The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-12-22
H0CH In ST.LOUIS
Delivers an Address Before the
New England Society.
Lauds the Land of the MayfOwer
Pioneers.
A WORD FOR KANSAS.
Tells of Prosperity of the Sun
flower State.
Saturated With New England
Ideas Says Governor.
A WORD FOR KANSAS.

A.
in St. Louis.
The reports from st. Louis say that
the banquet was almost-but not quite
dry" affair. OF course this is not
supposed to refer to the speeches. There
were about 200 guests, and the event
commemorated the 285th anniversary of
the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,
Mass.
To each guest was presented a medal
bearing bas-relief of the NIayf1ower.
A st. Louis dispatch says: 1.-The two
governors are striking types of men
totally disstmilar. While Governor Hoch
IS of the serious type, a man who seems
scarcely ever to smile, Governor Cobb
| is big, brawny, boyish fellow, who
seems endowed with q smile that won't
come off"
Rev. W. c. Biting of the Second Bap-
list church at st. Louis was one of the
speakers, and the POSTMASTER was
Judge Selden P. Spencer, president of
the society.
Governor Hoch's speech was on the
subject New England and the West"
The first half of the speech was devoted
to the glories OF New England; the sec
ond half to a tribute of praise to kan
Sas. Governor Hoch said in part:
New England! Birthplace of freedom.
cradle of liberty How its great names
have adorned the pages of American
history, and how its great principles first
y
permeated all the channels of thought
and dominated all the vital activities in
this republic of ours. Like the rays
from the rising sun, leaplng from hill top
to hill top, creeping down into the val
leys, driving darkness like a culprit
from its hiding places, so New England
principles have steadily crowded error
out of its strOngholds and Illuminated
the land with the light of truth. For
300 years two civilizations have been
try. That which first toot root beneath
the genial skies and in the rich soil of
what is now old Vireinia- and that
which took up its abode amid the
granite rocks of what is now Massa-
chusetts. These two conflicting forces
are personified in the Puritan and the
Cavalier. The one austere, it may be,
perhaps, as Paul said of the Athenians,
too religious, even fanatical at times,
but diVfnely unselfish and self Secri-
dcing; the other genial, companionable,
lover of easy and luxury. The one
believed in the dignity of labor, the
other that maUal labor was mental and
ignOble; the. one believes in the rule
of the many,-the other in the rule of
the few; the one believed that God in
tended all men to be free, the other
that he ordained some to be slaves.
State sovereignty, secession, nullifica-
ton rebellion, were but logical and
natural sequences of these conflicting
ideas of man, of society, and of gov
eminent, which finallv elashed at Har-
per's Ferry and eliminated at Apo
mattox. With the searchlight of his
tory flooding our past, who shall say
that the Puritan's theory was not su-
perior to the Cavaliers and that
Plymouth Rock did not root higher and
better civilization than jamestown?
Whence comes this mighty New Eng
lander this powerful Puritan, this ma
5estfc man whose tread shakes the
earth2 From the same cline originally
whence came the Cavalier What then
the difference? First, one came lured
by the extravagant tales of possible
wealth. came for speculative purposes
came with worldly desires uppermost,
came to satisfy the lower self. The
other came to find a place where ne
could worship God according to the die
tales of his conscience, came to escape
from tyranny, came to find freedom.
It is a matter of history that the one
hundred pilgrim passengers on the
Mayflower deliberately chose, like
Abraham Of old, the seemingly inhos-
pitable shores of New England, rather
than the more inviting shores OF the
sunny south land because Of certain
worldly temptations which beckoned
them toward the latter. Strange en-
vironment for the growth OF ideal
characters, but great philosopher mas
evolved the theory that the very sterlI-
ity Of the soil and variableness and Sc
verify of the weather are after all the
real secrets of New England character;
that fle necessities of their environment
have put iron in the soul and muscle in
the hearts of this stalWart people.
New England Weather.
r,,iroatet WHY. General Grant de-
scrfbed the climate of New England as
nine months of winter and three
months Of cold weather. Mark Twain
has said that the Almighty made every
thing in this world except New Eng
land leather. and that in his opinion
some apprentice in the weather clerk s
office. working for his board ana
clothes, made that. Soil! " ny, .Henry
Ward Beecher has said that the ora
settlers of New England lived on rock
and ground granite, and really COM
rnitted burglary on nature 10 get nv
inc out Of it. Out of these environ
n1ents has come that great stalwart
oTarac ter known in history as the Puri-
tan. whose patriotic principles and nigh
ideals now dominate this country. and
are ultimately to encircle and dominate
the globe.
asvThat do YOU raise here?" contemp-
tuously asked pompous foreigner as ne
looked out upon the sterile fields of the
state of Maine What do you raise
here2' he repeated with a sheer. And
the man from Maine to whom the
question was addressed, proud cltlzeh
of that great commonwealth, which has
adorned the pages of American history
with SO many illustrious names and en-
riched them with 50 many glorious
achievements, rose up IN his dignity
and said: I'VE raise men here
But I was asked to speak not only
about New England but about the
west. This part of my speech is
mythical. The west has no geogra-
phical bounds. 1t has always been like
Aladdin's lamp or a will of the wisp,
Elusive and delusive. Old New Eng
Ianders regarded William Penn as
pioneer westerner. have often heard
my father, who originally lived in
Baltimore, speak of thS time when he
moved west. to Cincinnati. In Penn
syIvania and Ohio. Kansas is regarded
as a far western state, when the fact is
II you draw a line north and south,
east and west, on a map of the United
States, you will discover that those
lines intersect in the heart OF Kansas.
In Kansas we think OF Colorado and
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