Agriculture
The United States Census of 1900 shows that of the farming area of the state in 1900 (41,662,970 acres, 79'6% of the total area), 60'1% was " improved." The value of all farm property was $864,100,286 - of which land and improvements (including buildings), livestock and implements and machinery represented respectively 74'5, 22'1 and 3'4%. Almost nine-tenths of all farms derived their principal income from livestock or hay and grain, these two sources being about equally important. Of the total value of farm products in 18 99 ($ 20 9, 8 95,54 2), crops represented 537, animal products 45'9 and forest products only o'4%. In 1899 the wheat crop was 38,778,450 bushels, being less than that of Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio or South Dakota. According to 1 For the thirty years1877-1906the mean rainfall for ten-year periods was: at Dodge, 22'8 in., 18'4 in. and 22'7 in.; and at Lawrence, 35'1 in., 39'2 in. and 36'7 in. for the first, second and third periods respectively.
the Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, the crop in 1906 was 81,830,611 bushels, almost one-ninth of the crop of the entire country for that year, and much more than the crop of any other state. In 1909 it was 87,203,000 bushels (less than the crops of either Minnesota or North Dakota). Winter wheat constitutes almost the entire output. The hard varieties rank in the flour market with the finest Minnesota wheat. The wheat belt crosses the state from north to south in its central third. Greater even than wheat in absolute output, though not relatively to the output of other states, is Indian corn. In 1906 the crop was 195,075,000 bushels, and in 1909 it was 154,225,000. The crop is very variable, according to seasons and prospective markets; ranging e.g. in the decade 1892-1901 from 42'6 (1901) to 225'1 (1899) million bushels. The Indian corn belt is mainly in the eastern third of the state. In the five years1896-1900the combined value of the crops of Indian corn and wheat exceeded the value of the same crops in any other state of the Union (Illinois being a close second). In the western third irrigation has been tried, in the earlier years unsuccessfully; in all Kansas, in 1899, there were 23,620 acres irrigated, of which 8939 were in Finney and 7071 in Kearney county. In this western third the rainfall is insufficient for Indian corn; but Kafir corn, an exceptional drought-resisting cereal, has made extraordinary progress in this region, and indeed generally over the state, since 1893, its acreage increasing 416'1% in the decade 1895-1904. With the saccharine variety of sorghum, which increased greatly in the same period, this grain is replacing Indian corn. Oats are the third great cereal crop, the yield being 24,780,000 bushels in 1906 and 27,185,000 in 1909. Alfalfa showed an increased acreage in1895-1904of 310'8%; it is valuable in the west for the same qualities as the Kafir corn. The hay crop in 1909 was 2,652,000 tons. Alfalfa, the Japanese soy bean and the wheat fields - which furnish the finest of pasture in the early spring and ordinarily well into the winter season - are the props of a prosperous dairy industry. In the early 'eighties the organization of creameries and cheese factories began in the county-seats; they depended upon gathered cream. About 1889 separators and the whole-milk system were introduced, and about the same time began the service of refrigerator cars on the railways; the hand separator became common about 1901. Western Kansas is the dairy country. Its great ranges, whose insufficient rainfall makes impossible the certain, and therefore the profitable, cultivation of cereals, or other settled agriculture, lend themselves with profit to stock and dairy farming. Dairy products increased 60'6% in value from 1895 to 1904, amounting in the latter year to $16,420,095. This value was almost equalled by that of eggs and poultry ($14,050,727), which increased 79.7% in the same decade. The livestock interest is stimulated by the enormous demand for beef-cattle at Kansas City.
Sugar-beet culture was tried in the years following 1890 with indifferent success until the introduction of bounties in 1901. It has extended along the Arkansas valley from the Colorado beet district and into the north-western counties. There is a large beetsugar factory at Garden City, Finney county. Experiments have been made unsuccessfully in sugar cane (1885) and silk culture (1885 seq.). The bright climate and pure atmosphere are admirably adapted to the growth of the apple, pear, peach, plum, grape and cherry. The smaller fruits also, with scarce an exception, flourish finely. The fruit product of Kansas ($2,431,773 in 1899) is not, however, as yet particularly notable when compared with that of various other states.
According to the estimates of the state department of agriculture, of the total value of all agricultural products in the twenty years 188 51904 ($3, 0 7 8 ,999, 8 55), Indian corn and wheat together represented more than two-fifths (821'3 and 518'1 million dollars respectively), and livestock products nearly one-third (1024.9 millions). The aggregate value of all agricultural products in 1903-1904 was $754,954,208.
Minerals
In the east portion of the state are immense beds of bituminous coal, often at shallow depths or cropping out on the surface. In 1907 more than 95% of the coal came from Crawford, Cherokee, Leavenworth and Osage counties, and about 91'5% from the first two. The total value of the production of coal in 1905 (6 ,4 2 3,979 tons) was $9,350,542, and in 1908 (6,245,508 tons) $9,292,222. In the central portion, which belongs to the Triassic formation, magnesian limestone, ferruginous sandstone and gypsum are representative rocks. Gypsum (in beautiful crystalline form) is found in an almost continuous bed across the state running northeast and south-west with three principal areas, the northern in Marshall county, the central in Dickinson and Saline counties, and the southern (the heaviest, being 3 to 40 ft. thick) in Barber and Comanche counties. The product in 1908 was valued at $281,339. Magnesian limestone, or dolomite, is especially plentiful along the Blue, Republican and Neosho rivers and their tributaries. This beautiful stone, resembling white, grey and cream-coloured marble, is exceedingly useful for building purposes. It crops out in the bluffs in endless quantities, and is easily worked. The stone resources of the state are largely, but by no means exclusively, confined to the central part. There are marbles in Osage and other counties, shell marble in Montgomery county, white limestone in Chase county, a valuable bandera flagstone and hydraulic cement rock near Fort Scott, &c. The limestones produced in 1908 were valued at $403,176 and the sandstones at $67,950. In the central region salt is produced in immense quantities, within a great north to south belt about Hutchinson. The beds, which are exploited by the brine method at Hutchinson, at Ellsworth (Ellsworth county), at Anthony (Harper county) and at Sterling (Rice county), lie from 400 to 1200 ft. underground, and are in places as much as 350 ft. thick and 99% pure. At Kanopolis in Ellsworth county, at Lyons in Rice county and at Kingman, Kingman county, the salt is mined and sold as rock-salt. In the south-west salt is found in beds and dry incrustations, varying in thickness from a few inches to 2 ft. The total product from1880-1899was valued at $5,538,855; the product of 1908 (when Kansas ranked fourth among the states producing salt) was valued at $882,984. The development has been mainly since 1887 at Hutchinson and since about 1890 in the rock-salt mines. In the west portion of the state, which belongs to the Cretaceous formation, chalks and a species of native quicklime are very prominent in the river bluffs. The white and cream-coloured chalks are much used for building purposes, but the blue is usually too soft for exposure to the weather. The quicklime as quarried from the bluffs slakes perfectly, and with sand makes a fairly good mortar, without calcination or other previous preparation. The lignite found near the Colorado line makes a valuable domestic fuel.
Natural gas, oil, zinc and lead have been discovered in south-east Kansas and have given that section an extraordinary growth and prosperity. Indications of gas were found about the time of the Civil War, but only in the early 'seventies were they recognized as unmistakable, and they were not successfully developed until the 'eighties. Iola, in Allen county, is the centre of the field, and the gas yields heat, light, and a cheap fuel for smelters, cement-works and other manufacturing plants throughout a large region. The pools lie from 400 to 950 ft. below the surface; some wells have been drilled 1500 ft. deep. The value of the natural gas produced in the state was $15,873 in 1889, $2,261,836 in 1905 and $7,691,587 in 1908, when there were 1917 producing wells, and Kansas ranked fourth of the states of the United States in the value of the natural gas product, being surpassed by Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Petroleum was discovered about 1865 in Miami and Bourbon counties, and about 1892 at Neodesha, Wilson county. There was only slight commercial exploitation before 1900. The production increased from 74,714 barrels in that year to 4,250,779 in 1904; in 1908 it was 1,801,781 barrels. Chanute has been the most active centre of production. The field was prospected here in the 'nineties, but developed only after 1900. In 1877 an immense deposit of lead was discovered on land now within the limits of Galena. Rich zinc blendes were at first thrown away among the by-products of the lead mines. After the discovery of their true nature there was a slow development, and at the end of the century a notable boom in the fields. From 1876 to 1897 the total value of the output of the Galena field was between $25,000,000 and $26,000,000; but at present Kansas is far more important as a smelter than as a miner of zinc and lead, and in 1906 58% of all spelter produced in the United States came from smelters in Kansas. In 1908 the mines' output was 2293 tons of lead valued at $192,612 and 8628 tons of zinc valued at $811,032. Pottery, fire, ochre and brick clays are abundant, the first two mainly in the eastern part of the state. Coffeyville has large vitrified brick interests. In 1908 the total value of all the mineral products (incompletely reported) of Kansas was $26,162,213.
Industry and Trade. - Manufactures are not characteristic of the state. The rank of the state in manufactures in 1900 was sixteenth and in farm products seventh in the Union. The value of the manufactured product in 1900, according to the Twelfth United States Census, was $172,129,398, an increase of 56.2% over the output of 1890; of this total value, the part representing establishments under the " factory system " was $154,008,544,1 and in 1905 the value of the factory product was $198,244,992, an increase of 28.7%. Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita, Leavenworth and Atchison were the only cities which had manufactures whose gross product was valued in 1905 at more than $3,000,000 each; their joint product was valued at $126,515,804, and that of Kansas City alone was $9 6 ,473, 0 5 0, almost half the output of the state. The most important manufacturing industry, both in 1900 and in 1905, was slaughtering and meat-packing - for which Kansas City is the second centre of the country - with a product for the state valued at $77,411,883 in 1900, and $96,375,639 in 1905; in both these years the value of the product of Kansas was exceeded only by that of Illinois. The flour and grist mill industry ranked next, with a product valued at $21,328,747 in 1900 and nearly twice that amount, $42,034,019, in 1905. In 1900 a quarter of the wheat crop was handled by the mills of the state. Lesser manufacturing interests are railway shop construction (value in 1905, $11,521,144); zinc smelting and refining (value in 1905, $10,999,468); the manufacture of cheese, butter and condensed milk (value in 1905, $3,94 6 ,349); and of foundry and machine shop products (value in 1905, $3,756,825).
1 All subsequent figures in this paragraph for manufactures in 1900 are given for establishments under the " factory system " only, so as to be comparable with statistics for 1905, which do not include minor establishments.
Population
In population Kansas ranked in 1900 and 1910 (1,690,949) twenty-second in the Union. The decennial increases of population from 1860 to 1900 were 2 39.9, 1 73.4, 43.3 and 3. o%, the population in 1900 being 1,470,495, or 18 to the sq. m? Of this number 22.5% lived in cities of 2500 or more inhabitants. Nine cities numbered more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (51,418), Topeka - the state capital (33,608), Wichita (24,671), Leavenworth (20,735), Atchison (15,722), Lawrence - the seat of the state university (10,862), Fort Scott (10,322), Galena (10,155) and Pittsburg (10,112). The life of all of these save the last two goes back to Territorial days; but the importance of Fort Scott, like that of Galena and Pittsburg, is due to the development of the mineral counties in the southeast. Other cities of above 5000 inhabitants were Hutchinson (9379), Emporia (8223), Parsons (7682), Ottawa (6934), Newton (6208), Arkansas City (6140), Salina (6074), Argentine (5878) and Iola (5791). The number of negroes (3.5%) is somewhat large for a northern and western state. This is largely owing to an exodus of coloured people from the South in 1878-1880, at a time when their condition was an unusually hard one: an exodus turned mainly toward Kansas. The population is very largely American-born (91.4% in 1900; 47.1% being natives of Kansas). Germans, British, Scandinavians and Russians constitute the bulk of the foreign-born. The west third of the state is comparatively scantily populated, owing to its aridity. In the 'seventies, after a succession of wet seasons, and again in the 'eighties, settlement was pushed far westward, beyond the limits of safe agriculture, but hundreds of settlers - and indeed many entire communities - were literally starved out by the recurrence of droughts. Irrigation has made a surer future for limited areas, however, and the introduction of drought-resisting crops and the substitution of dairy and livestock interests in the place of agriculture have brightened the outlook in the western counties, whose population increased rapidly after 1900. The early 'eighties were made notable by a tremendous " boom " in real estate, rural and urban, throughout the commonwealth. As regards the distribution of religious sects, in 1906 there were 458,190 communicants of all denominations, and of this number 121,208 were Methodists (108,097 being Methodist Episcopalians of the Northern Church), 93,195 were Roman Catholics, 46,299 were Baptists (34,975 being members of the Northern Baptist Convention and 10,011 of the National (Colored) Baptist Convention), 40,765 were Presbyterians (33,465 being members of the Northern Church) and 40,356 were Disciples of Christ. The German-Russian Mennonites, whose immigration became notable about 1874, furnished at first many examples of communal economy, but these were later abandoned. In 1906 the total number of Mennonites was 7445, of whom 3581 were members of the General Conference of Mennonites of North America, 1825 belonged to the Schellenberger Briider-gemeinde, and the others were distributed among seven other sects.
2 According to the state census :Kansas had in 1905. a total population of 1,544,968; nearly 28% lived in cities of 2500 or more inhabitants; 13 cities had more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (67,614), Topeka (37,641), Wichita (31,110), Leavenworth (20,934), Atchison (18,159), Pittsburg (15,012), Coffeyville (13,196), Fort Scott (12,248), Parsons (11,720), Lawrence (11,708), Hutchinson (11,215), Independence (11,206), and Iola (10,287). Other cities of above 5000 inhabitants each were: Chanute (9704), Emporia (8974), Winfield (7845), Salina (7829), Ottawa (7727), Arkansas City (7634), Newton (6601), Galena (6449), Argentine (6053), Junction City (5264) and Cherryvale (5089).
Government
The constitution is that adopted at Wyandotte on the 29th of July 1859 and ratified by the people on the 4th of October 1859; it came into operation on the 29th of January 18'61, and was amended in 1861, 1864, 1867, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1880, 1888, 1900, 1902, 1904 and 1906. An amendment may be proposed by either branch of the legislature, and, if approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each house as well as by a majority of the electors voting on it at a general election, it is adopted. A constitutional convention to revise or amend the constitution may be called in the same manner. Universal manhood suffrage is the rule, but women may vote in school and municipal elections, Kansas being the first state to grant women municipal suffrage as well as the right to hold municipal offices (1887). General elections to state, county and township offices are biennial, in even-numbered years, and take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The state executive officers are a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney-general and superintendent of public instruction, all elected for a term of two years. The governor appoints, with the approval of the Senate, a board of public works and some other administrative boards, and he may veto any bill from the legislature, which cannot thereafter become a law unless again approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each house.
The legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, meets in regular session at Topeka, the capital, on the second Tuesday of January in odd-numbered years. The membership of the senate is limited to 4 o, and that of the house of representatives to 125. Senators are elected for four years and representatives for two years. In regular sessions not exceeding fifty days and in special sessions not exceeding thirty days the members of both houses are paid three dollars a day besides an allowance for travelling expenses, but they receive no compensation for the extra time of longer sessions. In 1908 a direct primary law was passed applicable to all nominations except for presidential electors, school district officers and officers in cities of less than 5000 inhabitants; like public elections the primaries are made a public charge; nomination is by petition signed by a certain percentage (for state office, at least 1%; for district office, at least 2%; for sub-district or county office, at least 3%) of the party vote; the direct nominating system applies to the candidates for the United States Senate, the nominee chosen by the direct primaries of each party being the nominee of the party.
The judicial power is vested in one supreme court, thirty-eight district courts, one probate court for each county, and two or more justices of the peace for each township. All justices are elected: those of the supreme court, seven in number, for six years, two or three every two years; those of the district courts for four years; and those of the probate courts and the justices of the peace for two years. The more important affairs of each county are managed by a board of commissioners, who are elected by districts for four years, but each county elects also a clerk, a treasurer, a probate judge, a register of deeds, a sheriff, a coroner, an attorney, a clerk of the district court, and a surveyor, and the district court for the county appoints a county auditor. The township officers, all elected for two years, are a trustee, a clerk, a treasurer, two or more justices of the peace, two constables and one road overseer for each road district. Cities are governed under a general law, but by this law they are divided into three classes according to size, and the government is different for each class. Those having a population of more than 15,000 constitute the first class, those having a population of more than 2000 but not more than 15,000 constitute the second class, and those having a population not exceeding 2000 constitute the third class. Municipal elections are far removed from those of the state, being held in odd-numbered years in April. In cities of the first class the state law requires the election of a mayor, city clerk, city treasurer, police judge and councilmen; in those of the second class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge, city treasurer, councilmen, board of education, justices of the peace and constables; and in those of the third class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge and councilmen. Several other offices provided for in each class are filled by the appointment of the mayor.
The principal grounds for a divorce in Kansas are adultery, extreme cruelty, habitual drunkenness, abandonment for one year, gross neglect of duty, and imprisonment in the penitentiary as a felon subsequent to marriage, but the applicant for a divorce must have resided in the state the entire year preceding the presentment of the petition. A married woman has the same rights to her property after marriage as before marriage, except that she is not permitted to bequeath away from her husband more than one-half of it without his written consent, and no will made by the husband can affect the right of the wife, if she survive him, to one-half of the property of which he died seized. Whenever a husband dies intestate, leaving a farm or a house and lot in a town or city which was the residence of the family at his death, his widow, widow and children, or children alone if there be no widow, may hold the same as a homestead to the extent of 160 acres if it be a farm, or one acre if it be a town or city lot. A homestead of this size is exempt from levy for the debts of the intestate except in case of an incumbrance given by consent of both husband and wife, or of obligations for purchase money, or of liens for making improvements, and the homestead of a family cannot be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife. The homestead status ceases, however, whenever the widow marries again or when all the children arrive at the age of majority. An eight-hour labour law was passed in 1891 and was upheld by the state supreme court. In 1909 a law was passed for state regulation of fire insurance rates (except in the case of farmers' mutuals insuring farm property only) and forbidding local discrimination of rates within the state. In the same year a law was passed requiring that any corporation acting as a common carrier in the state must receive the permission of the state board of railway commissioners for the issue of stocks, bonds or other evidences of indebtedness.
The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes were prohibited by a constitutional amendment adopted in 1880. The Murray liquor law of 1881, providing for the enforcement of the amendment, was declared constitutional by the state supreme court in 1883. At many sessions of the legislature its enemies vainly attempted its repeal. It was more seriously threatened in 1890 by the " Original Package Decision," of the United States Supreme Court, the decision, namely, that the state law could not apply to liquor introduced into Kansas from another state and sold from the original package, such inter-state commerce being within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. That body thereupon gave Kansas the power needed, and its action was upheld by the Federal Supreme Court. The enforcement of the law has varied, however, enormously according to the locality. In1906-1907a fresh crusade to enforce the law was begun by the attorney-general, who brought ouster suits against the mayors of Wichita, Junction City, Pittsburg and Leavenworth for not enforcing the law and for replacing it with the " fine " system, which was merely an irregular licence. In 1907 the attorney-general's office turned its attention to outside brewing companies doing business in the state and secured injunctions against such breweries doing business in the state and the appointment of receivers of their property. The provision of the law permitting the sale of whisky for medicinal, scientific or mechanical purposes was repealed by a law of 1909 prohibiting the sale, manufacture or barter of spirituous, malt, vinous or any other intoxicating liquors within the state. The severity of this law was ascribed to efforts of the liquor interests to render it objectionabie.
The constitution forbids the contraction of a state debt exceeding $1,000,000. The actual debt on the 30th of June 1908 was $605,000, which was a permanent school fund. Taxation is on the generalproperty system. The entire system has been - as in other states where it prevails - extremely irregular and arbitrary as regards local assessments, and very imperfect; and the figures of total valuation (in 1880 $160,570,761, in 1890 $347,717,218, in 1906 $408,329,749, and in 1908, when it was supposed to be the actual valuation of all taxable property, $2,453,691,859), though significant of taxation methods, are not significant of the general condition or progress of the state.
History
The territory now included in Kansas was first visited by Europeans in 1541, when Francisco de Coronado led his Spaniards from New Mexico across the buffalo plains in search of the wealth of " Quivira," a region located by Bandelier and other authorities in Kansas north-east of the Great Bend of the Arkansas. Thereafter, save for a brief French occupation, 1719-1725, and possibly slight explorations equally inconsequential, Kansas remained in undisturbed possession of the Indians until in 1803 it passed to the United States (all save the part west of loo° long. and south of the Arkansas river) as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The explorations for the United States of Z. M. Pike (1807) and S. H. Long (1819) tended to confirm old ideas of sandy wastes west of the Mississippi. But with the establishment of prairie commerce to Santa Fe (New Mexico), the waves of emigration to the Mormon land and to California, the growth of traffic to Salt Lake, and the explorations for a transcontinental railway, Kansas became well known, and was taken out of that mythical " Great American Desert," in which, thanks especially to Pike and to Washington Irving, it had been supposed to lie. The trade with Santa Fe began about 1804, although regular caravans were begun only about 1825. This trade is one of the most picturesque chapters in border history, and picturesque in retrospect, too, is the army of emigrants crossing the continent in " prairie schooners " to California or Utah, of whom almost all went through Kansas.
But this movement of hunters, trappers, traders, Mormons, miners and homeseekers left nothing to show of settlement in Kansas, for which, therefore, the succession of Territorial governments organized for the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase had no real significance. Before 1854 Kansas was an Indian land, although on its Indian reservations (created in its east part for eastern tribes removed thither after 1830) some few whites resided: missionaries, blacksmiths, agents, farmers supposed to teach the Indians agriculture, and land " squatters," - possibly Boo in all. Fort Leavenworth was established in 1827, Fort Scott in 1842, Fort Riley in 1853. There were Methodist (1829), Baptist, Quaker, Catholic and Presbyterian missions active by 1837. Importunities to Congress to institute a Territorial government began in 1852. This was realized by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.
By that Act Kansas (which from 1854 to 1861 included a large part of Colorado) became, for almost a decade, the storm centre of national political passion, and her history of prime significance in the unfolding prologue of the Civil War. Despite the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase N. of 36° 30' N. lat. (except in Missouri), slaves were living at the missions and elsewhere, among Indians and whites, in 1854. The " popular sovereignty " principle of the KansasNebraska Bill involved a sectional struggle for the new Territory. Time showed that the winning of Kansas was a question of the lightest-footed immigrant. Slaveholders were not footloose; they had all to lose if they should carry their blacks into Kansas and should nevertheless fail to make it a slave-state. Thus the South had to establish slavery by other than actual slaveholders, unless Missouri should act for her to establish it. But Missouri did not move her slaves; while her vicinity encouraged border partisans to seek such establishment even without residence - by intimidation, election frauds and outrage. This determined at once the nature of the Kansas struggle and its outcome; and after the South had played and lost in Kansas, " the war for the Union caught up and nationalized the verdict of the Territorial broil." In the summer of 1854 Missouri " squatters " began to post claims to border lands and warn away intending anti-slavery settlers. The immigration of these from the North was fostered in every way, notably through the New England Emigrant Aid Company (see Lawrence, A. A.), whose example was widely imitated. Little organized effort was made in the South to settle the Territory; Lawrence (Wakarusa) and Topeka, free-state centres, and Leavenworth, Lecompton and Atchison, pro-slavery towns, were among those settled in 1854.
At the first election (Nov. 1854), held for a delegate to Congress, some 1700 armed Missourians invaded Kansas and stuffed the ballot boxes; and this intimidation and fraud was practised on a much larger scale in the election of a Territorial legislature in March 1855. The resultant legislature (at Pawnee, later at Shawnee Mission) adopted the laws of Missouri almost en bloc, made it a felony to utter a word against slavery, made extreme pro-slavery views a qualification for office, declared death the penalty for aiding a slave to escape, and in general repudiated liberty for its opponents., The radical free-state men thereupon began the importation of rifles. All criticism of this is inconsequent; " fighting gear " was notoriously the only effective asset of Missourians in Kansas, every Southern band in Kansas was militarily organized and armed, and the free-state men armed only under necessity. Furthermore, a free-state " government " was set up, the " bogus " legislature at Shawnee being " repudiated." Perfecting their organization in a series of popular conventions, they adopted (Dec. 18J5) the Topeka Constitution - which declared the exclusion of negroes from Kansas - elected state officials, and sent a contestant delegate to Congress. The Topeka " government " was simply a craftily impressive organization, a standing protest. It met now and then, and directed sentiment, being twice dispersed by United States troops; but it passed no laws, and did nothing that conflicted with the Territorial government countenanced by Congress. On the other hand, the laws of the " bogus " legislature were generally ignored by the free-state partisans, except in cases (e.g. the service of a writ) where that was impossible without apparent actual rebellion against the authority of the legislature, and therefore of Congress.
Meanwhile the " border war " began. During the (almost bloodless) " Wakarusa War " Lawrence was threatened by an armed force from Missouri, but was saved by the intervention of Governor Shannon. Up to this time the initiative and the bulk of outrages lay assuredly heavily on the pro-slavery side; hereafter they became increasingly common and more evenly divided. In May 1856 another Missouri force entered Lawrence without resistance, destroyed its printing offices, wrecked buildings and pillaged generally. This was the day before the assault on Charles Sumner in the Senate of the United States. These two outrages fired Northern passion and determination. In Kansas they were a stimulus to the most radical elements. Immediately after the sack of Lawrence, John Brown and a small band murdered and mutilated five pro-slavery men, on Pottawatomie Creek; a horrible deed, showing a new spirit on the freestate side, and of ghastly consequence - for it contributed powerfully to widen further the licence of highway robbery, pillage and arson, the ruin of homes, the driving off of settlers, marauding expeditions, attacks on towns, outrages in short of every kind, that made the following months a welter of lawlessness and crime, until Governor Geary - by putting himself above all partisanship, repudiating Missouri, and using Federal troops put an end to them late in 1856. (In the isolated south-eastern counties they continued through 1856-1858, mainly to the advantage of the " jay-hawkers " of free-state Kansas and to the terror of Missouri.) The struggle now passed into another phase, in which questions of state predominate. But something may be remarked in passing of the leaders in the period of turbulence. John Brown wished to deal a blow against slavery, but did nothing to aid any conservative political organization to that end. James H. Lane was another radical, and always favoured force. He was a political adventurer, an enthusiastic, energetic, ambitious, illbalanced man, shrewd and magnetic. He assuredly did much for the free-state cause; meek politics were not alone sufficient in those years in Kansas. The leader of the conservative freesoilers was Charles Robinson (1818-1894). He was born in Massachusetts, studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and had had political experience in California, whither he had gone in 1849, and where in1850-1852he was a member of the legislature and a successful anti-slavery leader. In 1854 he had come to Kansas as an agent of the Emigrant Aid Company. $e was the author of the Topeka government idea, or at least was its moving spirit, serving throughout as the " governor " under it; though averse to force, he would use it if necessary, and was first in command in the " Wakarusa War." His partisans say that he saved Kansas, and regard Lane as a fomenter of trouble who accomplished nothing. Andrew H. Reeder (1807-1864), who showed himself a pro-slavery sympathizer as first Territorial governor, was removed from office for favouring the free-state party; he became a leader in the free-state cause. Every governor who followed him was forced by the logic of events and truth tacitly to acknowledge that right lay with the free-state party. Reeder and Shannon fled the Territory in fear of assassination by the pro-slavery party, with which at first they had had most sympathy. Among the pro-slavery leaders David Rice Atchison (1807-1886), United States Senator in 1843-1855, accompanied both expeditions against Lawrence; but he urged moderation, as always, at the end of what was a legitimate result of his radical agitation.
In June 1857 delegates were elected to a constitutional convention. The election Act did not provide for any popular vote upon the constitution they should form, and was passed over Governor John W. Geary's veto. A census, miserably deficient (largely owing to free-state abstention and obstruction), was the basis of apportionment of delegates. The free-state party demanded a popular vote on the constitution. On the justice of this Governor Robert J. Walker and President Buchanan were at first unequivocally agreed, and the governor promised fairplay. Nevertheless only pro-slavery men voted, and the convention was thus pro-slavery. The document it framed is known as the Lecompton Constitution. Before the convention met, the freestate party, abandoning its policy of political inaction, captured the Territorial legislature. On the constitutional convention rested, then, all hope of saving Kansas for slavery; and that would be impossible if they should submit their handiwork to the people. The convention declared slave property to be " before and higher than any constitutional sanction " and forbade amendments affecting it; but it provided for a popular vote on the alternatives, the " constitution with slavery " or the " constitution with no slavery." If the latter should be adopted, slavery should cease " except " that the right to property in slaves in the Territory should not be interfered with. The free-state men regarded this as including the right to property in offspring of slaves, and therefore as pure fraud. Governor Walker stood firmly against this iniquitous scheme; he saw that slavery was, otherwise, doomed, but he thought Kansas could be saved to the Democratic party though lost to slavery. But President Buchanan, under Southern influence, repudiated his former assurances. There is reason to believe that the whole scheme was originated at Washington, and though Buchanan was not privy to it before the event, yet he adopted it. He abandoned Walker, who left Kansas; and he dismissed Acting-Governor Frederick P. Stanton for convoking the (now free-state) legislature. This body promptly ordered a vote on the third alternative, " Against the Constitution." The free-state men ignored the alternatives set by the Lecompton Convention; but they participated nevertheless in the provisional election for officers under the Lecompton government, capturing all offices, and then, the same day, voted overwhelmingly against the constitution (Jan. 4, 1858).
Nevertheless, Buchanan, against the urgent counsel of Governor Denver, urged on Congress (Feb. 2) the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the leader of the Northern Democracy. The Senate upheld the President; the House of Representatives voted down his policy; and finally both houses accepted the English Bill, by which Kansas was virtually offered some millions of acres of public lands if she should accept the Lecompton Constitution.' On the 21st of August 1858, by a vote of 11,300 to 1788, Kansas resisted this temptation. The plan of the Administration thus effectually miscarried, and its final result was a profound split in the Democratic party.
The free-state men framed an excellent anti-slavery constitution at Leavenworth in March - April 1858, but the origins of the convention were illegal and their work was still-born. On the 29th of July 18 J9 still another constitution was therefore framed at Wyandotte, and on the 4th of October it was ratified by the people. Meanwhile the Topeka " government " disappeared, and also, with its single purpose equally served, the free-state party, most of it (once largely Democratic) passing into the Republican party, now first organized in the Territory. On the 29th of January 1861 Kansas was admitted to the Union under the Wyandotte Constitution. The United States Census of 1860 gave her a population of 107,204 inhabitants. The struggle in Kansas, the first physical national struggle over slavery, was of paramount importance in the breaking up of the Whig party, the firm establishment of an uncompromisingly anti-slavery party, the sectionalization of the Democracy, and the general preparation of the country for the Civil War.
Drought and famine came in 1860, and then upon the impoverished state came the strain of the Civil War. Nevertheless Kansas furnished proportionally a very large quota of men to the Union armies. Military operations within her own borders were largely confined to a guerrilla warfare, carrying on the bitter neighbourhood strife between Kansas and Missouri. The Confederate officers began by repressing predatory plundering from Missouri; but after James H. Lane, with an undisciplined brigade, had crossed the border, sacking, burning and killing in his progress, Missouri " bushrangers " retaliated in kind. Freebooters trained in Territorial licence had a free hand on both sides. Kansas bands were long the more successful. But William C. Quantrell, after sacking various small Kansas towns along the Missouri river (1862-63), in August 1863 took Lawrence (q.v.) and put it mercilessly to fire and sword - the most ghastly episode in border history. In the autumn of 1864 the Confederate general, Sterling Price, aiming to enter Kansas from Missouri but defeated by General Pleasanton's cavalry, retreated southward, zigzagging on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas line. This ended for Kansas the border raids and the war. Lane was probably the first United States officer to enlist negroes as soldiers. Many of them (and Indians too) fought bravely for the state. Indian raids and wars troubled the state from 1864 to 1878. The tribes domiciled in Kansas were rapidly moved to Indian Territory after 1868.
1 The English Bill was not a bribe to the degree that it has usually been considered to be, inasmuch as it " reduced the grant of land demanded by the Lecompton Ordinance from 23,500,000 acres to 3,5 00, 000 acres, and offered only the normal cession to new states." But this grant of 3,500,000 acres was conditioned on the acceptance of the Lecompton Constitution, and Congress made no promise of any grant if that Constitution were not adopted. The bill was introduced by William Hayden English (1822-1896), a Democratic representative in Congress in1853-1861(see Frank H. Hodder, " Some Aspects of the English Bill for the Admission of Kansas," in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1906, i. 201-210).
After the Civil War the Republicans held uninterrupted supremacy in national elections, and almost as complete control in the state government, until 1892. From about 1870 onward, however, elements of reform and of discontent were embodied in a succession of radical parties of protest. Prohibition arose thus, was accepted by the Republicans, and passed into the constitution. Woman suffrage became a vital political issue. Much legislation has been passed to control the railways. General control of the media of commerce, economic co-operation, tax reform, banking reforms, legislation against monopolies, disposal of state lands, legislation in aid of the farmer and labourer, have been issues of one party or another. The movement of the Patrons of Industry (1874), growing into the Grange, Farmers' Alliance, and finally into the People's (Populist) party (see Farmers' Movement), was perhaps of greatest importance. In conjunction with the Democrats the Populists controlled the state government in1892-1894and 1896-1898. These two parties decidedly outnumbered the Republicans at the polls from 1890-1898, but they could win only by fusion. In 1892-1893, when the Populists elected the governor and the Senate, and the Republicans (as the courts eventually determined) the House of Representatives, political passion was so high as to threaten armed conflicts in the capital. The Australian ballot was introduced in 1893. In the decade following 1880, struggles in the western counties for the location of county seats (the bitterest local political fights known in western states) repeatedly led to bloodshed and the interference of state militia.
Territorial Governors 1 Daniel Woodson 5 times (164 days) Apr.
State Governors Charles Robinson Republican Thomas Carney Samuel J. Crawford N. Green (to fill vacancy) James M. Harvey Thomas A. Osborn George T. Anthony John P. St John George W. Glick Democrat John A. Martin Republican Lyman U. Humphrey Lorenzo D. Lewelling Populist Edmund N. Morrill Republican John W. Leedy Democrat-Populist W. E. Stanley Republican Willis J. Bailey Edward W. Hoch Walter R. Stubbs/n==Authorities==-Consult for physiographic descriptions general works on the United States, exploration, surveys, &c., also paper by George I. Adams in American Geographical Society, Bulletin 34 (1902), pp. 89-104. On climate see U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kansas Climate and Crop Service (monthly, since 1887). On soil and agriculture, see Biennial Reports (Topeka, 1877 seq.) of the State Board of Agriculture; Experiment Station Bulletin of the Kansas Agricultural College (Manhattan); and statistics in the United States Statistical Abstract (annual, Washington), and Federal Census reports. On manufactures see Federal Census reports; Kansas Bureau of Labor and Industry, Annual Report (1885 seq.); Kansas Inspector of Coal Mines, Annual Report (1887 seq.). On administration consult the State of Kansas Blue Book (Topeka, periodical), and Terms of actual service in Kansas, not period of commissions. The appointment was for four years. Reeder was removed, all the others resigned.
Secretaries of the Territory who served as governors in the interims of gubernatorial terms or when the governor was absent from the Territory. In the case of H. S. Walsh several dates cannot be fixed with exactness.
reports of the various state officers (Treasurer, annual, then biennial since 1877-1878; Board of Trustees of State Charities and Corrections, biennial,1877-1878seq.; State Board of Health, founded 1885, annual, then biennial reports since 1901-1902; Bureau of Labor Statistics, founded 1885, annual reports; Irrigation Commission, organized 1895, annual reports, &c.). On taxation see Report and Bill of the State Tax Commission, created 1901 (Topeka, 1901). On the history of the state, see A. T. Andreas, History of Kansas (Chicago, 1883; compiled mainly by J. C. Hebbard); D. W. Wilder's Annals of Kansas (Topeka, 1875 and later), indispensable for reference; L. W. Spring's Kansas (Boston, 1885, in the American Commonwealth Series); Charles Robinson, The Kansas Conflict (New York, 1892); Eli Thayer, The Kansas Crusade (New York, 1889); the Proceedings of the Kansas State Historical Society (Topeka, 1891 seq.), full of the most valuable material; W. E. Connelley, Kansas Territorial Governors (Topeka, 1900); W. E. Miller, The Peopling of Kansas (Columbus, 0., 1906), a doctoral dissertation of Columbia University; and for the controversy touching John Brown, G. W. Brown's The Truth at Last, Reminiscences of Old John Brown (Rockford, Ill., 1880), and W. E. Connelley, An Appeal to the Record. Refuting. .. Things Written for. Charles Robinson and G. W. Brown (Topeka, 2903). W. C. Webb's Republican Election Methods in Kansas, General Election of 1892, and Legislative Investigations (Topeka, 1893) may also be mentioned.
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Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Kansas'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/k/kansas.html. 1910.
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