The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-08-22
RED INK FOR HOCH
Former Governor Wants Known
Prosperity of Kansas.
Intends to Put Proof on the
Hotel Registers.
A DISTINCTIVE MARK.
Westerners Would Identify
Themselves in This Way.
Other Items Of General Inter-
est to Kansas Readers.
| DISTINCTIVE MARK.

Marion, Kan, Aug. 22.-Former Gov
ernor E. w. Hoch, whenever he travels
in states east of Kansas, is going to
write his name on the hotel registers in
red ink, and he is urging others to do
the same, just to let people known that
a Kansan is in town.
If the natives of the effete east desire
to look upon a well fed, prosperous
looking individual who is Just oozing
prosperity from every pore let them
look up the chap with the red ink in
his fountain pen, and he will talk pros
perity and insurgency in Republican
politics until the natives see the error
of their ways and undertake to swat i'll
luck and the politicians at the same
time.
II am goirg to buy a small fountain
pen and fill it with red ink" said the
former governor while in Topeka on his
way east to fill some ChautauQua
dates. II am going to use it only IN
signing my name on hotel registers and
I am not going to abbreviate the word
Kansas any more, either. Time was
when I and hundreds of others would
make a bunch of scratches for the
name of our state, but 1 am not going
to do it any more, and also am going
to write Kansas in big letters. I be-
Heve it would be a good thing If every
Kansas traveller would do the same"
But Times Have Changed.
1t has not been so long ago that when
a KanSan walked into a hotel and reg
istered the clerk and any others who
happened to be about the desk and who
read the name greeted the newcomer
with a sheer or laugh.
Trying to get away from the grass
hoppers," said one.
Had to get out when you got tired
lodging cyclones" laughed another.
Coming home to get a square meal
from your wife's folks" was the jab
of the third, and similar expressions OF
scorn were poured upon the head OF the
| long suffering Kansan.
But the bad years quit about 1898,
and since then the "old order
changeth," and the Kansan is not a
downtrodden, poverty stricken, hungry
individual going home to his wires foiks
| to fatten up for another trip at filling
| the seemingly unproductive Kansas
soil. The average Kansan Of today is
| fast getting into the class with the
predatory rich.
| been exceptionally prosperous. There
| has not been a tornado for five years,
| and the grasshoppers have not been
thick enough to furnish sufficient feed
| for the turkeys and chickens. The
crops have been larger than the rail-
roaos could haul.
Property Values in State.
| The state tax commission has just
| completed the tabulation of the prop
| erty values of the state, and it shows
| a total of two and three-quarter bill
| lion dollars, one billion invested in rail-
road and manufacturing plants and
town property, and all the rest invested
| in farm properties. The poor Kansas
| farmers own more than 10000 motor
cars. They paid taxes on over 1000
this year, and since the tax was levied
the motor car dealers estimate that not
less than 5000 have been sold to farm
ers alone.
There are 105 counties in the state.
| and in eighty of these there are no in
| mates of poor farms, and fifty-two do
not have any poor farms at all. In
sixty-one counties there were no IN
mates of the county jails July 1, and
| seventeen counties have no ja1ls at all,
and never have owned any.
| These are some of the things why
Governor Hoch thinks all kansans
| should register in red ink when tnev
| travel in the east.