In citing these facts and figures showing the marvelous growth of
Kansas, I am not asserting or intimating that our fellow-citizens of
other political organizations have not contributed their full share of
the revenues necessary to build and maintain the institutions
enumerated. Nor do I claim that to Republicans alone is due all credit
for the marvelous growth of Kansas. That would be a folly of which I
hope I am not capable. But it is true that this wonderful development
could not and would not have occurred if the government of the State had
been what our political opponents assert it has been—corrupt,
tyrannical, weak and bad. I appeal to the average common sense of any
good citizen to make answer whether Kansas could possibly be what it is
to-day, one of the greatest and most prosperous States of the Union, if
its government had been the weak and wicked thing Democratic orators and
newspapers assert that it has been? I appeal from Philip drunk with
partisan prejudice, to Philip sober enough to realize the wonderful
growth and to be proud of the splendid State we inhabit. Here is the
Kansas of our love and our faith—look around you and see it. Every
citizen of the State, no matter what his political opinions may be, is
proud of Kansas. And yet Kansas, more than any other region under the
shining stars, is the product, the child of the Republican party.
Republicans have guided and directed its growth and development from its
infancy to the full stature of its splendid manhood. Republican
intelligence, Republican policy, Republican courage, enterprise and
sagacity, have inspired its laws, established and moulded its
institutions, and controlled every step and stage of its marvelous
development. There is no State in the American Union where there are, in
proportion to population, so many happy and prosperous homes as are
found in the State of Kansas. There is no State where so many men sit
down every day to substantial meals, nor where so many wives and
children are comfortably clad—no people anywhere on earth of whom so
large a proportion are sober, intelligent and contented with their lot,
as here in Kansas. And this great State, as I have said, is the child of
the Republican party—bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh. It has
grown great and powerful and prosperous, because it has grown up under
Republican laws and Republican direction. Its schools, its churches, its
charities, its institutions, its industries, have been planted, nurtured
and promoted under the encouragement of Republican intelligence. Kansas
is a shining illustration of the beneficence of Republican policy and
principles. Its growth has surpassed that of any other American State,
because Kansas has always been a Republican State. The people know this.
The most bitterly prejudiced Democrat in the land realizes it, wonders
at it, and in his secret heart rejoices over it.