The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-01-10
SOME OF. KANSAS ERRORS
Pointed Out in Powerful Manner by
Andy Felt
IN HIS SPEECH LAST NIGHT

1
Meetins-JOhn II. Crisp Tells Us To-
peka is the Storm Center of the
| United States.
Ex-Lieutenant Governor A. J. Felt of
Atchison was present at the meeting of
the state board of agriculture last night
and made one of his characteristic
speeches on "Kansas" He said:
There has been sufficient waste, abso-
Lutte, wilful waste of rough feed, fruit,
farm machinery. fertilizers, vegetables,
etc., in the eight counties of the First
| congressional district of Kansas, every
| five years, during the past three decades
! to have paid every dollar of farm in
| debtedness in that district.
Poverty resulting from waste, indo-
lence or vicious habits, is worse than a
misfortune, it is a crime. Prudence is
| the real prosperity for the farmer as we'll
as the merchant or banker. We have
bought too much and saved too little,
Credit has come to US in the garb of 4
friend and has proven our worst enemy.
"Haste to get rich has made US borrow
ers and the borrower has made boons
and booms made men wild, and Kansas
became vast insane asylum covering
over $1,000 square miles. Allah be
praised; the season of insanity is over.
Common sense has returned, We had
our spree. our delusions, our headaches,
our heart breaks, our convalescence. We
are badly distigured, but still on earth.
We have learned something. The man
who is whipped knows more than the
other fellow. We had too much credit
and abused it. We borrowed too much
money aud wasted it. We few too high
and fell in hard spots.
No outside force plunged us into the
depths. We walked in of our own free
will and accord. No outsider can force
kansan to do anything; but when the
Kansas man saw fit to become rich in
ninety days he did so, and when the
boom broke and he found himself at the
bottom of the we'll, he kept his eye on
the sunshine dimly visible above him.
He will yet climb to the stars but he will
find them close to his own broad acres,
and not beyond the skies. We have had
poetry enough to last for a thousand
years. We have learned that one brood
mare will do more to lift the mortgage
than all the lofty flights of Pegasus.
I'VE know now that resolutions will not
pay debt, and that partisan platforms will
not clothe the children. The age of
buncombe has passed. We can resolve
that we are rich and die paupers. We
can make laws that promise to aid the
poor, but no statutory enactment can dis
charge the duties of good citizenship.
Personal honor must be preserved at all
hazards Men can not be made better by
legislative enactment The statute that
puts money in the purse of the few takes
it from the pockets of the many. II is
time to dissolve the partnership be-
tween the federal treasury aad the
Shylccks of Europe. It is time to say
that tho mines of Colorado, Utah.
Wyoming and New Mexico need as
much paternal care from Uncle Sam as
the coal and iron mines of Ohio and
Pennsylvania or the forests of Michigan
and Maine. 1t is time to declare that
the farmer of Kansas has as much right
to demand hearing at Washington as
has the man in New England who lives
upon the interest paid by Kansas soil.
Citizenship makes the state.
s'Kansas cannot be poor when in thirty
five years it has built five thousand
churches at cost of six million dollars.
Kansas is not poor; it pays less than
$4,000 to support paupers, but it has
houses and owns nine million dollars
in public school property. No people
can be poverty stricken whose homes
have two million volumes in private
libraries, and where more magazines and
| newspapers are read at the farmers fire.
sides, than under any other sky. Kansas
farmers had in 1895, including grass
lands fenced, 81 ,576 704 acres in cultiva-
ton. The total production was $73,000,-
| 900 in live stock, showing an average of
about nine dollars per acre, including
nearly six million acres in prairie grass.
Let us pause to count our blessings"
In the afternoon Mr.. Crisp, of Mis-
souri,, talked on "Fish-and other things"
In referring to Topeka he said: "This
city is the political storm center of the
United States You are liable to do any
thing at any time, but the United States
would be pleased. They all know that
whatever is done in Kansas is the best
that could be done. It was here that
John ] Ingalls, was defeated for the
United States Senate.
Il look on ingalls, with just such a
feeling as man gazes upon Pixies Peak,
Mount Hood and other great works of
nature.
IF John J. ingalls, would look up to
God and think of his family; cease to
prostitute his ability in favor of any pol
itical party, what Moses he would be
for the whole people of this cou ntry"
T. A. Hubbard of Rome read a paper
about swine breeding, and w. S. Tough
of the Kansas City horse market at the
stock yards, gave an interesting talk on
horse breeding in which he said he pre-
ferred good dams to good sires and pre-
dicted great advance in breeding in the
next five years.
The vice president, J. E. Hoagland,
presided in the evening and other papers
were read; "Bee Keeping" by E. T. Alb
bott of ST. Joseph, ex-president of tho
North American Bee Keepers associa-
ton, and by DR.. Deborah Longshore of
Topeka on Sanitation for the Farm
Home"