A history of Kansas, Part 11

Author: Prentis, Noble L. (Noble Lovely), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Topeka, Kan. : C. Prentis
Number of Pages: 394


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The piece of chain mail is interesting as being the only trace or relic ever found within the limits of Kansas of


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A PROSPEROUS YEAR.


Spanish occupation. While the history of the country as a civilized possession commonly begins with the march of Coronado, and Spain declared sovereignty even after the Spanish flag had been lowered at St. Louis on the cession of Upper Louisiana, March 9, 1804, as Lieutenant Pike found it flying at the Pawnee village in Kansas in September 1806, this bit of rusty armor is all remaining to show that the Spanish arms were ever carried into the limits of Kansas.


SUMMARY.


1. The year 1888 marked a revived agricultural prosperity in Kansas.


2. Judge Samuel D. Lecompte, First Chief Justice of the Terri- tory, and Thomas Carney, died in the year.


3. County seat contests result in bloodshed-militia called out to preserve order.


4. Governor Robinson resigned the Superintendency of Haskell Institute.


5. Disastrous mine explosion in Cherokee county, resulting in the loss of many lives.


6. The Industrial School for Girls established at Beloit.


7. David Ware, Janitor of the Capitol, died in Topeka.


8. Mrs. Jane Stormont gave $5,000 to State Medical Society.


9. Benjamin Harrison received the electoral vote of Kansas.


10. Lyman U. Humphrey elected Governor.


11. Valuable relies of Spanish and Indian occupation found.


CHAPTER XXVIII.


1889 .- THE DEVELOPING RESOURCES.


303. Messages to the Legislature .- The Legislature of 1889 assembled on the 8th of January, and the House was organized by the choice of Captain Henry Booth as Speaker, and H. L. Millard as Clerk. Governor John A. Martin delivered to the Legislature a retiring, and Governor L. U. Humphrey an inaugural, message. The attention of the Legislature was especially directed to the condition of the debtor classes, and the need of legislation in their behalf. Governor Martin called attention to the mortgage laws. He said: "It should require something more than a mort- gage to steal a man's farm. Our chattel mortgage laws invite ontrages on property rights, that are as flagrant as grand lareeny, and the wrong and injustice that has been done under the shield of these laws has been a disgrace to civilized government."


304. Legislative Acts .- On the 23d of January, 1889, the joint session of the Legislature elected Preston B. Plumb United States Senator from the State of Kansas, for a third term, by a unanimous vote. Clifford C. Baker was re-elected State Printer. The most noticeable acts of the Legislature were the creation of the office of Commissioner of Elections, to be appointed by the Governor in cities of the first-class, for a term of four years; an Act authorizing cities and townships to issue bonds and to subscribe stock


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1889 .- THE DEVELOPING RESOURCES.


for sugar manufactories; to increase the amount of bounty to be paid on sugar manufactured in Kansas from $15,000 to $40,000.


There was an Act, also, appropriating $36,000 for build- ings for the G. A. R., at Ellsworth; an appropriation to establish a State Soldiers' Home, whenever Congress shall give one of the National Military reservations as a site therefor. The Legislature also passed an Act, which went into effect May 25, 1889, reducing the rate of interest by contract from twelve to ten per cent, and the legal rate from seven to six per cent.


305. Manufacture of Sugar .- The industry which most engaged the energies of Kansas in 1889 was the manufacture of sugar from the sorghum cane. For several years the attempt to manufacture sugar at a profit from the native cane had been carried on, and factories erected at various points. The United States Agricultural Depart- ment had been enlisted, and Government chemists aided in the experiments. The result of a series of costly experi- ments at Ottawa, Sterling, and other places, was the dis- covery and admission that sugar could not be made from the sorghum cane in paying quantity by the "roller" pro- cess employed in the treatment of the true, or Louisiana cane, but the showing of a series of trials at Fort Scott was claimed as demonstrating the efficiency of the "diffu- sion" process. The Legislature offered a bounty of two cents a pound on sugar manufactured in the State, to the amount of $15,000. This bounty was afterwards reduced to three-quarters of a cent per pound, but the total amount raised to $40,000. In 1889, sugar factories were built at Ness City, Meade Center and Liberal, in addition to a large


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HISTORY OF KANSAS.


number already in existence. In September, 1889, Jeremiah M. Rusk, United States Secretary of Agriculture, visited Kansas, and published that the manufacture of sugar was a success beyond his anticipations; that at Conway Springs the product of sugar had reached twelve per cent, a profit of ten per cent. The sugar crop of 1889. on which the State bounty was paid amounted to 1,293,274 pounds, and in 1890 to 1,371,930 pounds.


306. Bonds Voted .- Bonds were voted by municipali- ties in aid of sugar mills and refineries. The aid proposed reaching, in some instances, $100,000 in bonds. In time, however, a plan to bond a large number of southwestern counties, by townships, was denounced as fraudulent, and checked to a considerable extent further bond issues in aid of the sugar manufacture. The manufacture was continued for some years. In 1892 but two sugar mills, those at Medi- cine Lodge and Fort Scott, received the State subsidy, the product being 998,100 pounds of sugar. In the course of events the Government and State aid was withdrawn. A very large amount of useful information was obtained in regard to the nature and uses of the Chinese cane, and on other points of interest, for which a good price was paid.


307. Salt Industry .- The salt making industry, which had received a considerable impetus in 1887, and, in fact, had been carried on to some extent from the beginning of the settlement of the State, but which produced but 13,000 bushels in 1880, was enormously increased in 1889. Early in the year, Senator Plumb made the statement that "the development of the salt industry in Kansas has had the effeet of reducing the price of salt in the Mississippi valley west of Kansas, twenty-five per cent, from the prices pre-


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1889 .- THE DEVELOPING RESOURCES.


vailing twelve months ago." In January, Wellington organized its eighth salt company. Hutchinson already had ten salt plants in operation, with more in course of con- struction. McPherson had made a promising start, and Kingman, Lyons, Anthony, Sterling, Great Bend, and other points were engaged in the manufacture. The salt deposit was reached at depths varying from 420 to 925 feet.


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Mill at Junction City, Kan


308. Corn .- The year 1889 was the greatest "corn year," so far, in the agricultural annals of the State, the figures being 6,820,693 acres, with a yield of 273,988,321 bushels; valued at $51,649,876.18; an average yield of 40.15 bushels to the acre. This inspired a Kansas writer to write of Kansas corn:


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HISTORY OF KANSAS.


"Corn is the sign and seal of a good American agricul- tural country. Corn is an American institution; one of the discoveries of the continent. It is of the American West. It reaches its best estate between the Alleghanies and the Rockies. It was known by the Indians, and to cultivate it was one of the few agricultural temptations which overcame their proud and haughty contempt for labor.


"Corn is the test. A good country, in a farming sense, is one that 'brings' good corn. If it will not do that, then it may be a good country for something else, but it is not an American farmer's country. It requires a long season, plenty of rain, a thorough-going sun that attends to busi- ness, but knows when to stop; a generous soil, and the best elemental treatment from the warm, soft day on which it is planted, till the 'frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the shoek.' Hence, when you say that a given region is a good eorn country, you have said it will raise anything that grows in the temperate zone.


"Corn makes the country and the people who live in it. It fattens hogs and cattle, and so fine-haired people, who live on cracked wheat and philosophy, claim that it has a coarseness about it that imparts itself to the people who eat it; but, for all that, it is the food of men who turn wilder- nesses to fruitful fields, span continents, and fight great battles.


"Kansas has corn, and so is in luck. Scoffers and ribalds talk about the Kansas man burning corn; and it is one of the merits of corn that it makes a good fire, but the Kansas man knows better than that. Everywhere in every farmer's dooryard is to be seen a great pile of red and white corn cobs, clean and bright, which burn like tinder. The


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1889 .- THE DEVELOPING RESOURCES.


corn sheller goes around like the threshing machine, and shells the corn and piles up the cobs. The cob is a com- mercial fact. At Sedan there is a factory that turns out millions of cob pipes. The Kansas man can burn his cob or he can smoke it."


309. Harbor Convention .- In response to a call by Governor Humphrey, a convention of delegates from many of the Western and Southern States assembled at Topeka, October 1, 1889, to devise means for securing a deep-water harbor on the coast of Texas. 600 delegates responded, including Governor Thayer, of Nebraska, Governor Francis, of Missouri, seven ex-Governors, nine Congressmen, and many other men of prominence. Fifteen States and Terri- tories were represented. United States Senator Plumb . presided over the deliberations of the convention.


310. Women Officials .- In 1889 five towns elected women Mayors: Argonia, Oskaloosa, Cottonwood Falls, Rossville and Baldwin.


SUMMARY.


1. Governor Martin condemns the mortgage laws.


2. Preston B. Plumb was unanimously elected United States Senator for a third term. The Legislature passed acts authorizing cities and townships to issue bonds, and sub- scribe stock for sugar manufactories; appropriated $36,000 for G. A. R. building; reduced rate of interest by contract from ten per cent to six per cent.


3. The manufacture of sorghum sugar was vigorously carried on.


4. The salt industry became greatly augmented.


5. The yield of corn averaged 40.15 per acre; the total crop being valued at $51,649,676.18.


6. Deep-water convention convened at Topeka, October 1, 1889.


7. Five towns elected women Mayors.


CHAPTER XXIX.


KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA.


311. Opening of Oklahoma .- In the early months of 1889 there was an evident increase in the interest felt in the opening of Oklahoma to settlement; the so-called boomers collected in large numbers, at points on the border, more especially Arkansas City and Caldwell. The active mem- bers of the boomer element continued to make raids into Oklahoma, and were as often removed by the military.


The progress of the Bill before Congress to open up Oklahoma for settlement, was followed with alternations of hope and fear. At last the suspense was ended by the proclamation of the President announcing the date of the opening of Oklahoma, and the regulations under which the 1,800,000 acres of land were to be taken.


312. Preparation .- The principal points from which the Strip was to be entered from Kansas were Caldwell, Hunnewell and Arkansas City.


The Strip was filled with people, and the night before the eventful day a line of camp fires shone from the Oklahoma boundary to the Kansas line. Everything was planned in advance. The Government functionaries were waiting in the land offices in Oklahoma. The town sites had been selected and named. Guthrie, destined to be the capital, named in honor of a citizen of Kansas, had its thousands of foreordained citizens, as did other town sites. In at least


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1


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KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA.


one instance there was an announced candidate for Mayor of one of the future cities, the day before the "rush."


313. The Rush .- At noon, on the 22d of April, 1889, at sound of bugle came the instantaneous occupation of Oklahoma. The United States cavalrymen, drawn up in front of the multitude of vehicles, crowded with people, and a great host of horsemen, mounted for the most part on wiry prairie ponies, moved forward, wheeled to the right and left to clear the way, and the occupying wave, made up, as was estimated along the border, of 40,000 human beings, swept into Oklahoma. There was a moment of peril at the line, and then the mass opened out like a fan, and all was safe. From Arkansas City six great rail- road trains, carrying 6,000 people, moved in the evening into the new country.


314. Effect on Kansas .- Kansas bore a great part in the opening and occupation of the Territory. It was esti- mated that the population of Kansas was diminished by 50,000. But Kansas is like the wondrous bush in the wilderness of old, burning, but never consumed. In the year 1889, which saw the opening of Oklahoma, half of the public lands taken in the United States were located in the States of Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota and Colorado. In 1888, the report of the Secretary of the Interior showed that 1,550,235 acres had been patented in Kansas.


315. County Seat Difficulties .- In January, 1889, the contention of Ingalls and Cimarron for the seat of justice of Gray county, rendered the presence of troops necessary. After three men had been killed, General Murray Myers, of the State troops, visited the disturbed locality. The controversy was finally ended by the order


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HISTORY OF KANSAS.


of the Supreme Court compelling the removal of the county records to Cimarron.


316. Monument of General Grant .- On the 17th of September was unveiled at Fort Leavenworth the first monument erected in memory of General Grant. The statue is by Laredo Taft. George R. Peck delivered on the occasion an impressive dedicatory address.


317. Kansas at the Paris Exposition .- Kansas was represented at the Paris Exposition, and received a gold medal for the best agricultural report exhibited; a silver medal for the publications of the State Labor Department, and honorable mention for the exhibits of the Douglas and Conway Springs sugar manufactories.


318. John A. Martin .- On the 2d of October, 1889, John A. Martin, Tenth Governor of Kansas, died at Atchi- son. He came to Kansas from Pennsylvania, his native State, in 1857, his eighteenth year, and soon became editor and proprietor of the Atchison Champion, and was dis- tinguished as a Kansas journalist, statesman and soldier from his early youth. He was Secretary of the Wyan- dotte Constitutional Convention, and a member of the first State, Senate. He served in the Civil War as Colonel of the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry, and com- manded the First Brigade, Third Division, Fourth Army Corps, and the Third Brigade, First Division, Twentieth Army Corps. He was elected Governor in 1884, and again in 1886. He was buried with military and civic honors of the most imposing character in Mount Vernon ceme- tery, Atchison.


Among the many positions of honor and usefulness occu- pied by Governor Martin, was for years that of member


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KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA.


and Vice-President of the Board of Managers of the National Soldiers' Home. He was deeply interested in the Nation's provision for the care of its veteran soldiers and his counsel and effort was given to the establishment of the Western Branch, which was located near Leavenworth, and has grown to be one of the finest military asylums in the country or the world.


SUMMARY.


1. The opening of Oklahoma on the 22d of April, 1889, is partici- pated in by a great crowd of Kansas people.


2. The county seat fight in Gray county excites attention.


3. A monument to General Grant is unveiled at Fort Leavenworth.


4. Kansas is recognized at the Paris Exposition.


5. John A. Martin, tenth Governor of Kansas, dies at Atchison.


First Cathedral of Kansas.


CHAPTER XXX.


NEW POLITICAL FORCES.


319. Reunion of the First Supreme Court .- In 1890 began the fourth decade of the history of Kansas.


Early in the year 1890, the meeting of the Kansas State Bar Association was made the occasion of a reunion of the original Supreme Court of the State, composed of Thomas Ewing, Jr., as Chief Justice, and Samuel A. Kingman and Lawrence D. Bailey, Associate Justices. All the surviving judges who had been members of the court were present, and recollections were revived of the first session of the tribunal, held in an upper room of the "Gale Block," in Topeka, in 1861. It was remembered that the court was opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Steele, of Topeka, and also that there were no causes ready for hearing. A very impressive address was delivered by ex-Chief Justice Ewing.


320. Grippe .- In January, 1890, Kansas was visited for the first time by the disease since known as the grippe, though at first spoken of as influenza, and said to have been introduced from Russia. In Atchison, 1,000 cases were reported.


321. Honorable David J. Brewer, Associate Jus- tice .- On January 6, 1890, Honorable David J. Brewer was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Brewer for years had occu- pied the District and Supreme Court bench of Kansas, and


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NEW POLITICAL FORCES.


his choice to the highest court of the nation was regarded as an honor paid the State.


322. Retirement of Colonel A. S. Johnson .- The land agents of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company held a social session in Topeka, and presented Colonel A. S. Johnson, the Land Commissioner of the company, with a silver service on the occasion of his retirement. It was regarded as the signal of the withdrawal of the company from the great land selling enterpris carried on for nearly twenty years, and which had disposed of an empire. The system by which millions of acres passed Colonel A. S. Johnson. from the hands of the Government, and of a corporation, into the possession and ownership of individuals, with scarcely a trace of friction, was a business miracle.


It was announced, in 1890, that Kansas Division, Union Pacific, was the only railroad company having any portion of its original grant for sale.


323. Reverend Nehemiah Green. - The Reverend Nehemiah Green died at Manhattan, January 13, 1890. Governor Green was a native of Ohio, born March 8, 1837. He came to Douglas county, Kan., in 1855, but returned to Ohio, where he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and also the Union army. In 1865 he returned to Kansas, and in 1866 was elected Lieutenant- Governor. He assumed the executive chair on the resigna- tion of Governor Samuel J. Crawford, to take command of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and served to the end of the term.


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HISTORY OF KANSAS.


324. The Farmers' Alliance .- The Farmers' Alliance, which had attained prominence, in 1889, as a secret and social organization composed of farmers, and devoted to the interests of all agriculturists, and admitting to its member- ship men and women, became, in 1890, an active political force.


The impelling and controlling sentiment that led to the organization of the Alliance, was the belief that in the con- duct of government, and the making of laws, the farming, and, indeed, the laboring classes, generally, had been neglected or discriminated against. That capital was allowed undue weight, that corporations were allowed full sweep for unjust, avaricious and oppressive disposition, and escaped their just burden of taxation; that the loaner of money had all the advantage in his transactions with the borrower; the mortgagee of the mortgagor; and that a Government originally designed on the basis of the free- dom and equality of all men, had become perverted, and was conducted on the principle that "to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath."


325. Measures Urged .- The Farmers' Alliance urged measures of relief for the debtor class; a stay law for a period of two years; various measures for the benefit of mortgagors, especially an overhauling of the provisions of the chattel mortgage law; for the help of the shipper and the passenger as against the railroad companies, who, it was claimed, were deriving an exorbitant income from their rates, at the expense of the public.


The Alliance asked for a law requiring land sold under foreclosure to bring the amount of the judgment and costs;


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. NEW POLITICAL FORCES.


a law that should make the State Railroad Commissioners elective by the people; that should make United States Senators eleetive by the people, and various enactments and regulations that should give the people the opportunity to exercise their power directly, rather than by delegated agents. Doubtless many members of the Alliance asked more than this; none, it may be believed, demanded less.


The complaint of all might be summed up as too much taxation; too much mortgage; too much reign of the rich; too little consideration of the poor; too much debt. The county indebtedness of Kansas had doubled in the ten years between 1880 and 1890.


u 326. A New Party .- While there were some dis- avowals of any intention on the part of the Alliance, separ- ately or collectively, to take action after the manner of a political party, it was quite impossible that it should happen otherwise. Many local Alliances declared their intention to aet together in support of certain political tenets, and particularly in opposition to certain political leaders of the old parties. A "new party" seemed inevitable.


At a convention assembled at Topeka, June 12, 1890, delegates representing the Farmers' Alliance, the Industrial Union, the Patrons of Husbandry, the Knights of Labor, the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association, and the Single Tax Clubs, organized the "People's Party", as it called itself in the State of Kansas, or the Populist Party, as it came to be popularly designated. Honorable B. H. Clover, President of the Farmers' Allianee, was Chairman of the convention at which the People's Party was organized.


327. Original Package Case .- The controversy be- tween the advocates and opposers of the Prohibition Law


T


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HISTORY OF KANSAS.


in the meantime increased in bitterness. The former were greatly enraged by the sudden appearance in the State, at many different points, of liquor stores, acting, as they claimed, under the authority of a decision of the United States Supreme Court, in what was called the "Original Package Case," coming from Iowa. The Court, or a majority, three justices dissenting, held that intoxicating liquors formed an article of commerce to be transported like any other article, and that no State had the power to prevent the importation of liquors in unbroken original packages.


328. Wilson Bill .- The excitement caused was great. Large public meetings were held to denounce the original package saloons; the keepers were in some instances ordered out of town; in some cases the liquors were shipped, by the citizens, back whence they came. Many of the liquor sellers were arrested as violators of the law, but were usually discharged by the courts by virtue of the Supreme Court decision. At last remedial legislation was sought. Congress was appealed to, and the result was the passage of the "Anti-Original Package Law," or the Wilson Bill, which established the right of a State to exercise its police power over any articles sent into it, whether in the original packages or otherwise. This ended one form of attempt to do, in the State of Kansas, that which the State says shall not be done.


329. Chancellor of State University .- The choice of Professor Francis Huntington Snow, as Chancellor of the Kansas State University, ended a period of uncertainty and anxiety, and brought to the headship of the institution a man learned in many things, and especially in all things


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NEW POLITICAL FORCES.


pertaining to Kansas. Professor Snow began his work in the University in 1866, and employed the years to study everything between the heavens and earth of Kansas.


Early in 1890 it was announced that Kansas was the first State to apply for space at the approaching World's Colum- bian Exposition at Chicago.


330. Eleventh Census .- In 1890 was taken the eleventh census of the United States. A large number of persons were employed in the work, and in obedience to a demand in Congress, a great deal of time and money was employed in collecting the amount of mortgage indebtedness, and, as far as possible, the reasons and causes of debt.


The population of Kansas, as published by the Govern- ment Census Department, was placed at 1,423,485. This represents the population of the State June 1, 1890.


331. Parties in 1890 .- At the State election in Novem- ber, 1890, four tickets were placed in the field. The Republican, headed by Governor Humphrey, who was nom- inated for re-election; the Democratic, headed by Ex-Gov- ernor Charles Robinson; the People's Party, with John F. Willitts as its candidate for Governor, and the Prohibitionist, led by Rev. A. M. Richardson.


The official vote for Governor stood: Humphrey, 115,025; Willitts, 106,972; Robinson, 71,357; Richardson, 1,230. The entire Republican State ticket was elected-though by greatly reduced majorities, as compared with those of 1888-except L. B. Kellogg, candidate for Attorney-General. The Demo- crats, Populists, and Republican-Resubmissionists united on John N. Ives, and elected him. To the Legislature, ninety People's Party members, twenty-seven Republicans, and seven Democrats were elected.




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