Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1897-03-20
KANSAS ALL RIGHT.

KANSAS ALL RIGHT.
Under the above headline the New
York Commercial Advertiser, speak
ing of the Capitals mortgage state
ment- says:
According to the Topeka Capital
the repudiationisto organs and orators
have grossly misrepresented Kansas.
That state has been luridly pictured
far and wide by the Bryanites as a
scene of deSOlation and poverty, as
land in which none was rich and every
one was sinking deeper and deeper in
the quicksandS of debt. The Topeka
Capital tells a totally different story.
That newspaper has been gathering
statistics bearing upon the mortgage
Indebtedness of Kansas, and the result
is highly interesting. Based upon
the reports of registrars of deeds, the
mortgage Indebtedness in thirty cOun
ties has been reduced from 500, 158, 631
in 1890 to 81 500, 1873 at the beginning
of the present year, a reduction of
over As per cent. If the same proper
tion holds good in the rest of the
counties the mortgage Indebtedness of
the entire state has been reduced 1O6
600. 900 since 1890. At this rate of pro-
greSS every mortgage in existence in
Kansas today will have been paid off
at the end of ten years more.
Inc HgureS mere quoGeu CdI Ior III
elaboration. They carry their own
comment. They show that the Popu-
list chatter about suffering Kansas"
has been the result of either ignor-
ance or mendacity. They show that.
in spite of the ''crime of '73, in spite
gold standard Kansas has made re-
markable headwav. No doubt, the
state has severely felt the pressure of
hard times. What state has not?
Even hated Wall Street has had its
share of burdens to bear. But this
only proves that hard times. like the
rain, fall upon both the just and the
unjust. Let the SunflOwer State kee
right on hammering at her mortgage
Indebtedness, raise more wheat and
fewer ructions, and no irreverent son
in the future will have occasion to ask:
"What'S the matter with Kansas"
The matter with Kansas has been
too much blow and buster. But that
has been all on the surface and how
little it really meant is shown by the
action of the Legislature, which, on
second thought and realizing in some
degree the criminality of the Populist
platform, defeated every bill intro
duced to carry out that platform in
| legislation.
blow and buster and noise about hard
conditions, underneath and unknown
to the world its people were industri
ously at work attending strictly to
business and paying their debts at the
rate of millions of dollars every year.
1t is gratifying, after all the fuss
made by the eastern press over KanS-
sas, to see papers like the Philadelphia
Record and New York Commercial
Advertiser answering the query,
'What is the matter with Kansas"
by the common sense reply, "Kansas
is All Right"
Kansas today has two billion dollars
of wealth and less than million and
a half people 1t has mountains of
corn piled up at every railway station.
worth enough to pay every dollar of
mortgage debt owed to eastern credit
ors. If it continues in the same saw
ing course for the next three years
there need not be a dollar of debt
against the state by the turn of the
century.
load of $50 millions of Indebtedness
only seven years ago, presents a picture
of enterprise, of economy. of thrift
and of honesty that challenges the
world for its parallel and must COM
mand the respect and admiration of
those who have lately been Kansas
most severe critics and detractOrs.
Capital.