Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-12-29
WOLCOTT TALKS.
Threatens a Crises. and De-
clares He Will
Resign his Seat I'm the United States
senate Rather than submit tO Pre-
posed Schemes.


hearty applause when he arose to res
pond to the toast, "The East and the
West"
Mr.. Wolcott began with humorous
reference to the political resignation
with which the exiles from New Eng
land bore their Punishment; then spoke
of an alleged desire of the Canadian
governmet to acquire the state of
Maine and portions of New Hampshire
and Vermont in exchange for terri
tory in western Canada. Serious
thought on the subject of a possible
cessation of part of New England,
Mr.. Wolcott said. brought "realiza-
tion of what it would mean to these
people to face the possibility of chang
ing by the shadow of hair the con-
tour of the states or the sacrifice of a
chip of it's native granite, however
barren"
He continued:
''Not only does this sentiment per-
wade the land, but we seem at times to
be developing an inclination to invite
some other country to differ with us in
order that we may demonstrate our
united aggressiveness.
'Tn certain directions our domestic
differences are crystalizing and not
disiutegrating. For more than a gem
Grafton we have waited for the day
when parties would divide solely on
national questions, and when the old
sectional issues growing out of the
war and the race problem would be
buried. The time came. The parties
met on a broad economic question,
and, 10! we merge from the contest,
threatened with another bitter Sec
tional division. The far west, largely
the child of the cast, and pulsing with
it's blood, joins hands with the south.
The new alignment is not only debtor
against creditor, class against class;
but in a land pervaded with equal
devotion to what its people believed is
the truest welfare of the country great
luajorities in one section face equally
great majorities in another.
"The west is not decadent; its views
are of men industrious and genuine,
and their beliefs are honest. They
would scorn any sort of evasion of an
obligation. They are patriotic men.
There is in the whole far west hardly
a northerner born who was old enough
to go to the war whom you will not
see on Decoration day wearing prondly
the badge of his old corps. They are
Americans; to proportion greater
far greater than in the east-native
born American citizens. The views
they cherish are held with practical
unanimity.
$50 universal a feeling as that
which pervades the great west can not
all be wrong. You can not dispose of
a conviction held by millions of intel
ligent people by calling it a craze, and
some day you may find it worth your
while to look for the truth where it is
usually hidden-somewhere between
extremes.
"Some how it is not really recog-
nized in the west that ability to re-
organize western railroad and swell
it's stocks and securities, several mil
lions every time it is forcclosed, neces-
sarily indicates an equal ability to
determine the wisest economic policy
for the farmer who lives along the
right of way. The men who would no
l. ~.
with the duty of formulating their
financial views than they would of en-
trusting the man of whom they bought
a shot gun with the command of the
inclined to fear that in this part of
the moral vineyard, there is a tendency
to assume that the possession of great
wealth means necessarily the possess
sion of great wisdom.
''It is only few years ago that New
England was uncommon proud of
that west which her sons had so
largely peop1ed and her resources, Law
ishly ventured, had done so much to
develop. Perhaps they are only super
sensitives western who fancy they see
in certain quarters subtle change,
an inclination to cri.icise, an inability
to find much to commend and ten
dency to look still further to the east
ward for methods and ideals fit to fol-
low. hope it is all mistake. Con-
tentment cannot come to this land by
sections, aud it can never come ex-
cept under conditions which bear
equally on the whole people.
"Only the other day cabinet officer
came over here to enlighten one of your
great commercial bodies, and with a
gifted Chicago imagination quoted
Walter Whitman, told you how our
fathers, when George the Third was
king, Dashed the cup from their
lips'-a precedent am glad to see has
not been followed at this dinner-and
talked about obstruction at Washing.
ington, having reference to the senate
1t is rather a new use of the term to
call man who does not vote as yor
want him to an "obstructionist In
the last hundred years the balance and
check upon hasty Legislation which
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