The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-04-27
HE IS A SUCCESS.
Harry e. Kelly, Kansas Man. Forces
Arkansas People to Take Notice.

Harry E. Kelly. formerly of Kansas.
is one of the foremost citizens of Ar
kansas, and is estimated to be the
wealthiest citizen of Fort Smith. where
he has lived quarter of a century.
Lately Mr.. Kelly, aided by the Arkan-
sas delegation in congress and others,
has caused to be established in Arkan-
sas, surrounding Fort Smith, two hard
wood forest reserves of q million acres
each, and Is now working on similar
scheme in Oklahoma, adjacent to Fort
Smith, where it is proposed to estab-
lish reserve of two million acres. The
purpose of forest reserves is to save
the young timber until 1t is old enough
to be manufactured. In private own
ership, native forests are wasted by
improvident owners or destroyed py
vandals, but the government, with its
strong arm of the law, guards its re-
serves with vigilant care and permits
no trees to be felled until they are
ready for the market. This is touch
of paternalism, but so is the postoffice
for that matter, and recent acts of con-
gress indicate that public sentiment is
headed in that direction. But be that
as it may, the government does not let
thieves break in and steal. They are
good thing, and the next generation
will bless the men who now are estab-
fishing them.
Mr.. Kelly, although not the whole
thing in Fort Smith or claiming to be,
for he is a modest man, is leaving his
marks in Fort Smith. For instance.
the good roads which lead to the city
are the result of his foresight and
energy largely. Arkansas, although
one of the older states. is new in the
development of it's natural resources,
and few years ago Mr.. Kelly visited
New Zealand, a new country, which
fast is developing by new methods of
government adopted there. They can
try everything once in New Zealand,
and so by continually experimenting
they are getting the best. Mr.. Kelly
says the New Zealanders are great
road builders, and the good roads
around Fort Smith, fragmentary as
they are, are one of the things he
brought back home with him. Telling
his fellow townsmen what good roads
he saw and the methods and means of
building them, they acted upon the
suggestion and laid out a system of
highways centering in the town. Mr.
ahead of the best intelligence so far
developed in the United States, not
withstanding the superior intelligence
credited by the United States census
to Kansas, Nebraska, Washington and
Oregon. Whether he approves all the
new functions the New Zealanders
have introduced in their government
Mr.. Kelly does not say, or whether
says the New Zealanders apparently
are satisfied and that 1t all is a very
interesting subject of study.
In New Zealand they have postal
savings banks. On the walls of the
postoffice the citizen reads the an
nouncement that the government will
receive deposits and pay per cent in
terest for them. And next to it an
other that the government will lend
money and charge 4 II per cent for it,
Large holdings of land are discouraged
by the government. For small possess
sions the owner is taxed a minimum
to his holdings the ratio is increased
densely populated the government
takes over parts of large holdings,
paying the owner 10 per cent more
than than the value he last put upon
1t when the tax assessor called. This
serves the double purpose of dividing
the land among many and of keeping
taxable values high. Land there taken
over by the government is surveyed
into small tracts, good roads built, and
sold. First of all the roads are built,
which Mr.. Kelly says should be the
beginning of all new settlements. The
government also builds and owns the
is the good wagon roads that Mr.. Kelly
especially commends
Mr.. Kelly's father was the late Har-
rison Kelly of Burlington, Coffey
county, who represented the Fourth
district in congress in 1S99-91. An
other former Kansas man who Is sue
cessful in Fort Smith is c. w. Armour.
who, when he was a boy, lived on a
farm in Atchison county, a playmate
of Frank farrell.