The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-01-25
Kansas Statesmen Who Received
Their First Start
From Speeches Delivered at
Kansas Day Banqnets.
HOW CLUB STARTED
1t Was Organized just Ten
Years Ago Wednesday.
How Senator Plumb's Death
Made 1t ssKansas Day."

perusal of the addresses delivered
at past banquets of the Kansas Day
and published by w. Y. Morgan, re-
veals the fact that many of those who
are now prominent in the councils OF
the Republican party of Kansas, and
some who have achieved high honors,
received their first start in state politics
by making a speech before the Kansas
Day club.
For instance, of the twelve young Re
publicans who m ade speeches at the
first banquet of the club, ten years ago
next Wednesday, two are now in con-
gress, another received high foreign
appointment and later became leader
in another party, another enjoys the
personal friendship of President RooSe-
welt and has national reputation as d
writer, and nearly all are well known
over the state.
The Kansas Day club held it's first
banquet on January %, 1892. 1t will
round out the first decade of its ex-
istence next Wednesday night with a
banquet nearly three times as large as
any previous one ever held and five
times as large as the first one of ten
years ago.
The volume which Mr.. Morgan has
just published includes the addresses
delivered at the first ten of these ban
quets. 1t is a handsomely bound vol
uTne of nearly 500 pages, and in addi-
ton to the addresses it contains the
officers of the club for each year and
banquet.
In submitting the volume to the pub
lie, Mr.. Morgan recalls that it is the
regular thing to introduce it with a
preface, and in his preface he tells some
interesting things about the club. He
says:
During the ten years which the Kan
SaS Day club has existed, and on the
ten occasions when the members, who
may be called representative Republi-
cans and KanSans, were assembled at
it's banquet table, speeches have been
delivered that recorded political his
caused political results. At times a
trifie of error may have crept into the
thought, or the trivial may have been
unduly magnified by the microscope Of.
the then important but afterwards for
gotten conditions that existed; but ia
ken as a whole these addresses tell the
story of events in Kansas, and explain
the progress the state and the Repub-,
lican party have made from the diff
cultieS and disasters of 1890 to the stars
and victory of 1900.
THE club was the result of the desire
of some who were considered young
Republicans ten years ago to get to-
gether and make closer acquaintance
with each other In the fall election of
1890 the Republican party of Kansas
had been defeated and almost democrat
lied by the Farmers Alliance move
ment, which went into politics under
the name of the Peoples party. A few
young fellows craWleQ out from under
the debris and tried to look pleasant.
The effort was proper, but painful. The
suggestion of having a club and meet
ing each other in social way was APP
proved by a few, mostly young news
paper men who had free transportation
and could get to Topeka. The call for
the first meeting was issued by Harry
w. Frost, then editor of the Topeka
Lance, and at the instance of a letter
signed by Charles NJ. Harger, Ewing
Herbert and William Allen White. The
date was set for holiday week, 1891, but
the death of Senator Plumb caused a
postponem ent, and a change was made,
by a happy inspiration of somebody, to
January 20. 1892, the birthday of Kan
saS-
1.-The original idea was that the club
would consist OF a few dozen congenial
spirits; but in order to prevent the
charge of being a clique. the invita-
ton was made general, and the re-
Spouse was much larger than the origi-
majors expected though no one more
than they rejoiced over it. The organ
ization, January 30, 1892, in the par
lors of the Throop hotel, Topeka, was
made most Informal There is no con-
or bylaws; no committee on
resolutions; no restriction in member
ship, except the necessity of being a
Republican and paying the amount per
plate required to bear the expense of
the annual banquet The club meeting
has been a success every year; the
membership has been elastic, and only