The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-11-17
DON'TLIKEUSNOW
New England That Always
BOasted of Kansas Origin
Takes lit All Back and Says
We're Outcasts.
WE ARE AMERICANS
Grudgingly Admitted, But Not
the Kind That Secured
Independence of Great Britain
in the Days Of '76.
Kansas Agitation Disturbs
Granny Massachusetts.

The following from the Boston Herald
betrays the fact that Yankee sentiment
toward Kansas has changed. New Eng
land was very fond of us while she was
investing money in the Kansas arid
belt, but because the crops failed and
the settlers couldn't pay their mort
cages and had to emigrate, she now is
] quite certain that Kansas people are
some low, mongrel kind of Americans
and not fitted to be ranked alongside
/ Of the French Canadian, Italian. Ar
menian cOngIOmeratiOn that is now
/ large part of the much bOasted New
England population. There are 1000, 600
French Canadians alone in New Eng
! land The Herald says
A correspondent asks The Herald to
call attention to the manner i'm which
the state of Kansas is injuring itself by
its recent course in politics He thinks
this is a great mistake on the part of
I her people, because capital viii not go
there from the east as things are now.
There have been discoura gements to
/ capital going from the east to Kansas
aside from her present politics. There
are a good many people who have had
sad experiences in connection with the
Atchison & Topeka railroad. and with
/ Kansas mortgages. But shady politics
/ in ansaS is no novel thing ansas
is so new a state that her entire history
is familiar to the present genera tion,
and is a matter of personal recollection
to many i'm it. 1T has always tended to
I questionable features.
The state was settled by the strong
/ est kind of anti-slavery men, as every
| body knows. Born into statehood. as it
was, amid the thrOes of the rebelliOn,it
was a commonwealth IN which there
! appeared to be room for nothing but
l the most radical Republican politics.
This was true of it for a long time, and
yet-it is a fact which must be confessed
that it did not insure enlightened or al
ways even pure politics When the
first United States senators were sent
from Kansas to Washington. at the
time when the state had been organized
on the triumph of the party of law and
order and morality, one Of them was
the notorious James H. Lane, a man
of doubtful character ana questionable
reputation. who. after a stormy life.
both public and private, ended it by
/ self destruction. Shortly after. another
! senator was compelled to leave the sen
ate under a cloud, and at a still later
date a third one was expelled from
that body for corruption in procuring
his election. These occurrences proved
that. though the interests of morality
had triumphed in the entrance of Kan
sas into statehood, there had been en-
listed in it a turbulent and an adven-
turOus element, that 1T was not Win
moved out at the beginning. and that
its effects were continuous. The New
England and the northern state blood
was prepOnderant as nowhere else in
the west. but it brought with it not
alone the better elements of New Eng
land and northern character
The effect Of this has never been out
of sight from the beginning down to
the present period. Kansas has never
been a staid and sober state, according
to the New England standard. It has
/ been fiercely anti-slavery and anti
southern. but this has not made it rep
resentative of the best type of New
England character. There has been
no time when the representation in con-
gress has not been open to criticism.
For some years it had one of the ablest
I DELEGATIONS in the senate in John j. In
gals and Preston b. Plumb. There
was no more brilliant man in that body
] than Nr- ingalls,. and there were few
that We're superior to Mr. Plumb as
a practical legislator. But ingalls, un-
reliability for sound views of govern
[ ment attracted the attention OF the
country side by side with his command
! OF rhetoric and his capacity in OratOry.
He was set down in public estimation
as not safe man. There We're traits
/ in his character that marked him as
/ the product Of an uneasy era, and they
/ have been more conspicuous since he
| left the senate. He was another proof
/ that Kansas was not the child of New
I England at its best.
Then came the Populist issue, and
| if seDarated Kansas aItogether from
/ her New England mOOrings 1t sent
/ PETER to the senate and Simpson to
| the house and it elected men of SINH
\ lar stamp to the state government, and
I even to be judges or the courts of the
/ state. These men appear to be less ad-
/ Venturers themselves than some of
1 their predecessors who had won higher
/ esteem in the community. They were
/ the products of revolutionary spirit
among the people They did not repre-
sent fixed ideas among those who put
/ them forward, founded upon intelligent
reasoning as regards the province of
| government, or what was practical of
attainment under it: they were brought
to the surface, rather, by the spirit of
discomfort. They We're probably pure
i1yr hToRd - ia fr,
show that they We're types of any kind
of American character. Certainly. they
We're not types Of that American char
acter. north or south, that framed the
American constitution, and carried the
] American government to success. If
men like them had prevailed in the be
ginning We should never have had an
American government that would have
achieved more than to add another in
stance to the failure of republican in
stitutions Tt was thought that the
to see this up to the beginning of the
present year. but since that time they
have gone back to their old delusions
under the influence of the silver craze
/ in the country
This history that we have recounted
| seems to prove that Kansas is not a
! representative state of New England
character. as it certainly cannot be of
southern character. Tt vas born in an
era of disturbance, and it has retained
the qualities of its origin Tt has few
Of the sober. steady, sturdy. traits in
the majority of its people that created
! the French nation in its impulsive un-