Part 4

Mr. Blanchard’s reply was a surprise to all. We had all given expression to the feeling that the two weeks just closing were the most enjoyable we had ever experienced in our journeyings; but no thought had entered our minds that this was the most delightful trip our host had ever enjoyed, for we knew he had taken a dozen similar pleasure-parties to the Yellowstone, California, Minnesota, and other points of interest. To hear him say that our company had placed him under obligations, was truly capping the climax.

The pleasure of all our company was increased by the presence of Mrs. Blanchard, who returned to New York with us. When mention is made of our host, we always include Mrs. Blanchard.

After our return home, the party selected a beautiful present of sterling silverware, inscribed as follows:

To Mrs. BEN BLANCHARD, from the Dalmatia Party, Sept. 23, 1889.

The New York _World_ of October 7th contained the following:

“A party of New Yorkers, who have been travelling in the West for ten days in a special car, the guests of Ben Blanchard, Esq., arrived home late Saturday evening. The party numbered about twenty. Mr. Knox, who was for many years Comptroller of the Currency at Washington, went on ahead of the party to attend a meeting of the National Banking Association in Kansas City, and joined them there. It was thought that their trip might have some connection with some new financial scheme to be developed in the West, but Mr. Knox said yesterday that they had gone simply for pleasure. All declared that they had a most delightful time.

“‘The West is developing rapidly,’ said Mr. Knox. ‘It would pay every Eastern business to make a journey through the West every two or three years.’”

Was ever pleasure and profit so delightfully combined? After leaving the Bankers’ Convention at Kansas City all care or thought of business was dismissed. We were in the watch-care of Mr. Blanchard, and, confident that he knew the way, we all surrendered ourselves to his protection. My second visit was just three months after my first. Then the crops were waving in the fields, now they were harvested; and as the Hon. Darwin R. James said in his address at the banquet at Hutchinson, “All that Major Corwin has told us about the crops and the salt and the condition of things in Kansas has been more than realized.”

The “Dalmatia Party” is now scattered. Two are in Europe. Others are again controlling the finances of Wall Street, and the busy marts of trade and commerce of the East, while our host is engaged as before in developing the undiscovered wealth of the great agricultural State, which has untold riches of salt and other interests besides,--Kansas. May he go on from conquering to conquest, from success to success, is the wish of all those who enjoyed his unselfish hospitality.

GOOD-BY “DALMATIA.”

Our house on wheels, in which we travelled safely over 4,000 miles, was about seventy feet long, by ten feet wide; one story; divided into drawing-room, smoking-room, kitchen, and large family room. For two weeks we enjoyed its close quarters,--small for the residence of twenty-two people. But it was the people that made the rooms delightful.

“Some love the glow of outward show, Some love mere wealth and try to win it; The house to me may lowly be, If I but like the people in it. What’s all the gold that glitters cold, When linked to hard or haughty feeling? Whate’er we’re told, the nobler gold Is truth of heart and manly dealing! Then let them seek, whose minds are weak, Mere fashion’s smile, and try to win it; The house to me may lowly be, If I but like the people in it!”

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] “United States Notes. A History of the Various Issues of the Paper Money of the United States.” Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York, third edition, 1888, pp. 16, 33, 43, 117, 216.

[B] March 18, 1869. An Act was passed in which the United States “solemnly pledges its faith to make provision at the earliest possible period for the redemption of United States notes in coin.”

Quotation from Act of Congress, approved January 14, 1875:

“And on and after the first day of January, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin of the United States legal-tender notes, then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than fifty dollars. And to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and provide for the redemption in this Act authorized or required, he is authorized to use any surplus revenues, from time to time, in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and to issue, sell, and dispose of, at not less than par, in coin, either of the description of bonds of the United States described in the Act of Congress approved July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy, entitled ‘An Act to Authorize the Re-Funding of the National Debt,’ with like qualities, privileges, and exemptions to the extent necessary to carry this Act into full effect, and to use the proceeds thereof for the purpose aforesaid.”

An Act to provide for the resumption of specie payments, approved January, 14, 1875.

Extract from Section 12, Act of July 12, 1882:

“That the Secretary of the Treasury shall suspend the issue of such gold certificates whenever the amount of gold coin and gold bullion in the Treasury reserved for the redemption of the United States notes falls below $100,000,000.”

Act approved July 12, 1882.

[C] A Plea for the Constitution. George Bancroft. Harper & Brothers. 1886.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.