The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-18
KANSAS A BAROMETER.
Will Whites Toast at the Kan
sas City Commercial Club.
What the Nation is About to
DO, Kansas Does First.
Keep Your Eye on Kansas if You
Want to Foreshadow Nation
al Events

Below is given the response of Mr.. w.
A. White of Emporia to the toast Kan
sas" at the Commercial club banquet at
Kansas City last night:
When the Missourian editor called by
the instinct of universal being to wander
over the fields in the spring, returns from
the festal board of an "oId subscriber"
or a constant reader it is the editorial
custom to repay the host for his salt
pork, dock greens and corn bread by
publishing an item in the paper something
like this:
Last Sunday. while we and our family
were riding out in Benton township, we
dropped in on Colonel Calhoun Morgan
and took dinner with him. Aud such a
banquet as was spread before US! All the
delicacies Of the season made the table
fairly groan with good things, while the
colonel and his estimable wife entertained
US with true Kentucky hospitality"
The Ohioan editor, in a similar situa-
ton, returns thanks for an old fashioned
New England dinner" The Georgia
writer notes that everything was served
in regular Virginia STYLE The Iowan
guest boasts of the good old York state
cooking" But the Kansas editor sits at
his desk and dreams of crisp fried
chicken garnished with thin slices of al
falfa-made bacon, or notified slices of
corn-fed, white-faced roast beef, and
homemade strawberry shortcake. as he
takes his pen in hand to write:
Last Sunday the editorial family sat
down to good square Kansas meal at
the home of Grant Brown, and were given
a royal Kansas welcome in the most ap-
proved Kansas style"
The Kansas man lowers his flag to no
other state. He accepts no imported ira
ditions. In the bright lexicon of Kansas
there is no good word but Kansas. The
kansas brand is set and sealed upon
the aspects of nature; the Kansas sky,
the Kansas sunset, the Kansas breeze,
the Kansas flood. the Kansas drouth.
Kansas has jingle-bobbed the frolicking
cyclone of the prairies, and today, wher-
ever it appears, whether it be by Green
lands icy mountains or way down upon
the Suwanee river, the twister is herald
ed to the world as the Kansas cyclone.
Kansas has labeled the grasshopper, and
henceforth and forever the grasshopper
must be the Kansas grasshopper. The
state has stenciled her trademark upon
the dreamer of Utopia,a and when he hands
his seat check to St. Peter at the resur-
rection-no matter what age the dreamer
may represent, no matter what dialect his
tongue may know-the dreamer's little old
blue pasteboard slip will read:
Admit One Kansas Crank
Perhaps the tendency of Kansas to
claim regency over the EARTH the air
above and the waters beneath, has been
exemplifed in too gay light. For the
truth is that this Kansas tendency must
command the thoughtful mans respect.
The wise men must see in this graphing
power of Kansas an Indication of the
peoples strength. Here is q youthful COM
munity of little more than a million souls,
receiving citizens from all over the world
from every kindred, every tribe-digest-
ing them, assimiIating them and making
them-not ex-Ohioans, ex-Hoosiers, not
southerners, not Yankees, not Irish,
Dutch French, Russians, Germans,
Swedes or Jews, but Kansans and proud
of it: who are, let US hope and believe,
the best types of Americans.
That there is force in this spirit of
Kansas no well informed mind can doubt.
The Kansan spirit is full of vigor. The
motor one meets in the works of Kansas /
has virility behind it. It abounds in
courage 1t is like the bridegroom COM
ing from his chamber, rejoicing as strong
man to run d race. The eXuberance of
Kansas is manifest in the land. This ex-
uberance sent John Brown out to fight
the United States army; it convinced the
world that the solar system was merely
a suburban addition of Greater Wichita; it
persuaded a number of statesmen that |
a few days of their inspiring presence in /
Washington would effect repeal of the
laws of gravitation and put brown |
beaver ulster on the Open-faced gentle (
man who for some time has been shiver- |
ing uncared for in the center of the signs /
of the zodiac. Kansas exuberance has |
projected paper railroad from the upper /
margin of the Aurora Borealis to the eX-
trerne southern fringe of the Lodge bill |
And vet. for all this, its potency for good /
has quickened the American nation time
and again.
The puissance of Kansas is not in the /
soil. For since the Pilgrims landed on !
the ''stern and rock-bound coast no /
American pioneers have fought more stub /
bornly with the elements than the Kan
sans have fought. The prepollency OF /
Kansas comes not through her commerce, :
even though her corn may furnish feast