The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-09-27
KANSAS AN OBJECT LESSON
Cause ans Growth If he Free
Coinage Sentiment.
-0w PRICE OF FARM PRODUCTS
tiov t. W Can Prices Fall and Our
Farmers Content Themselves With
Simply a p, otest Against IN
lust LeeisIation?
just Legislation?

ttfSA t-CE3 iss0tNdCt.
The special correspondent of the
Springfield Republican, a fair gold
paper, writing from Denver, ,4. gives
his observations as to the cause and
growth of the free silver sentiment in
the West He takes Kansas as an eN-
ample, and, using the sun-fower State
as an object lesson, he writes something
for gold bugs to think upon and apply.
He says:
The young man from Cripple Creek
was on the high road to wealth, lie
took from his satchel some fine speci-
ments of gold ore, which were much
admired, and told his story His share
in the mine, which he and his brother
had found and developed within the
past year, was worth, he reckoned,
100000, and, of course, it might be a
bonanza. No one who knew his Grip
pie Creek could doubt the possibilities.
Now this smooth-faced young fellow
entered the Cripple Greek camp year
ago with a total capital of a dime, and
he hailed from the plains of Kansas,
where he had been born and reared.
But evidentaly he had no love for Kan
sas. Prices for farm products, he ex-
planned, had sunk so low that the fam
lily could not live; the ends would not
- ID %av,
miles from Salina, in the very heart
of the sunfower State, yet to-day it is
let to a tenant who cannot pay his
rent, but who is allowed to remain be-
cause the owner prefers to have the
land kept under cultivation. This par
ticular family happens to have been
fortunate after leaving the State.
owing to the gold finds of the adven-
turous boys in Colorado, yet the story
of Kansas, the typical agricultural
State of the West, has not been so hap
Ply.
Coming overland in August, the
State is sumptuously regal in it's end
less, rolling vistas of yellow-tasseled
corn
And the maize field grew and rip
ened,
Till it stood in all the splendor
Of its garments green and yellow,
Of its tasseIs and its plumage."
1t is corn and sky-a boundIess ex-
panse of blue, hecked with white, over
a boundless expanse Of green, fecked
with yellow-from morning till night
The eye becomes tired at last of the
grand, impressive monontony of the
scene, and welcomes the darkness.
Then the thunderclouds gather about
the horizon ond the lightning flashes
with quick, white glow the
plains, and again one sees the same
vast stretch of corn that filed the eve
in the early morn. But, monotonous
as the landscape may be, one must feel
that this is a rich and fertile country
that should sustain a large, industrious
and prosperous population. In West
ern Kansas, however, the country has
less the effect of garden and more
the appearance of a desert. Trees be-
come very rare, the earth takes on a
parched, dingy look, and the corn
seems only half grown. Finally, as one
speeds over the rising plains of Colo
RADIO, vegetation practically disappears,
trees there are none, and the soil be-
comes dry as tissue paper. This is the
great American desert.
whats the matter with Kansas ?" |
is a frequent question nowadays. So
far as western Kansas is concerned |
there is no mystery. 1t is lack of rain |
the same affection that has prevent |
ed the development of Eastern Colo !
RADIO. And the remedy must come |
from irrigation, if at all--some such |
scheme as the people of Colorado have |
Of storing up the water in vast reser- |
goirs that now runs to waste in the |
spring torrents of the Rocky Noun |
tains. Some time this will be done and |
the great American desert will bios |
som like New England petunia bed. |
But the present inadequacy of the |
whole region to sustain comfortably |
farming population had to be learned |
by the restless settlers only through |
actual experiment. Years ago this |
Try region was well adapted for cattle |
grazing, and immense herds ranged |
over the plains far east of the noun |
tains. But the thin line of farmer |
appeared on the horizon, and |
come west it would, until it broke a
gainst the foothills of the Rockies.
These advancing settlers had the no
ton that the rain belt was moving /
westward, and so they took up the
rood grazing lands and spoiled them
for cattle ranging. But the rain belt
vas where it ever was and will remain. |
Meanwhile the cabins of the settlers
IN those parched plains grew dingier /
and the settlers grow hungrier look
ng; or they are abandoned and their |
occupants may be seen, whole families, |
in canvas-covered wagons /
md camping at night, as their fathers |
lid when the tide of immigration pour |
I'd into the western country forty and /
thirty years ago.
The population of Kansas as a whole