral move
ment. He has only O. = method with
these worldwide questions. He stakes
them out cuts them up into quarter
sectiOns-runs his lines and pre-empts
them, and that jobs done.
That which struck me fOrcibly in the
character OF this home builder was that
MS gain IN sturdy individuality has
been at the expense of his relatively.
He does not clearly see that he is in
terlocked with the whole social system
and must exist reciprocally if he is to
exist prOSperouSly. Somehow he is the
foundation stone, and all the rest of the
pile IS impertinently heaped on top of
MN. IN talking with an intelligent
farmer in Marion county, who came
into the state While she was still tFbleed-
ing, and who. after bringing up a mag
nidcent family and assuring for all Of
them a con1fOrtab bic competence is now
resting on his wrcngs-in talking with
this estimabIe old man, I was amazed
to see how immovably set his mind was
in one direction. By no effort of logic
or persuasion could I get him to look
upon the position of Kansas as COM
pared with any other agricultural coun-
try. He insisted upon comparing it
with what it ought to be in the farmers
scale of values. Nor could the most
strenuous reasoning bring him to con-
SideratiOn of all the factors that We're
operative in falling prices for wheat,
corn and oats. It was not that he
failed to comprehend them-he was in
capable of experimenting them The
one dominating bugaboO of AN eastern
conspiracy had taken such possession
of his mind that nothing else could find
lodgment there.
In the charming home Of this farmer
his youngest daughter sang me song,
accompanying herself on the parlor or
gan She had cut the words from a
newspaper and set them to an old tune.
One verse of it ran thus:
silver, not gold, are the two score of
And they tell for our country its
Down with the hand of the shylock
who mars
For a measure of gold our old Glory
Here's the reply to plutocracy's brag:
Look! They are silver, the stars in
the flag"
You must understand that this SEN
timent affected the little company
deeply. IhelF eyes HaSIeQ ana their
fists doubled up. The old man himself
wiped a corner of his eye. But you viii
have to think awhile before you can
understand the peculiar mental con-
ditions which enable these gOodly peO-
pie to regard silver as the ark of their
covenant upon which the heather has
laid violent hands. You must reflect
that half a century ago these men or
their fathers were fighting here with
Sharpe's rifles and singing that other
song BY Whittier:
I'VE go to rear a wall Of men
On Freedoms southern cline
And plant beside the cotton tree
The rugged northern pine.
f'Uprearing like the ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man"
There was a good deal of the old Cow
enanter seed sown then, and the dispo-
sition to make any political or social
movement sacred duty to the truth OF
God against the fraud of man remains,
in spite of the fact that the state has
outgrown in many respects its colony
zealOtry.
It viii be seen from what I have said
hat regard the wrongs Of the western
agriculturist as, in the main, imagin-
airy The conclusion is only valuable
as it is derived from personal contact
with him. have not been able to
make him differentiate his wrongs from
his disasters, or to strike his balance
sheet of his general prosperity and his
incidental discontinue Whenever he
has suffered, his inclination IS TO at
tribute the cause to malign agencies
working in the east and this is feat
of the imagination that is not incred-
ible after seeing him so easily erect Sill
yer into a sacred emblem Of the repup-
lie and work himself into a patriotic
frenzy because somebody would lay pol
luted hands on a deprecated currency
There is indeed no limit to the prac-