Part 24

I do not intend to make a speech. I so informed your Secretary when, a few days ago, he invited me to be present. But it has seemed to me that, on an occasion of this character—the annual meeting of the organization which conducted the canvass for the prohibition amendment, and to whose zeal, energy and influence the success of the temperance legislation in Kansas is so largely due—it has seemed to me that, at this meeting, I might appropriately present a few facts concerning the progress of the temperance cause in Kansas.

During the past four years I have had, I think, a fair opportunity to learn what has been accomplished in this State. I have visited nearly every section of it, and have talked with officers or citizens from every county. I have watched, with interest, the course of events, and the development of public sentiment touching the temperance question. I certainly have no reason to misrepresent the condition of affairs in Kansas. I have never made any secret of the fact that I voted against the prohibition amendment, and I cannot, therefore, be suspected of a desire to vindicate my own original judgment when I declare, as I do, that in my opinion this State is to-day the most temperate, orderly, sober community of people in the civilized world. I realize, fully, the force of this statement, and am prepared to sustain it, here or anywhere.

_First_, I assert, in the most positive language, that the temperance laws of Kansas are enforced as earnestly, as fully and as effectively as are any other laws on our statute books, or as are the criminal laws of any other State in the Union.

_Second_, I do not believe that there is, to-day, an open saloon within the limits of the State of Kansas; nor do I believe that such a saloon has existed within the borders of this State, for more than a year past. I do not mean to say that intoxicating liquors are not sold in Kansas. But I do assert, with earnestness and emphasis, that the open saloon, as it existed here at the State Capital three years ago, and as it is known to-day in all other States where the liquor traffic is legalized or licensed, has been banished from Kansas, utterly.

_Third_, I assert that whenever or wherever liquors are sold in Kansas at all, they are sold just as all other crimes are committed, namely, in secret—just as houses are robbed or horses are stolen—and by men who live in daily and hourly terror of the law.

_Fourth_, I affirm that, as a rule, arrests of those who violate our temperance laws are as swift and certain, and their punishment, when arrested, as sure and full, as are arrests and punishments of any other class of law-breakers or criminals.

_Fifth_, I believe and declare that, as a result of the enforcement of our prohibitory laws, and the banishment of the open saloon, fully nine-tenths of the drinking and drunkenness prevalent in Kansas eight years ago, has been abolished; that thousands of men who were then almost constantly under the influence, more or less, of intoxicants, are now temperate and sober; and that, in thousands of homes all over this State where want, wretchedness and woe were then the invited guests of drunken husbands and fathers, plenty, peace and contentment now abide.

_Sixth_, I assert that, in every town and city throughout the State, arrests for drunkenness are annually decreasing, notwithstanding the fact that their populations are steadily increasing.

_Seventh_, I affirm that public sentiment in nearly every section of Kansas has been steadily strengthening in favor of rigid temperance laws and their rigid enforcement, and that this growing sentiment is due to the plainly-apparent and now generally-conceded fact that our temperance laws have largely abolished drinking and drunkenness, and the poverty, wretchedness and crime of which the open saloon is the fruitful and certain cause.

_Eighth_, I assert that this development of public sentiment has made drinking unfashionable. The abolition of the saloon has practically abolished the American habit of treating. Young men in Kansas no longer regard drinking as an assertion of manhood. They know that the use of intoxicating liquors is more or less a bar to confidence, employment or preferment, and especially to political preferment. The way to office does not lead, as it did eight or ten years ago, through the open saloon. The saloon as a potential factor has been eliminated from our political system. Society does not make excuses for nor coddle the man whose breath smells like a distillery. Men of confirmed drinking habits are, as a rule, ashamed to be seen drinking, and the bad example of their habits is thus not flaunted before the public eye, to seduce and debauch young boys and callow youth. All these things have had their influence, and have wrought the happiest results in making drinking not only unfashionable, but, in large measure, unpopular and discreditable. And the effects are plainly seen in the marked sobriety of a Kansas assemblage of any character, civil, military, or political. Public sentiment is often more powerful than statutes, and in Kansas, law and public opinion unite in regarding sobriety as the highest virtue of manhood.

The enemies of all temperance laws are constantly asserting that prohibition is a failure; that more liquor is used in Kansas than was used when the saloons were open; and that drinking and drunkenness have not been reduced. And it is a mournful and shameful fact that such statements are often reiterated, indorsed or applauded by a class of so-called prohibitionists who seem to be determined that prohibition must be a failure if they are not the direct agents employed to make it a success. So far as the speech and actions of this class of persons indicate their views and purposes, they would prefer to see a saloon on every hill-top and in every valley, rather than see the Republican party continued in power. During the civil war, the Copperheads of the North, professing to be better-Union-men-than-you-are, kept up a fire in the rear that was as discouraging to the men at the front, and often as dangerous, as was the fire of the armed Confederates. The prototypes of these Northern peace-sneaks, the Copperheads of the war for the suppression of the liquor traffic, are those prohibitionists who work, or talk, or vote in such a way as to encourage or elevate to power the party that is, here and everywhere and always, the opponent and enemy of any and all laws intended to either regulate, restrict or abolish the liquor traffic. A third-party vote is half a vote for free whisky, whether it is cast in Kansas or any other State of this Union, and the man who does not know this fact is either stupidly or maliciously blind.

I avail myself of this occasion, also, to make some suggestions which, it seems to me, are worthy of consideration by your organization, and by all sincere friends of temperance in Kansas.

Whenever or wherever the laws are not honestly enforced, the local judicial officers—that is, the county attorneys and sheriffs—are the responsible parties. It is practically impossible for any one to sell intoxicating liquors as a beverage, in any town or city in Kansas, if the county attorney and sheriff of the county do their duty. These officers, coöperating together, can make the illegal sale of liquor impossible. A sheriff who is indifferent or hostile to the laws, can largely nullify any efforts of a county attorney to enforce them, and _vice versa_. These are the two officers who, above all others, have the absolute power, if they have also the will, to abolish liquor-selling. Both should be in harmony with the spirit of our laws, and resolved to see that they are obeyed, or liquor-selling cannot be wholly prevented. Of course the police force of any city can do a great deal to suppress the liquor traffic, but even a police force earnestly endeavoring to accomplish this result, can be thwarted in its endeavors by a county attorney and sheriff who will wink at or encourage violations of the law.

In nearly every county of Kansas, I am glad to say, the local judicial officers are in sympathy with the spirit of our laws, and prosecute, with vigor and sincerity, all who violate them. In only a few counties are the sheriffs or county attorneys opposed to the prohibition law, and do little or nothing to enforce its provisions.

What is needed in Kansas is not more laws on this subject, nor more rigorous laws, but simply a sincere and vigorous enforcement of the laws we have. It is a mistake to change or modify laws at every session of the Legislature, and the friends of temperance should not make such a mistake.

In conclusion, I want to thank the officers and members of your organization for the generous and helpful support they have given me, as the Executive of this State. It is natural, I know, that men and women devoted, as you have been and are, to a great cause, should at times imagine that everything was not being done that could be done to promote its success. Great reforms move slowly. Great results are never accomplished in a brief time. In Kansas we are attempting to abolish a business that has been legalized or licensed for centuries; a business whose large pecuniary profits tempt thousands of men; a business that has, to sustain it, the appetites, hereditary or cultivated, of tens of thousands; a business that custom, sentiment, and even law, have regarded as a necessary evil. The wonder is, therefore, not that so little has been accomplished, but that so much has been done to banish from this great Commonwealth this monstrous evil. I have endeavored to state the accomplished results, as briefly and as clearly as is possible, and I feel confident that the facts I have summarized—and they are facts beyond dispute—will be a source of joy and pride to every honest, sensible, practical friend of temperance in this State.

RESPONSE.

To a toast, at a banquet in honor of the 36th session of the “International Typographical Union,” given at the Hotel Victoria, Kansas City, Mo., June 14th, 1888.

MR. CHAIRMAN, AND GENTLEMEN: The advertisement of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary asserts that the book contains 180,000 words. I have read, somewhere, a statement that even Shakespeare’s wonderful vocabulary embraced only 10,000 words. And yet, on an occasion of this character, while it seems to me that I could make use of at least a million, I am humiliated by the consciousness that the command of five hundred words would be an opulence of language that would make me rich indeed.

I am confounded, too, by the printed text of your programme. The local committee telegraphed me, this morning, that I was to respond to the sentiment, “The Sunflower State,” but on arriving this evening, I was handed a programme, in which the toast, “Our Country,” is assigned me. This reminds me of a story I heard, years ago, concerning a tramp printer. He had walked all the way from Denver, and, on arriving at a frontier Kansas town, was arrested as a horse thief. It seemed to him a cruel irony of fate, and he indignantly protested. Taken before the Mayor, whose office was the printing office of the village, he readily established his innocence, and was discharged. He then asked: “Who owns this printing office?” The Mayor replied: “I do.” Said the typo: “Who is the foreman?” The Mayor responded: “I am the foreman.” Said the typo: “Don’t you want to hire a printer?” The Mayor responded: “No, I am the printer, and the pressman, also.” “Well, my friend,” said the wandering typo, “you seem to be spread out a good deal for one man.”

It seems to me that I had better ignore the toasts, and not attempt to spread out too much. I would like, indeed, to tell you something of Kansas. Better still, I wish you could see Kansas; and I give you a cordial invitation to visit the Sunflower State, and learn, by practical observation, something of the resources, the development, and the possibilities of that diamond set in the heart of the American continent. Kansas is gridironed by 8,335 miles of railway. It is a State of common schools. It has the smallest percentage of illiteracy shown in any State of the Union. Its people believe in printer’s ink. There are eight hundred and fifty newspapers published in Kansas, and seventy-two of them are dailies. Fully four-fifths of the Kansas newspapers are, I think, owned and edited by practical printers. And within the borders of the State are gathered 1,650,000 intelligent, energetic, industrious people, who believe in school houses and popular education, who patronize the printer, who believe in printer’s ink, and have spread it everywhere in advertising the State of their love and their faith.

Mr. Chairman, I accepted the invitation of your local committee, to be present at this banquet, with sincere pleasure. I have a right, indeed, to hail the guests of this occasion as fellow-craftsmen. I entered a printing office, in the old town of Brownsville, Pa., at the age of fourteen, and served a three-years apprenticeship. Those of you who are graduates of an old-time printing office, before the era of patent outsides or plates, know what such an apprenticeship meant. During those three years I was, in succession, office-boy, typesetter, pressman, job printer, and foreman, and, occasionally, I enjoyed the keen delight of seeing some item of local news I had written, printed in the paper on which I was employed.

I have come to believe that the stains of printer’s ink on a man’s hands, though invisible, are indelible. Certainly one who has been educated in a printing office can never forget or outgrow his training. Cases, type and presses have for him an undying fascination, and the cunning of a printer’s nimble fingers, once acquired, is never lost. I might not be able, just now, to set type as rapidly and accurately as many of you can, but it is, and always has been, a source of satisfaction to me to believe that, after a few weeks’ practice, I could “hold a case” in almost any office.

I greet and welcome you, therefore, with a craftsman’s pleasure. I welcome you as the accredited representatives of one of the largest bodies of American workmen. I welcome you as representatives of a craft whose knowledge of affairs, and familiarity with events of current importance, is more general and intimate than is that of any other body of American workmen. I greet you as men whose art preserves all other arts; whose skill is the voice of every craft; whose labor instructs all other laborers; whose work exalts and inspires the active brains and trained fingers of every man and woman employed in any of the activities of this busy world. I trust your deliberations will be pleasant and harmonious, and that, above all, they may be distinguished throughout by that practical common sense which ought to be, and, as a rule, is characteristic of men who have been trained as you have been, in a broad field of intelligence, where hands and brains move together, and where all the faculties are educated and disciplined.

A PRESENT TO THE SOLDIERS’ HOME.

[On the 4th of July, 1888, Col. Sam. Scott, of Kansas City, Mo., presented to the Soldiers’ Home, at Leavenworth, a large wagon, fitted with reclining chairs for the sick and maimed members of that institution, and four horses. Governor Martin was selected to acknowledge this generous gift, and did so in the following speech:]

Those who have seen Joseph Jefferson in his great character of Rip Van Winkle, will recall the tender, touching pathos of his simple words: “Alas, how soon we are forgot!” There are tears in his eyes as he utters this sorrowful plaint, and tears in the eyes of all who hear it. Even to the wild, improvident, careless vagabond, the consciousness of oblivion is a grievous wound.

There are times, I am sure, when this mock grief of the play-actor is a real grief in the hearts of thousands of Union soldiers. Time was when they were central figures in the grandest drama ever enacted on the world’s great stage. What they thought or said was the inspiration of millions; what they did lifted manhood to sublime heights, and filled the eyes of women with tender, happy tears. Thousands gathered to see them as they marched away to the war, while every window and housetop blossomed with the colors they loved, and every tongue voiced the grateful thankfulness and exultant pride of those who watched them go. For years thereafter they enriched the annals of the age with their splendid deeds, and every word that came to them was fragrant with praise. The bells in every steeple rang with jubilant triumph, and eager throngs of people, gathered in every city, town and hamlet throughout the land, shouted, danced and wept with joy when the bulletins from the front told how the soldier boys, amid the fierce storms of battle, had kept unstained the fervor of their faith and the valor of their aspirations, and carried the old flag to victory. Their glory was the theme of exulting songs, and the thanks of legislatures and of Congress were showered upon them in unstinted measure. And when at last they marched back to their old homes, their faded and tattered battle-flags radiant with the lustre of victories greater and grander than men had ever before won, how the generous welcomes that everywhere greeted them touched and warmed their brave and simple hearts. These were so fervent, so spontaneous, so universal, that it was as balm to the sore hurts of sickness or wounds, and blotted out all recollection of the hardships, privations, perils and sacrifices of their service. They had saved the Republic, they had exalted the Nation to sublime heights, they had preserved Liberty with its blessings, and brought back the joys and contentment of Peace. This was their glory and their reward, and in their exultant strength and happiness they asked nothing more.

But alas! “how soon we are forgot.” Not a quarter of a century has passed and gone, and all the glorious memories and still more glorious deeds of the great war are as “a tale that is told.” The men who then “rallied around the flag” are growing old, and seem, at times, to have outlived their age. The far-away days that are so real and so vivid to them, are a dim and misty past to the new generations. They hear and read and see many things that wound them as did the bullets of their country’s foes. This practical, pushing era looks askance when they “fight their battles o’er.” The old stories of march, and camp, and battle-field, so full of never-ending interest to them, fall on dull ears and cold hearts unless they are told at some reunion or camp-fire where only their old comrades hear, and sympathize, and understand. At times it seems to them as if the Nation exulted in forgetfulness; as if the thousands of their countrymen, enjoying the peace and prosperity their valor won, regarded it as a crime to talk of the war; as if the men of to-day esteemed their victory over armed treason a moral wrong, to be regretted and apologized for, rather than a glory to be cherished and remembered forever. They find the children at school—even their own sons and daughters—reading histories in which the heroism, the love of country, and the military genius of Greek, Roman, French, German and English soldiers and generals are eulogized in eloquent and fervid language, while the valor, the patriotism, the skill and ability of the soldiers and commanders of the Union army are “damned with faint praise,” or dismissed with the most meager statement of facts. They hear cruel sneers about “the old-soldier racket,” and loud complaints concerning “the burden of the pension lists.” And, most grievous of all to their sore hearts, they see men whose bullets laid their comrades low in death, men who waged a bloody and relentless war against the life of the Nation, men who were glad when the Union army suffered defeat and mourned when it was victorious—they see these men exalted to high places, and honored above those who suffered, endured, and braved so much that the Republic might live. It is not strange, in view of all these things, that the soldiers of the Union often think themselves forgotten, and cry out, in bitter grief, that their sacrifices and services were all in vain.

It is true that, in many respects, the Nation has not been unmindful of or ungenerous to its soldiers. No other country, in any age, has paid to its maimed defenders such pensions as our Government pays. In no other land are such Homes as this provided for the care and comfort of disabled veterans. Nearly two thousand men, torn by wounds, or enfeebled by disease, or broken by the infirmities of old age, are here sheltered, fed and clothed, and in the five Homes now established, fourteen thousand are thus cared for. But, after all, the mere necessaries of life do not make a home. The members of this institution have a right to expect something more than these. They have a right to know that they are not forgotten by the people who enjoy the fruits of their perils and their sacrifices. They have a right to feel that the citizens of the Republic kindly remember and gratefully appreciate their heroic services. This knowledge, this consciousness that they are not forgotten, will, I am sure, warm the cockles of their hearts, and make the bare walls of every barrack glow with the soft, sweet light that shines in the dearest, happiest homes in all the land—the light of peaceful content, and trusting, confident love.

I am glad and proud to be the bearer of such a message of remembrance and gratitude to the members of this Home. It comes, too, from an old comrade—from one who carried a musket during the far-away days of the great war, and who shared, with you, the just pride of duties well performed. Time and fortune have dealt kindly with him. It is said that he is a rich man. I have not cared to verify this story by an examination of the commercial reports. But that he is a thoughtful and a generous man, the useful and costly present he makes to this Home is conclusive evidence. He has not forgotten the men who once touched elbows with him in the forming lines. The music of battle-bugles still rings in his heart, and he hears, in his dreams, the steady tramp of the marching columns and the hum of the camp when the evening fires were lighted. Thus remembering, and thus inspired with a true soldier’s sympathy, and a true man’s thoughtful generosity, he has brought to you a gift that will, for many years to come, relieve the suffering and brighten the daily life of hundreds of the sorely stricken members of this Home.

In the name of all the officers and members of the Western Branch, I thank you, Colonel Scott, for your generous gift. No language at my command would, I am sure, fitly express their thankfulness and their gratitude. But the prayers and blessings of all the stricken men who enjoy your gift, will, I know, be for you and with you; and the consciousness of having brought into their lonely and broken lives some rays of joy and contentment, and given to these old and war-worn veterans the dear assurance of remembrance and appreciation, will be your rich reward.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

PENNSYLVANIA AND KANSAS, 7

THE FIRST KANSAS VOLUNTEERS, 14

THE WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 17

EIGHTH KANSAS VETERAN VOLUNTEERS, 36

ACCEPTING NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, (1884,) 45

ADDRESS BEFORE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF ATCHISON COUNTY, 47

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 50

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884, 63

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 67