2.In 1865 and 1870, the railroad property was assessed as personal, and is included under that head.
2.In 1865 and 1870, the railroad property was assessed as personal, and is included under that head.
Kansas is not a manufacturing State. Its prosperity is based upon the plow. It has, however, coal deposits equal to the needs of its population, valuable lead mines in the southeast, and salt and gypsum in abundance. But the manufacturing establishments of the State are steadily increasing in importance as well as in number. In its flouring and grist mills Kansas ranked, in 1880, as the thirteenth State of the Union; in meat packing, as the twelfth; and in cheese products, as the fourteenth.
In the following table the number of manufacturing establishments, including mines and railroad shops, their capital, products, etc., is given for the years named:
3.Partly estimated.
3.Partly estimated.
The transportation facilities of Kansas are unsurpassed. Only seven States of the Union, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, have within their borders more miles of completed railway than has Kansas. For fully two hundred miles west of our eastern border, every county except one is traversed by from one to six lines of railway. There are eighty-six organized and eleven unorganized counties in the State, and of these all except fourteen organized and seven unorganized counties have railways within their limits. In 1864 Kansas had not a mile of completed railroad. In 1870 we had 1,283 miles; in 1875 over 1,887 miles; in 1880 an aggregate of 3,104 miles, and there are now 4,750 miles of completed railway in Kansas.
Education has gone hand in hand with the material growth of Kansas. It has been the boast of our people, for twenty years past, that the best building in every city, town or hamlet in the State was the school house. The census of 1880 revealed the fact that only 25,503 inhabitants of Kansas, over ten years of age, were unable to read. The growth of our school system is shown by the following figures:
In 1861 the amount expended for the support of common schools was only $1,700, while the expenditures for the same purpose, during the year 1885, aggregated $2,977,763. For the five years ending with 1865, the expenditures for public schools aggregated $262,657.21; for the next succeeding five years they aggregated $2,259,497.89; for the next five, $7,552,191.43; for the next five, $7,509,375.23; and for the five years ending with 1885 the expenditures for public schools aggregated $12,630,480.64. Thus Kansas has expended for the support of hercommon schools, during the past quarter of a century, the enormous sum of $30,214,202.40.
The table following shows the expenditures each year, from 1861 to 1885, inclusive, and illustrates not only the growth of Kansas, but the general and generous interest of its citizens in public education:
Churches have multiplied and newspapers increased as have the schools. In 1860 there were only 97 church buildings in Kansas, and they had cost only $143,950. In 1870 the number of churches had increased to 301, valued at $1,722,700; and in 1880 they numbered 2,514, costing an aggregate of $2,491,560.
There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of these only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, of which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 20 dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation aggregated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers, and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to the State.
And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quarter of a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer, with confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been broken by the plow—ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply the present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of the Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining upon our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual, permanent settlements in the counties along our Western frontier—notsettlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organized counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river to the Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic changes, and questioning whether the western third of Kansas is fit for general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton counties entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge or barometer, but he sees the buffalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint sending its long roots deep into the soil; he sees the trees growing on the high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and waving its green guidons of prosperity in the wind; he sees the clouds gathering and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof—and he knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to stay.
On the 7th of May, 1856, a great American, learned, sagacious, and confident in his faith that right and justice would at last prevail, said, in a speech delivered in the City of New York:
"In the year of our Lord 1900, there will be two million people in Kansas, with cities like Providence and Worcester—perhaps like Chicago and Cincinnati. She will have more miles of railroad than Maryland, Virginia, and both the Carolinas can now boast. Her land will be worth twenty dollars an acre, and her total wealth will be five hundred millions of money. Six hundred thousand children will learn in her schools. What schools, newspapers, libraries, meeting-houses! Yes, what families of educated, happy and religious men and women! There will be a song of Freedom all around the Slave States, and in them Slavery itself will die."
Read in the light of the present, these eloquent words of Theodore Parker seem touched with prophetic fire. The ideal Kansas he saw, looking through the mists of the future, is the real Kansas of to-day. The marvelous growth, the splendid prosperity, the potent intellectual and moral energies, and the happy and contented life he predicted, are all around us. At the threshold of the year A. D. 1886, fifteen years before the limit of his prophecy, Kansas has cities like Providence and Worcester; has more than double the railway mileage Maryland, Virginia, and both the Carolinas could then boast; has land worth, not twenty, but fifty and a hundred dollars an acre; has wealth far exceeding five hundred million dollars; has schools, newspapers, libraries and churches rivaling those of New England; and has 1,300,000 happy, prosperous and intelligent people.
The prophecy has been fulfilled, but the end is not yet. The foundations of the State, like those of its Capitol, have just been completed.The stately building, crowned with its splendid dome, is yet to be reared. Smiling and opulent fields, busy and prosperous cities and towns, are still attracting the intelligent, the enterprising and the ambitious of every State and country. The limits that bound the progress and development of Kansas cannot now be gauged or guessed. We have land, homes, work and plenty for millions more; and for another quarter of a century, at least, our State will continue to grow. For we are yet at the threshold and in the dawn of it all. We are just beginning to realize what a great people can accomplish, whom "love of country moveth, example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth, and glory exalteth."
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTESSilently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES