Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-02-09
its agriculture that brought ruin in its
KANSAS IS A WONDER.

wake.
| KANSAS IS A WONDER.
There may be inquiry as to how
Kansas could pay off so much of her
mortgage Indebtedness since 1890. One
reason is that change in the law that
year gave the mortgage the privilege
of paying off mortgage in install
ments of 500 or multip1es fthat sum,
| and thousands of farmers avai1ed
themselves of that privilege, and this
year will see their farms clear despite
the hard times. But how did they get
the money, even the small sums. The
answer is found in the amazing pro-
ductiveness of Kansas since 1890, not
withstanding the crop failures. The
state agricultural Department. figures
show that since 1890 the farmers of
the state have raised in crops and live
stock nearly billion dollars worth of
produce. The value of those seven
years of produce is more than the ma
tional debt of the United States. The
grand total for 1897 is put at $50 mil
lion dollars. The product of Kansas
farmes for 1897 was Al million dollars
more than in 1896, and of this increase
lo million dollars was in corn, wheat
and oats. Another article will deal
with this increase in wealth and what
1t has meant to Kansas.
Supplemeuting Mr.. Breidentha1's
statements, am at liberty to quote
what Major Hood, president of the
leading bank of Emporia one of the
men most prominently mentioned tor
the Republican nomination for gov
ernor at the next election, said to me
of Kansas debts and debt paying:
81 have lived here twenty-six years,
and have been in the banking business
most of that time, and in all my ex-
perience I have never seen such de-
sire to pay debts and such result in
debt paying in this state as we have
had in 1897.
Further testimony as to Kansas
debt paying lies in the fact that in
Kansas, as iu Nebraska, and other
states of the middle west, the loan bus
mess. as il was formerly conducted is
over. Hundreds of thousands of dol
lars of eastern money have been sent
back since last fall, because there was
no market for it. Only recently a
bank official in central New York re-
ceived letters of inquiry from Kansas
asking as to the value of certain in
vestments. Some persons in Kansas
had money to loan in the east. 1t is
fact beyond despute that western mort
cages have been paid off far in ad-
varce of maturity. One agent of
loan company told me that from the
west alone returns on unma tured loans
were coming in at his office at the rate
of $4,000 week faster than he was
able to put the money out again. He
said he was simply sending back all
the eastern mon y that was coming to
him. He could not find a market even
for his western money.
In view of these facts, think it is
fair to say that the present aim of
Kansas is to get out of debt, and that
she is getting out of debt marve1ous1y
fast, considering what she has had to
contend against in the matter of bad
reputation and hard times. When we
analyze the extent of the prosperity
that came to the state in 1897, as we
shall in another article, think it will
be agreed by all reasonable persons
that it is not a case of special pleading
to argue that Kansas people are not
only excellent debt-payers, but among
the best debt t-payers in the country,
and especially so when we remember
the temptation she had to borrow
reck1ess1y.
Truly there is light in Kansas now,
and when one considers what she has
done in twenty years, he may say that
Mr.. ingalls,, for once in his life, did
not exaggerate when he said that her
arithmetic was bewildering.