The Topeka state journal., 1897-09-23
WE NEVER SLEEP.
Is What John j. ingalls, Says
of Kansas.
Life Here He Says Has All the
Excitement of Gambling.
COMPLIMENTS BRYAN.
Says He is the Star Attraction
at the Fairs
And is UneXcelled as an Aero.
batic Leader.
COMPLIMENTS BRYAN.

Philadelphia, Sept. 23-Ex- Senator
John ]. Ingalls, talked entertainingly
about dollar wheat, prosperous Kansas
and the ffopping of WI. Bryan from a
l6 to l champion to star attraction at
the county fairs of Kansas and Mis-
souri,. Among other things Senator In
gals said:
Kansas is wonderful state and pre-
sents new side of interest with every
turn of the tide of prosperity. We never
sleep there, and at the present time are
reVeling on the topmost wave of good
luck
Agriculture in western Kansas has
all the excitement of the roulette table
or the race track. The sower can never
tell what he will reap. He may raise a
crop that will be worth more than the
Iano on which it grows, or he may not
get his seed back
In the eastern half of the state tba
conditions are stable, and farming is as
renaDIe as in Illinois or Ohio but in the
grazing region it is like a game of
chance, with the dealer against the
farmer
Yes, this has been one of our good
years for wheat, but not the best in
the states history. The present esti-
mate is $4,000, 900 bushels, but in 1894
we had 100000, the largest crop ever
raised in any state in the union Corn,
apples, potatoes, hay and PopulistS
promised well in early summer, but the
not, dry weather of August and the rise
IN wheat brought them all below the
average demand
'One of the fascinating things about
Kansas is that you can never tell what
is going to happen. A year ago Kansas
was held up to public execration by the
eastern press as a community of mad
men, knaVeS and fools, pledged to re-
pudiatiOn and anarchy. Today with full
garners. g1utted banks, cancelled mort
cages and credit at the flood we are
eXtolled as the models and exemplars
for the imitation of mankind.
The PopulistS have the shameless
effrontery to claim that the high price
OF wheat is due to the famine in India
and short crops in Europe and Central
America, rather than to the Dingley bill
and the Wolcott commission. Some Re
publicanS are inclined to take the same
irrational and unDatriotic view; but
whatever may be the cause, something
has scattered plenty over the smiling
land, and a farmer with 1 900 bushels of
No. 1 wheat in his bin feels less acutely
about the crime of '73 and becomes more
Indifferent to the per capita.
Bryan is perhaps sharing as largely
as anyone in the effects of the return
of prosperity. Although it falsifies all
his predictions about the indiSsoIubIe
connection between the price of silver
and the price of wheat, he is not discon-
certed by the exposure of the infirmity
of his logic.
His popularity has apparently not
lie Is touring the west as
an attraction at Chautauquas, county
fairs and harvest homes, drawing i'm
mense multitudes and oVershadowing
all the other exhibits. He is the most
successful tragedian and acrobat of the
century.
''At the Chautauqua at Carthage, Mo-.
his share of the gate money was over
81, 200. At the Allen county, Kansas.
fair, his half of the admission at 25
cents. was nearly $780, AT the Sedalia
fair last Wednesday he received $500, |
and large sums elsewhere. Under such |
circumstances the free and unlimited |
coinage of silver at 16 to 1 loses it's in |
terest and the gold standard becomes /
"Populists, Democrats and silver Re- |
publicanS are still fuSing on state and |
national issues, as the fall elections will !
undoubtedly show. Bryan as an aero |
batic leader has given them an example |
of somersaulting from one argument to
another and safely landing on the |
ground sufficiently firm to hold their |
opinions together. They will continue |
to fuse until 1900, in spite of the wide |
gulf opened up between silver and |
wheat.
Bryan draws enormous crowds ev-
erywhere and has recently transferred |
his pet phrase, '16 to l. to 'bimetallism.'
Judging from the papers," continued |
the ex-senator, you Pennsylvania peo-
pie have some troubles of your own |
with strikes and politics. l think the |
Hazleton outbreak will direct popular [
attention to the immigration question I
and will possibly be the means of Gre
ating a change for the better.
Ex-senator ingalls, was in the city on
private business, and left for New York
and Boston. He expects to spend the
winter in Washington as newspaper
He feels that some of
his old associates in the senate did not
him fully when he reported
the prize fight, and he may try to con-
vince them that he is after all some
thing of a newspaper man.
He is entitled to the house and sem
ate floor, but doubtless if he goes to
washington as a press representative,
some of the statesmen may object TO
his being allowed ON the floor and make
an effort to confine him to the press gal