USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. I > Part 20
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The war was on!
The campaign was planned.
The town was cut into twelve parts. The country adjacent to town was cut into four parts; sixteen committees, each of three men, were appointed, and their district was given them. A gen- eral committee was appointed to oversee the work of the other committees. A special committee was appointed to correspond with nonresident land-owners and absent members of the board. Each committee was to report at 6 o'clock in the evening, deliver
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the subscriptions taken, and receive instructions for the morrow. At evening, weary men and jaded horses occupied the street at Levy's bank, now Boston Store. The first $40,000 was raised without great labor. The last $10,000 was like pulling jaw teeth. The last $3,000 was harder work than the $47,000. The lists were overhauled, revised, to see that "no guilty man escaped." Then came the increasing of the subscriptions already made. At last the executive committee announced that the committees might disband.
The victory was ours !
As to whether or no Kansas City at any time wanted the Burton Car Works, no one ever knew. Whether this was a pure bluff to "rib us up," no one ever learned.
When this business was all finished, 90 per cent of the board had some doubts as to the success of the Burton Car Works, but loyalty forbade any comment or carping criticism.
The members had faith in the general directors. The town had faith in the board.
The "Eagle" proclaimed our victory; yet "things" were tak- ing on a darker hue. There were clouds in the sky, but we dared not own up to each other the thoughts that we "thunk." Full well we knew that the carrier pigeons of spite and malice were being sent out daily proclaiming our downfall. The old proverb applied to us: "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings, shall tell the matter."
It was no profit to tell our people that "He that observeth the winds shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."
We had finished sowing, and knew that unless we reaped quickly the "stuff" would rust, burn and mildew.
Our only hope was in the patriotism of our own people. The simon-pure speculator was gone. We were as a man who had built a house and no cash with which to furnish it. We had all the ele- ments that go to make up a city save manufactories. Something must be done, and in the language of Mrs. Macbeth: "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."
The Burton Car Works would not, directly, consume cattle, hogs or sheep, corn, wheat or oats. These things were germane to our soil, and we reasoned as follows: that to ship out all this in a raw state, and pay two or three profits and two freight bills, to
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get a part of the same back, was nonsense. Hence our needs were industries.
Ten thousand "Eagles," on double wings, announcing our triumph, bore our hopes to every point of the compass, to impede if not arrest the brewing hurricane. Coming events before them shadows cast. And the stoutest held his breath. We knew we were drooping, paling, falling, fading, sinking, and almost ready. to flounder. As small boys going by a graveyard, we shouted and whistled to "skeer" away the ghosts. Among our intimates, we closed the doors, stopped the keyholes, peeped in the closets and spoke in loud whispers or grave, low, funereal tones. Metaphor- ically, we unto each other said :
Note the values sinking daily wi' th' sun !
Unless relief be furnished, our sands of life shall run.
Faster and lower, observe the values go,
As the crawling river melts the mountain snow.
Soon the storm will burst in fury o'er our defenseless head,
And the Princess of the Plains will be numbered 'mongst the dead.
The Board of Trade resolved that we must for a time forget everything save cementing the foundation on which the town rested. We resolved we must have solid underpinning, viz .:
Packing houses. Elevators. Glucose and starch factories. Straw board factories. Canning factories.
All in the order above named. We interviewed Armour, Swift, Nels Morris, Fowler, and from each of them received the informa- tion that packing west of the Missouri river was nonsense. The elevator et al. things were dropped. We were fishing for whale and wanted no small fish (not even a hundred-pound mudcat). We then had men whose private business was not only neglected but ruined in trying to ward off the blows that fell on Wichita; men who forgot their own affairs to hold up the town. There were men who lived at the Board of Trade rooms; who could be found there daily, and among these men were N. A. English, George H. Blackwelder, George L. Rouse, Pat Healy, N. F. Nieder- lander, A. W. Oliver. Others worked, spent time, money, answered every call by the board, but attended to their own business. These
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six men were invoiced at a million dollars. They and their fel- lows at many millions, and if the establishment of packing houses, the founding of schools, and the securement of the C., R. I. & P. R. R. and other things can be estimated in money, these men were worth to Wichita all these things by their dollars; but by their example not only at that time, but for all time.
. On that date there were many Elijahs-the Elishas who shall catch and wear their fallen mantles are yet incog. Of the men who labored for Wichita, there are many whose names deserve to be printed in capitals, whenever used. Yet it would be unjust to these loyal and unselfish men not to state that there were men at that date whose names in long primer would be a decoration, and whose real size is small pica or great primer.
Wichita, at that date, or shortly after, resembled a callow youth, brought up on small beers, who had reached the brandy and champagne stage, suddenly brought to face with native wine, diluted with water ; being unable to sacrifice his passion for liquor, he at least wanted the aroma.
We died hard, and among the bolder souls was the determina- tion to "bet the last dollar," and "let the tail go with the hide." Like the thrifty housewife, with a lean larder, we put on a bold frontage and kept up appearances.
The paving of streets, building a court house and a city build- ing has its prototype in the family who eats thin soup to keep a carriage.
Governor Stanley and others thought that $25,000 invested in small concerns would grow to large ones; but this was unheeded in the harpooning of the Dold and Whittaker whales, and when we landed the whales we were, as a Board of Trade, hopelessly insolvent, and a large majority of the membership of the Board of Trade were beggars.
Note .- Ottumwa, Ia., with half of Wichita's population, fur- nishes Kansas, Oklahoma et al. states Silver Gloss starch; six towns in Kansas whose population is less than Wichita's sell Wich- ita canned goods. Ask your grocer about this. Herein is a pointer for the coming Elishas, Lishas and Liges on whose shoulders rest the future growth of Wichita.
While Dold was here, one hundred men, who subscribed liber- ally, attended a meeting, at which Dold was the "star actor," and not one of them were offered an introduction. This incident and others similar, first cousin, half brother, or at least blood kin to it,
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caused that feeling that hastened the general disrespect for a body of men who, though loyal to the core to Wichita, permitted their "Falernian wines" and quail on toast to puff them up so that the smaller men, the lesser units, the dray horses who pulled the load from the ditch, at last exclaimed : "Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great?"
In criticizing these men, I criticize my friends. That they had faults is admitted, but their faults were but spots on the sun, and in striking a balance there is much to their credit. These leaders are gone, fallen, and their places as organizers have not been filled.
"And yet, despite the snub-the wrong- The dray horses ne'er failed to carry on The work so hard they had begun, But pulled the weary load along."
Few men forget snubs, and it took talk, earnest solicitations, frequent allusions to "harmony, unity, strength, success," to hold the crowd and make it see that prudence dictated that we get Dold's packing house first and wipe out the insults subsequently. The "snub" was obvious.
Mr. Dold asked $150,000. It was annihilation to delay the thing. We debated, and, like Dona Julia, "vowing we'd ne'er consent, consented." Once again we rang the bells, called out the town to the old court room on First street, and when the hour came we "sold standing room." There was not a candidate for office that dared absent himself from this boiling mass of human- ity. Many wanted to be away, but, like "Gene" Field's poem, "If I dared to, but I darsent," they came. The boys knew that it would not do to have a "fall-down." This "play" had to have more than a "one-night stand"; it was a "season-ticket" affair; and if it was damned the "first night" by "bad acting," our name would be "Dennis," "Pants," and we would be "Nit." We did not intend to embark in the "Nit" business; hence there was music in the air, eloquence on the platform, clackers in the gal- lery, family circle and pit. Nothing that would stimulate man or produce enthusiasm was omitted. Naught that would rouse man or open pocket-books was neglected.
Sluss was there to deliver an extemporaneous address, ou which he had spent some hours or days in preparation. He was the field artillery, the heavy ordnance, to be followed by the
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small arms, viz .: the Minie, Enfields, Springfields, the Sni- ders, the Martini-Henry and chassepots, carbines, blunderbusses, smooth-bores, small-bores and old muzzle-loaders, as well as the air-guns. The program was Sluss, and then the ten two-thousand- dollar subscriptions; then more shot and shell, followed by the twenty pledged one-thousand-dollar men; more shot and shell, and then an invitation to the mourners' bench." It was intended to raise $50,000 at this meeting and adjourn without any sub- scriptions less than $1,000. Sluss, as per prior arrangement, was called out by men who knew not the program. Sluss was at his best. He started as a broad and placid river, running through green fields, skirted by rich pastures and fringed by foliage and ended as a cataract; a winding mountain stream, seeking an egress, almost lost to view, suddenly emerging and dashing over a precipice, astonishing and bewildering all beholders. At one moment, his vision comprehended our future hopes; at another, he beheld us prostrate and ruined by failure; triumphant and grave. He played on every string in his harp; pictured compe- tence, wealth and glory to the present, and "riches beyond the dreams of avarice" to succeeding generations, on the one hand ; dissolution, beggary and woe, tombstones, neglected graves and the potter's field, on the other. As a prepared speech it was a masterpiece; as an extemporaneous effort, his sentences were burning words, jewels from the alphabet which on Time's fore- finger will sparkle while memory lasts. His exordium, in which he painted our future conditions, if we failed in this game, and last the Dold packing house seemed, stretched by oratorical license, beyond the possibilities of failure. And yet his prophecy as to what would come to pass, if we failed, lacked one thousand seven hundred and nineteen and one-eighth per cent of equaling our insolvent condition after we secured two packing houses.
Note .- In the hind-sight of the past, I feel at liberty to state that Sluss "sold as short" on the future condition, compared to the real thing, as the Fourth of July firecracker rivals a modern Krupp.
That Dold meeting was a success. The Creator only knows what our condition would have been if we had failed. Many say worse, some say better, but 90 per cent of those who say worse held their purse-strings and made the load heavier to the men who leaped the ditches and stormed the breastworks. No man who was not on committee knows the pulling, hauling, cajo-
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ling, threats, promises, and general all-round abuse received and bestowed in that Dold campaigns. Only the committees know how long and hard the "pull" was.
Of the $150,000 subscribed, $25,000 was worthless before called for. We knew not our condition. Men who gave $2,000 left Wichita as paupers before the house was built; men were called upon to raise their donations, to advance their payments before due. The board anticipated the future and borrowed money, and the members had to indorse the notes. Hess, Corbett, Oliver, J. M. Allen et al. became surety for Wichita, and paid out thousands where they had no interest other than Wichita citizenship.
Some men, who now exist here, beat, on technical grounds, their subscriptions, let others carry their "load," and yet pray loud enough to be heard four blocks. Aye, verily, verily, their voices are heard above the cyclone when it cometh.
Memory brings these men to mind, When in its paths I travel; In beloved Wichita I find Some men are as mean as the d-1.
The Dold house was secured, and, like Alexander, we meditated and hunted for more "hog," and at St. Louis we found him. And as the days go by, I will tell o' that campaign and the heroic struggle to "win out."
January 8, 1899.
CHRONICLE VI.
"Men there have been in our time, as in all time, shorn of personal magnetism, who possessed the genius of putting their fellows in motion to do a work, which their minds comprehended, but which they were unable to perform."
In straying around, I ran afoul of the above idea in an old book.
The sentiment fits the "Wichita" of 1887. It expresses the difference 'twixt the inventor and mechanic; the architect and builder ; the man who plans and the one who executes. Wichita had architects in the superstructure "Wichita" who were so "grained" that they could not dig, or lay brick, carry mortar, or "groin the aisles," yet their vision beheld the completed work,
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even as the painter or sculptor sees the finished art ere a touch of the brush or a stroke of the chisel. These Wichita architects were followed by builders, unable to plan anything, but who were gifted with the power of convincing men who had money that "the half was greater than the whole"; that there was "a giving that made man rich, a withholding that made men poor." The best donation beggar in Wichita was George H. Blackwelder. Al Thomas was a graduate, but George had a "knack" of convincing men that they themselves were good beggars, but before they started out to beg their own subscription was needed. He obtained a donation and new recruit. George's theory was that no man ought to ask another to subscribe until he had made his own subscription. In other words, he said, "Come along," not "Go along."
Suggestive of begging which may come to pass after the com- ing "Elishas" take up the work, "Wichita."
An illustration of "Come along or go along" as a policy may be in place :
A captain in the rebellion used to tell how, in 1861, he was making a speech, urging everybody to go to war. He had, then, no idea of being the subject of "Johnnies' target practice." As he closed his speech, an old lady in the audience arose and said :
"Bill, you've told the other boys what to do; now what are you going to do ?"
The future captain said: "Realizing that the meeting was depending on me for success, I said, 'I am going to war.'"
The Wichita secret was "come along," not go along.
In the latter part of 1888 the city of Hutchinson got hold of Lord & Thomas, of Chicago, and through them were endeavoring to get some industries. Our boys got wind of the "thing," and sent for Lord & Thomas, and though no one ever at any time owned up to the truth, our "Board of Trade," as a body, were guilty of the vice, if not crime, of trying to steal the Hutchinson industries. No one had courage enough to denounce the scheme. We sent a committee of ten to Chicago, made a contract, put up $10,000, and, so far as the town was concerned, lost the money, as well as our own self-respect. No good ever came out of the matter, and the deep damnation of our conduct will remain to disturb our dreams to the end of our time.
The Whittaker Packing Company was now "on string." The committee of ten, representing the picked men of the board, were then in Chicago. All knew that Dold had "set the hair" on the
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price; that Whittaker would not permit himself to accept less; but we, at that date, did not know that Whittaker was on the "ragged edge"; that he needed our money to carry over the approaching "Whittaker falls," which were only a little way off. Whittaker was a "plunger" in his own right. Our gift simply went to pay a part of his debts (part of which were "wheat-deal" losses, as we were subsequently informed).
Whittaker posed as the head of a house which was started in 1848; sold ham for the officers and "sow-belly" for the sol- diers during the war; hence he was the real "thing," and we were led to believe that he was of greater value than Dold. There- fore in getting him at the same price was just like buying "Gen- eral Arthurs" and "Tom Moores" at a nickel apiece. Of course, a closer investigation of Whittaker would have resulted in throw- ing him overboard. But we are better off now than if we had "investigated," for the reason: packing houses, like car shops and railroads, when built, eventually get under the wing of some one able to run them, at a figure that gives a profit. True, they for a spell may be dormant, but dormancy is not annihilation. Every dollar put in these things will prove to be worth it to those who "hang on." Every dollar put in these things by "boomers" would have gone in some other "rathole." That Cudahy is better than Whittaker, no one has any doubt.
Providence, destiny, nature, fate, chance, or what you may name it, so arranged "things" that the impending ruin over- hanging us was not to be avoided. So preordained were results that the then present crowd of "boomers" should be thrashed to straw; ground 'twixt the upper and nether milestones; beaten flat as hammered gold, and torn by rude winds and creditors to a ragged and frazzled fringe, beyond recognition and identity.
The writer of this is of the opinion that as the "boomer" talked of great benefit to succeeding generations by his labor and money, he may be gratified by the good to come out of the Burton Car, Presbyterian outlook, as well as a philosophical view of looking at things; hence we adopt this view.
To return to the sheep: Some work had been done looking to the donation to Whittaker. The outlook was not encouraging. There was no cash in sight. Notes in bank represented at least $50,000 of the sums subscribed to the Burton Car Works and Dold. The banks had pro-rated loans (to their customers) to raise this $50,000. These loans were, in a great part, renewed.
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Hence cash to any new scheme was not to be considered. Yet no one thought we could not, in some undefined, unknown way, . raise the subsidy.
One rainy afternoon, when the whole earth looked dismal and gloomy, and the writer was at home with quinzy, George C. Strong and George L. Douglas came after him in a hack to attend a meeting and discuss the situation. At this meeting Scott Cor- bett was sent for; then Colonel Lewis. At 5 o'clock a meeting was held in Judge Sluss' office, and some rude drafts of dona- tions, in three or four forms, were submitted to Sluss and recast by him.
These memoranda were reduced to four sets or forms :
First-Subscriptions outright to the general subsidy fund, to be used to procure any needed industry.
Second-Deeds, with and without any conditions.
Third-Mortgages, with and without conditions.
Fourth-Conditional location subscriptions.
All this was rushed to a printing office, to be ready next evening.
The amount of money to be raised for the general fund to be used by trustees "for any needed industry" was at least $300,- 000. We said to ourselves: Cash, 50 cents; land, $1; take your choice.
At that date we did not-could not-realize that lands and lots appraised by fair men at near a half million dollars would eventually be a drug at twenty-five cents on the dollar. We now know that if we had not caught a "sucker" we could not have sold the stuff at twelve and one-half cent on the dollar.
" Allah be praised for such suckers!"
In fact, a great deal of this so-called property would have caused a law suit some years later if a grantor, by stealth, had caused some of it to be put in a deed unbeknownst to the grantee. But at that date it had a value, based on the "tail end of the boom."
We in our minds figured that a half million dollars of prop- erty sold at fifty cents on the dollar would leave at least $200,000, after allowing for shrinkage in handling, exchange, transporta- tion, counting, abrasion and short weight. This $200,000 would buy Whittaker and get some small industries. The small-industry
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crank was always making profert of himself and urging the board to put out $50,000 to assist "infant industries," but the board was as deaf as an adder to these cranks. Having embarked on the sea to catch packing-house whales, we did not intend to be diverted from our "catch."
In this campaign we forgot the Board of Trade and enlisted every man (and some women) in Wichita. This general subsidy was a citizens' subsidy, and was not put on foot as a Board of Trade scheme. The board subsequently managed, controlled, mortgaged and pledged the same, but this was no part of the original scheme. The scheme, when born, had as many god- fathers as a Mormon kid has stepmothers, but so far as the writer knows, George Strong and George Douglas were wet-nurses at accouchement; Sluss was the boss Aesculapius, with L. D. Skin- ner, Scott Corbett and Colonel Lewis and others as "bottle hold- ers" and "spongers."
Unlike the Dold campaign, this drama was a Chinese play, and ran all day as well as at night.
Some men were becoming hollow-eyed, sleepless, restive. The question was, Shall we stop or bet a half million assets on the general result? The majority said, bet. The next move was to rouse everybody and turn the town into a Methodist revival at the Board of Trade rooms.
"Enthusiasm imparts itself magnetically and fuses all within its zone into one happy and harmonious unity of feeling and senti- ment." The above sentiment is good as far as it reaches. In Wichita, after the boom burst, bankruptcy; and all our boomers had only a cake of soap with which to wash themselves to the shore of the financial flood, the above definition of enthusiasm was as much out of place as knickerbockers on a fifteen-year-old kid. Though no philological society formally revamped the defi- nition, we gradually adopted the idea that the true meaning of , enthusiasm was about as follows, viz. :
Enthusiasm is the temporary idiocy of a man who, on ordinary occasions, has common horse sense.
After we located Dold, Wichita suspended all rules relating to business principles, and took a day off that lasted a spell. And in that day we conducted business as sober men generally conduct themselves at a "Bobby Burns banquet" or New Year calls. We were rich, and we did not attempt to conceal it. A man who was not connected with corporations or town-lot addi-
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tions was a miserable manikin. He was a "feather-top," bereft of friends, and was shunned by all, even as much as an American citizen from Honolulu would be who should appear on Douglas avenue with jaundice. He might make oath he was not a leper, but we'd know from his looks that he was a leper, walking around to save funeral expenses.
The "Eagle," next day after the meeting at Sluss' office, had some calls to Wichita to go to the Board of Trade rooms. At 9 o'clock there were at least 500 men, everybody talking at once. A meeting at night was arranged. Governor Stanley said:
"We want a band, music, songs, etc., so everybody will feel good; have some music; then speech, more music; more speech ; then music; then donations; then music, etc."
The speakers were Lewis, Stanley, H. Windslow Albert and some exhorters. The result of this meeting was a fall-down as to assets. The next day the crowd was on hand and better in the matter of attendance. The next day was spent in making out names and assessing men as to what they should do. This plan of assessment was not very popular. That night was to be the grand effort. It was to be "Wichita day at the fair." A detail was sent after Dr. John D. Hewitt, the pastor of the First Presby- terian Church.
Hewitt was an all-around man. As a young man fresh from college, he was launched in life at Helena, Mont., as a pioneer preacher. He saw, in Montana, man in all his phases as God turned man out of the machine as a product; he realized that "environment" had much to do with a man's impulses. He learned that men who possess vices had honesty, benevolence and charity; that men who had no observable vices might be dis- honest, selfish and bereft of charity; that men who belonged to his flock might-
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