The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-30
The Birth of Kansas.


precedent and without parallel. No 9TH
er sovereign community ever arose I'M
der such circumstances. Voided from
the womb of turmoil, Kansas came in
to existence, armed and equipped and
furious for the fray; and took her
place among the states of the Union
ready for the conflict then approach
ing, and rejoicing in the storm, of
which she was the admitted and con-
scious center. In the light of these
historic facts and circumstances, natal
and prenatal, all of her subsequent his
tory. must be written.
Slowly the world is learning that the
nhabitants of a country partake of its
physical characteristics; that climate
and soil, earth and air, wind and wa
ter, and altitude and temperature, and
mould us by the subtle alchemy of ma
ture.
H. H. Bancroft, the historian of ma
tive races, says: THE action of a
ural surroundings, common to all the
people of the continent, could not fail
to produce in time, a similarity of
physiological structural So, also, will
these same influences produce marked,
mental and emotional characteristics.
Sneering at the Swiss. Gessler said to
Tell: Il would have them like their
hills that never smile, though wantOn
summers tempt them oft in vain" The
tyrant little realized the accuracy and
truth Of his scornful speech: for the
Swiss were, and are, like their hills;
stern, indomitable, unconquerable-
The blacks encountered by Livingston
and Stanley, in the miasmatic jungles
of Africa; toneless and depressed as
their damp and dark abodes, were cas-
lily put to flight or reduced to submits
sion. But the blacks of Abyssinia, de-
feated and nearly annihilated the finest
Italian army of modern times. Like the
Swiss, they were mountaineers, or at
least highlanders; among them many
a Tell and many a Winklereid-
1t was not sluggish, stagnant, drowsy
Beotia, that inspired Pericles, Themis-
tocles, Miltiades and Demosthenes; it
was Attica, storm swept and wave
dashed. and soothed by Lydian lutes, the
balm of southern seas, and the breath
of Eden.
The people of Kansas also are like
their state. They are bold as the bouy-
ant breezes that fan their faces. They
are enterpriSing and adventurous, rest
less, resolute and radical; curious, ex-
centric and inquirfng. Blunt and bel
ligerent they are also, but a kindlier,
more tolerent, more humane people
dwells not beneath the sun. Cheerful
and active, among them sloth and in
dolsnce are practically unknown. While
in politics they are partizan to Of
fensiveness; they are capable on oc-
casion of rising above politics; and
while Puritan prejudice has found
Judgment in their laws, they are at
heart sound and sane, devoted to con-
stitutional liberty, true to the traditions
of the Republic, and to the sentiments
of the brave and faithful men who laid
the foundations of the state
1t is not by accident that Kansas
cherishes freedom. 1t was her birth
right, the gift of the Creator. When
Omnipotence lifted her from the oceans
bed, to greet. the sun and stars, he babe
her to be free. For ages wild beasts
and wilder men roamed at will over her
solitary surface. The Spaniard ira
versed her shining plains. but tarried
M 20 hull to ar yHyffh
sive interest we reflect that during the
French and Spanish dominion, the soil
and the buffaloes of Kansas were NOM
inally subjected to the Code of Justin
ian, until March 5. 1903. and thereafter
till April 80 of that year, they were
subject to the Code Napolian.
The Nation and Agriculture.
We are told in ancient fable that
Antaeus was invincible while he re-
manned in contact with this mother
earth; and so nations are invincible
while they rest their feet firmly on the
sustaining earth. No nation ever
flourished, where agriculture anguish
ed, and no nation ever languished
where agriculture f1ourished. Cities
bring opulence and culture; they lure
the rustic youth from his fathers
fields, with their dazzling splendors
and their prodigious power. They ex-
pand the minds. sharpen the faculties
and arouse the ambitions of men. They
beings. and generate other boards of
perverts, who bask in the sensual ex-
elements. and float in the oceans of
ooz, which flow fathOmleSS in all great
cities. Vast heaps of human compost
send forth their poisonous exhalationS,
year by year, detoning and degrading
more and more, the life of the city.
Flee to the desert" said@Saint Au-
gustine, and John the Baptist preach
ed in the Wilderness of Judea.
Though We need not necessarily con-
clude that we must seek an actual
desert or literal wilderness, yet all
history warns us that health and
purity. and the very life of the race,
require the constant nurture of ma
ture. The direct moral effect, there
fore to a state or a nation. of the pre-
ponderance of rural influence. cannot
be overestimated.
The political, as well as the econ
omic advantages, of the maintenance
of the supremacy of the influence of
the country over that of the city are
so manifest and so essential that they
cannot be ignored by any people who
have regard for their posterity.
Within the last forty years the pop
ulation of the United States has more
than doubled. Wealth has increased
with rapidity never. before known
in the history of the world; but is SO
that less than one-fourth
of the people own at least fonr~nfths