The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-05-24
The aalieha Daily Eagle: Sunday zormme slay "a 1896

years and over They had been har-
assed by grasshoppers and cyclones.
1t was a favorite amusement TO stand
around and join in a mutual convention
for the condemnation and damnatiOn
Of the whole state. Along in 1880
great many citizens came to the conclu-
sion that Kansas was desert, as 1t
was originally plated in the school
geogra phies, and moved out in disgust.
Some of these people moved back TO
their wives folks in the east whence
they came; some went into the noun
tons; some into the cities; quite NUM-
Der back to New England.
The exodus was not large, but 1t
would have been fifty times larger but
for one thing. The participants in the
street corner meetings which condemn
ed the state and signified a determine
ton to get out at once, felt the shock
of the growing population in increased
land values and growing business. The
state was beginning to boom. They
postponed their departure, these kick
ers, and remained for the feast which
was fast approaching. In 1856 the
boom struck with full vigor. Many
men became rich in day. So great
was the influx Of men, men with money,
standing and worth, that the whole
character, political and commercial, of
many a Kansas town was changed in
a twelve month. In the temporary
reign of the high-priced corner lot the
Kansas kicker who had failed to move
away in the 1880 forgot his lack Of
faith in Kansas But when the boom
went down with a crash, as it did, his
condemnation of Kansas grew afresh
and with renewed vigor. This time he
picked up his buds and his family and
left the state in high dudgeon.
The result is that large percentage
of the controlling commercial element
in Kansas today are men who have
come TO the state since 1880, who have
not come TO condemn the state or TO
try its climate or the worth of its soil,
and who are not talking of moving
away, simply because they realize that
no move they can make can improve
their conditions.
These men mostly came from the east.
They moved TO Kansas because the east
was overdOne and because the west on
the contrary offered wider opportun-
tiles. They know that the same con-
ditiOn prevails in the east today that
did when they left it, with q financial
stringency added. These are not the
men who are always threatening TO
move away. That Discontinued ele-
ment has already gone and the voice of
those of its disposition who remain is |
growing weaker.
The men who are in Kansas now are !
not accepting a residence in the state |
as an experiment. They do not an |
nounce that, ''if the crop fails this year
we will move out"
Through long years of experiment the |
that crop failures are not peculiar alone |
to Kansas, that a total crop failure is |
in the Imagination of the kicker solely |
and does never exist in fact; that |
money can be made in the west under !
a widespread, general, national depres-
sion just about as fast as it can be |
made in the east; that two hundred |
thousand Kansas farms all yield some
thing where only one Colorado gold |
mine of million pans out
So the people who are in Kansas to-
day are here to stay. And every day |
or so, one of the kickers, after having |
been buffeted and swatted and ram |
med and damned around by adversely |
in other states, comes back to Kansas
and settles down, and in a week or two |
the people forget that he ever went |
away.
No boom is in immediate prospect for |
Kansas. But the people who are here
now are permanent and with a return
ing national prosperity Kansas will |
have her full share.