The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-18
RAISING CAIN IN KANSAS
INFLUENCE of PoPULIsM IN A ONCE
PROSPEROUS COMMUNITY.
The West Sneers at Her, the East
Laughs and the South "Cusses" Her
Capital FIees, Credit Lost.

What is the matter with Kansas asks
the editor of the Emporia Gazette. and
then he answers his own question with the
most vivid and graphic description of the
State to which the full development OF the
Bryan idea can bring a once prosperous
community that has ever appeared in print.
She has started in to raise hell" he says.
land she seems to have an overproduc-
ton That these words are not too strong.
the following will prove:
To-day the Kansas Department of Agrt-
culture sent out a statement which indi-
Gates that Kansas has gained less than
1000 people in the last year. There are
about 125, 900 families in the State, and there
were about 10, 900 babies born in Kansas,
and yet so many people have left the State
that the natural increase is cut down to
less than 1000 net. This has been going on
for eight years. If there had been a high
brick wall around the State eight years
ago., and not a soul had been admitted or
permitted to leave, Kansas would be 500, 600
souls better off than she is to-day. And
yet the Nation has increased in population.
In five years II ,O00,0 600 people have been
added to the national population-yet in
stead of gaining a share of this-say 500.
000-Kansas has apparently been q plague
spot, and in the very garden of the world
has lost population by the ten thousands
every year.
Not only has she lost population, but
she has lost wealth. Every moneyed man
in the State who could get out without
great loss has gone. Every month in every
community sees someone who has a little
money pick up and leave the State. This
has been going on for eight years. Money
is being drained out all the time. In towns
where ten years ago there were three or
four or half a dozen money-lending con-
Germs stimulating industry by furnishing
capital there is now none, or one or two
that are looking after the interest and prin-
cipal already outstanding. No one brings
any money into Kansas any more. What
community knows over one or two men
who have moved in with more than S., 900
in the last three years? And what conlmI-
nifty cannot count half a score of men in
that time who have left, taking all the
money they could scrape together?
VIA IS THE NATTER?
yet the Nation has grown rich. Other
States nave increased in population and
~wealth-other neighboring States. Missouri
has gained nearly 1000, 900 while Kansas
has been losing 500, 900! Nebraska has
gained in wealth and population. while
Kansas has gone .downhilI.
What is the matter with Kansas?
..rhere is no substantial city in the State.
Every big town save one has lost in popu-
laton. Yet Kansas City. Omaha, Lincoln,
ST. Louis, Denver, Colorado Springs, Sc
dalia, Des Moines, the cities Of the Dako-
tas, st. Paul and Minneapolis all cities
grown. Take up the government blue book,
and you will see that Kansas is virtually
"a h MON TNuvn nr hrn 1ir+1n cnnh6x
consular places in yellow fever-stricken
communities, that do not aggregate $l0.-
has Nebraska draws about 500 coo: little
North Dakota draws $4,000; Oklahoma
doubles Kansas; Missouri leaves her a
thousand miles behind; Colorado is almost
seven times greater than Kansas - the
whole West is ahead of Kansas.
Take it by any standard you please,
go East and you hear them laugh at
Kansas: go West and they sneer at her;
and they have forgotten her. Go into any
crowd of intelligent people gathered any
where on the globe and you will find the
Kansas man on the defensive. The news
paper columns and magazine pages, once
devoted to praise of the State, to boastful
facts and startling figures concerning her
resources, now are filled with cartoons,
gibes, and Pefferian speeches. Kansas just
naturally isn't in the civilized world: She
buctoo.
what's the matter with Kansas?
1--WE all know; yet here we are at it
again. We have an old moss-back Jack
sonian, who snorts and bowls because there
is a bathtub in the StatehouSe; we are
running that old jay for Governor. We
Drained fanatic who has said openly in a
dozen speeches that the rights of the user
are paramount to the rights of the owner
we are running him for Chief Justice, so
that capital will come tumbling over itself
to get into the State. We have raked the
ash heap of human failure in the State and
have found an old hoopskirt OF a man who
has failed as a business man: who has
failed as an editor, who has failed as a
preacher and we are going TO run MN Tor
Congressman at Large. He will help the
looks of the Kansas delegation in Wash,
ington. Then we have discovered q kid
without a law practice, and have decided to
vote for him as A-ttorney-generai. Then for
fear some hint that the State had become
respectable might percolate through the
civilized portions of the nations, we have
decided to send three or four harpies out
lecturing. telling the people hat Kansas is
raising hell and letting corn go to weeds.
WHAT KANSAS DOES NOT NEED.
'Oh, this is a State to be proud of. We
are a people who can hold up our heads.
What we need here is less money, less CAPT
tai. fewer white shirts and brains, fewer
men with business judgment, and more of
these fellows who boast that they are just
ordinary old clodhoppers, but that they
know more in a minute about finance than
john sherman. we IiGCQ more men VINO
are posted who can below about the
crime Of '73, who hate prosperity, and who
think that because q n an believes in ma
ticnal honor that he is a tool of Wall street.
We nave had a few of them, some $50, COG,
hut we want more. We need several thou
sand gibbering idiots to scream about the
Great Red Dragon of Lombard street. We
don't need population, We don't need wealth.,
we don't need weli-dTessed men on the
streets, we don't need standing in the Ma
ton, we don't need cities on these fertile
prairie3; you bet we don't. What we are
after is the money power. Because We
have become poorer and ornerier and mean
er than a spawned, distemI cred mule, we,
the people of Kansas, propose to kick. We
don't care to build up; We wish TO tear
down.
There are two ideas of government.
said our noble Bryan at Chicago. There
are those who believe that if you just legis-
late to make the well-to-do prosperous their
prosperity will leak through on those be-
low. The Democratic idea has been that if
you legislate to make the masses prosper
Gus their prosperity will find its way up
and through every class and rest upon
US. That's the stuff. Give the prosperous
man the dickens. LegisIate the thriftiess
into ease; whack the stufing out of the
creditors, and tell the debtors who bor-
rowed money five years ago when the
money in circulation was more general than
it is now. that the contra ction of the cur
rency gives him a right to repudiate.
the lazy, greasy fzzle who can't pay his
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