Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1911-10-05
HUTCHINSON HONORS
BIRTH OF KANSAS
President Taft Delivered the Princi-
pal Ad eSs Of the Day.
A GREAT THRONG WAS PRESENT
Paid Touching Tribute to the Late
Representative Madison = Dis
cussed Men and Times From
1920 to the Present Time.

Hutchison, Kan.-President Taft
was the orator of the day today
at the celebration of the fiftieth
anniversary Of the birth of Kansas
as state. He spoke at the fair
grounds and was heard by a great
throng. The presidents address was
in part as follows:
I'VE meet today to celebrate the
dftieth anniversary of the birth Of
The state of Kansas. | was invited to
attend by your honored townsmen and
distinguished representative in con-
gress, Judge q. H. Madison. He has
been suddenly torn from us. His
death was great shock to me, as
doubt not it was to his fellow citizens.
had not known him long nor can
say that knew him intimately, but
knew him well enough to know the
strong qualities of his mind and
heart, his judicial instinct, his in
tense desire to be fair, and his clear
perceptions of the law as jurist, and
his level headedness as a legislator.
l remember speech which he made
in congress on the subject of except
ing from the application of an appro-
priation lawless combinations of work
ingmen, which was at the same time
noble, clear exposition of the neces
sity for making all persons equal be-
fore the law and an exhibition of
courage and Indifference to conse-
quences in the support of righteous
judgment. His speech marked him as
one of the coming men of congress.
He took great interest in this cele-
bration. He came to see me often
about it and discussed it in detail l
extend to his family and to his friends
my profound sympathy in their deep
sorrow and hope that the memory
of his high standing among his fellow
citizens and the value of the services
that he rendered to them may in time
mitigate the blow which has fallen
upon them.
kansas as state was the child OF
an issue The pains of labor lasted
more than half a decade, and full
understanding of her origin and her
growth needs a review and a study of
the history of this nation since its
foundation. The issue which gave
birth to Kansas was that of slavery.
Fate and the exigencies of politics
brought about a condition that cen
tered the conflict between those who
wished to maintain slavery and eX-
tend it, and those who wished to
strike it down within a radius of a
hundred miles in the devoted bosom
of that country which has since be-
come the state of Kansas,
I'm the controversies over slavery
that occupied early in the nineteenth
century, there were compromises that
were more easily made than later, be-
cause the feeling did not then run so
high. In 1920 Missouri was admitted
to the union as slave state with the
provision that no territory thereafter
should be admitted as a slave state
to the north and southern boundary
of Missouri, 80 degrees and 80 min
utes. 1t was hoped by all who joined
in that compromise, and by those who
came after for the next 80 years, that
this offered a resolution for the ques-
ton that made it possible for the
North and South to live together in
amity."
The president related circumstances
of the passage of the compromise bill
Of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska
bill four years later despite the de-
termined opposition of Northern sena-
tors. He continued:
1T is not too much to say that the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, with its squatter
SOVEREIGNTY, was a shifting and shifty
compromise with the Southern de-
mand for an extension of slave terri
tory and it may be questioned wheth-
er it was not more to be deplored in
deed, as the result was, than if con-
cession had been a clean declaration
in favor of slavery in the act of con-
gress admitting it. 1t shifted the re-
sponsibility from the body of law
makers in Washington, upon whom
it properly rested, to the poor people
whom new country to attract and
who would pay with their blood and
suffering for the privilege of deciding
tPat which some one else ought to
have decided.
THE slave state of Missouri lay
Immediately east of Kansas, and from
that state it was easy to secure a
large force of pro-slavery sym
pathizers who would invade Kansas
to mporarily either for the purpose of
fraudulent voting as residents of the
territory, or for the purpose of main
tanning with deadly weapons the pro-
slavery side of the battles which en-
sued. This proximity of Missouri, and
the natural emigration that would fol-
low the opening of new state like
Kansas from it's immediate neighbor
on the East, was most discouraging to
those in the North who were Jealous
in opposition to slavery and hopeful
of making Kansas free state.
at fell to Massachusetts, far re-