The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-01-22

We admitted no doubts; had no patience
with the man whose caution babe him
hold his purse-strings. and urged each 9TH
er on, so that the entire seething mass Of
humanity resembled a mob which moved
by one impulse, rushed to the hanging,
and each unit when alone was afraid of
his own shadow. Collectively we were
'AT too confident TO give admittance to
doubt
On that day we were so proud and
pecuniarily pIethoric that if the secretary
OF the United States treasury had request
ed a guaranty on an issue of government
bonds we would, probably have wired him
as follows:
Wichita. Kan, July 4, 1857.
Your wire received; don't issue the bonds.
Draw on Us for the amount required
Wichita Board of Trade.
At this ambitious day we felt no mis-
givings as TO the future. We all felt like
Al Thomas, who dropped a $40 gold piece
and hesitated as TO whether or not 10 stop
and pick it up, for fear he would lose $40
worth of time. If on the evening of that
day an absolutely true and correct horO-
scope Of Wichita ten years hence could
have been shown US the drug stores would
have run short on arsenic. Prussic acid,
anthony, strychnine. hemlock, hellebore,
nightshade. belladonna, aeonite, laudanum
and all kindred poisons. We would have
become students in toxicology. The fumes
from hundreds Of unlighted gas jets would
have told of escaping gas; the town would
have been a Charnel house; grave diggers
would have rivaed plumbers in per cent
per hour; undertakers would have aston
ished the coffin manufacturers of the Unit
ed States in their Geographic demands for
collins; We would in ten days have drawn
the line on metallic caskets and pulled"
the market on poplar and 'yaller pine"
The Creator brings us to bear our ills
by gradual stages and by easy and slow
descent.
The misery, want. woe and desolating
scenes We have witnessed since July 4.
1887, can never ne told to stranger with
out risk of being informed that the grand
edge Of the Ananias club with a Sapphira
eastern Star, Rehecca or Woman's Relief
Corps annex to the same evidently has its
annual meetings in Wichita Who can be-
lieve that bankers are outcasts. specuIa-
tors tramps, merchants day Iaborers. law
yers section hands and society people re-
duced to penury, beggary and brought face
TO face with absolute want: diamonds
pawned for food; and watches with mono
grams on ' en-" sold for one-hfsh Of their
cost; furniture mortgaged to friends and
shipped on Sunday to avoid attachments:
thousands of deeds and mortgages made
and dated back a year. to save something
as salvage from the greatest financial and
local storm that the United States ever
heheld since Old Noah loaded his ark and
steered for dry land on the highlands of
Armenia; the uplands overlooking the see
ond bottom Of the waters that the sur
rounded the plateau of Araxes: cycles OF
time before Jim Mead. Dutch Bill and the
original Buffalo William swapped beads
for buffalo hides Al the junction Of the
st. Peter and ST. Paul. and founded the
town Of Wichita.
Note: Some may say l should not get
down to brass tacks'' on these reminiS-
cences; but Grover some years ago tand
Grover Is one Of my tutelary gods and
patron saints said Tell the truth, and 7