The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-01-24
1T is OUR CITY
Under the leadership of the
Commercial Club.
Let Topeka Press On to 100000
Population.
STIR UP CIVIC PRIDE.
Make Every Man, Woman and
Child in Topeka
Proud of His City and His
State.
WORK HEAPED HIGH
For the Commercial Club and
It's Friends to Do.
The Future of Topeka In Its
Citizens Hands.
AN EXAMPLE OFFERED
Of the Wonders a Pennsylvania
Town
Has Done inManufactures Alone,
Though Not Large.
AN EXAMPLE OFFERED
Of the Wonders Pennsylvania
Town
Has Done inManufactures Alone,
Though Not Large.

Now that the Commercial club of To-
peka has been organized, the business
men of Topeka should hasten to take
mem bership in it. There is a future for
Topeka, but that future must be made by
the men who now live in Topeka.
They may be content to live comforta-
bly, in pleasant country city like Tope-
ka, and be gathered to their fathers, and
buried quietly in the cemetery, after
sleepy and agreeable existence, they
may be millionaires and magnates with
the commerce of many states within their
grasp
There is plenty of money and glory in
hard, judicIous work in the right direc-
tion. Opportunities come to men in
live, growing city, frequently beyond
the widest dreams of their younger
days, and hcnors and riches heaped
the man who has sought them diligently.
go far toward making life worth living.
So why should any Topeka man of vim
and energy be content with what he has?
Let Topeka have 100000 or 10000
people, with its six and eight story
blocks, its improved transportation, big
ger banks. bigger mills, bigger libraries,
theaters, churches, and institutions OF
learning, and more than all, bigger op-
portunities for its citizens to follow out
e
selves and for others.
Every man wants to occupy as large a
place in the worlds affairs rs he is cap
able of filling and the bigger tho city
where his life work is carried on, the
more substantial the fulcru1n on which
he rests his lever.
By organization men can do more
than singiy. The Commercial club is to
be an aid toward making Topeka more
of center for Kansas wealth. influence.
and culture than it is now. 1t will find
its hands full of work and work of the
best kind.
Today a letter comes to the JOURNAL
Office from Kansas man, close
observer who has been visiting at York,
Pennsylvania. His letter is so entirely
in touch with the objects of the Com
mercial club that the JoURNAE gives it
in full. The writer says:
"a visitor from Kansas to New England
and Pennsylvania, will at once conclude
that the greatest necessity of the Sun
flower state today is factories of all
kinds.
"Too much money goes out of the state
every year for manufactured articles
We dig wealth like heroes out of the soil,
and Kansas is great state in agriculture,
but as people we will never attain per.
manent prosperity till we have eStab-
tished factories to make our own boots
and shoes, and all articles We may use in
the home, in the shops, and on the farm
"One is overwhelmed with surprise
when he learns how much cash is drawn
out of Kansas through banks in the
east, for nearly everything we use.
The city of York, or little York, as it is
called, though 1t is no longer little, hav-
ing population of 10000 souls, has in
the past fifteen years become the largest
manufacturing city in the United States
in proportion to its population.
Take few of the institutions of York |
and observe the facts about them, and |
Kansas people will learn a lesson how to |
supplement her rich soil by mills.
Quadruple her wealth and make her
most potent factor in every department of
the government.
"Ihe York Carriage works turns out |
froW 200 to250 carriages every day and |
the genial manager Informed your cor |
respondent that many of them reached |
Kansas. By close figuring and careful |
business management they are clearing |
10 per cent on the capital invested, while |
at the same time giving employment to
S0o operatives, who rent houses buy |
groceries aud swell the commercial in
terests of the city.
zone is surprised to learn that all they
ask Is net profit of from three to four
dollars on each buggy The old argu-
ment that we haven't the timber and iron
in Kansas and therefore cannot compete
with eastern factories, has no force when
we recall the fact that the timber
for most of these carriages is trans-
ported from Michigan and Wisconsin
Illinois and Missouri agree to lay down
the iron bar in their factory at the same
price as the Pennsylvania mills. Some
OF the material Tor these carriages comes
from New England, which is farther
from ork than Topeka is from Missouri
and Arkansas
lake another institution, The York
caro- and Paper company an immense
covering three and one