At a banquet to the Press and Modoc Clubs, Topeka, February 28,
1885, in response to the toast, “Behold how Judicious Advertising
has created a great and prosperous Commonwealth.”
MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not know that the sentiment I am called upon to
respond to, does full justice to Kansas. Judicious advertising is a wise
thing, as the most sagacious and successful business men know. It draws
public attention, and thus multiplies customers. It may even attract
patronage to a humbug, for a brief while. But even advertising is not
able to make a humbug a permanent success.
Kansas has been in the advertising business for thirty years. With
Kansas, everything in the advertising line goes. Kansas, for three
decades past, has been the best advertised spot on the continent. The
border troubles, the civil war, the Price and Quantrill Raids, the
drouths of 1860 and 1874, the grasshopper invasions of the same years,
John Brown, Jim Lane, Indian raids, the Benders, the Centennial
Exposition, prize exhibits at horticultural shows, the railroads, our
flambeaux clubs, the Modocs, Tom Anderson, our newspapers, cyclones,
political and otherwise; the St. John-Legate-Clarkson controversy;
Charley Jones’s banner at Chicago, the Oklahoma boomers, prohibition,
the new judicial districts, the New Orleans exhibit—all these, and a
hundred other things, have contributed their share toward advertising
Kansas.
But behind and above all these inspiring and ephemeral incidents,
wonders, troubles, excitements and personages, there is Kansas, growing
always, not because of these things, but often in spite of them;
prospering, not by their influence entirely, but because Kansas has
nothing that is unsubstantial in her makeup. A fertile soil, a healthful
climate, an intelligent, enterprising and brave people—these are the
enduring foundations on which has been built our great and prosperous
Commonwealth. Kansas is, so to speak, “all wool and a yard wide.” Kansas
is sound in wind and limb. Kansas is the electric light of the Union.
Kansas is the State of great crops, great herds, great flocks, great
railroads, great school-houses, great development and great prosperity.
There is nothing small about Kansas except her rivers, and these were
probably made small because Providence, in fashioning the State, created
a land so rich and goodly that it was deemed extravagant to waste much
of it in big water-courses.
There was a time, years ago, when it was necessary to do a great deal of
advertising for Kansas. But the reputation of the State is now fixed.
First in corn, first in wheat, first in school-houses, and central, not
only in the heart of the continent, but in the hearts of its citizens,
the Kansas man, wheresoever he may wander, is proud of his State, and
advertises, judiciously or in any other way, its attractions and
advantages.