Address delivered at the Kansas City Exposition, October 31st, 1887.
MR. PRESIDENT: When the managers of this Exposition invited me to visit
it on “Kansas Day,” I said that I would be very glad to do so if I could
be permitted to come to see, and not to talk. Less than two days after
this covenant was made, I read, in the veracious and enterprising
journals of this city, the announcement that I was to make “an address.”
Perhaps that may be the Kansas City way of doing things. I hope,
however, it is not. Because, on our side of the line, there are very few
such orators as Warner is. So if you make a practice of inviting Kansans
to visit you to see something you have to show, and then call on them to
talk, you may not be able to catch them again. Kansans are not
accustomed to blowing their own horns. You never heard a Kansan exalting
the wealth and prosperity of his State, did you? Or telling any one that
Kansas was the center, the glory, the bright particular star of the
Universe? Or declaring that its soil was the richest and deepest, its
atmosphere the purest, its people the most intelligent, enterprising,
and energetic, and its women the most beautiful in the known world? Or
asserting that the development of Kansas was without parallel in the
history of American States? Or affirming that there were more railroads
to the square mile, and more corn and wheat to the acre, and more
prosperous and growing cities per county, and greater wealth per capita,
in Kansas, than in any other section of the civilized globe? These facts
are told in histories, census reports, geographies, and other official
records, but you never hear a Kansan boasting about them! We are a
modest people, and are not puffed up, even if we have the best and
greatest State in the Union.
What, then, shall I talk about? Here in this great building, surrounded
by this vast display of the products of agriculture, industry,
invention, commerce, and art, the eye and the mind, not the tongue,
should be busy. This Exposition is a modern object lesson—a school for
the instruction of old and young alike. It illustrates the social and
industrial progress and prosperity of the West—the arts, trades,
sciences, literature and philosophy of our people, as well as their
great commercial and agricultural pursuits. The useful and the
beautiful, the products of skill and of industry, of the studio, the
factory, the field and the mart, are here blended happily together, for
the inspection of the curious and the study of the thoughtful. Such
exhibitions are of the greatest value to all classes of the people. They
instruct and inspire. They suggest new ideas. They diffuse a better
knowledge of the natural resources of the country, and of the methods,
industries and progress of its people. The Exposition, therefore, needs
no orator. It speaks for itself. It is its own advocate and eulogist.
Look around, and admire.
I heartily congratulate the originators and managers of the Exposition
upon the brilliant success they have achieved. They have inaugurated a
great enterprise; an enterprise of vast and permanent importance and
value; an enterprise worthy of this great and prosperous city.
I rejoice, also, to see that here, as at all previous exhibitions of
similar character, commencing with the Centennial at Philadelphia, the
displays made by Kansas attract general attention and comment. Kansas
has never been ashamed or afraid to appear in any presence, or on any
proper occasion, and exhibit samples of her products; and every true
Kansan is sure that wherever Kansas sits, there is the head of the
table. Perhaps this may be a clansman’s pride and enthusiasm. But I
believe it is measurably shared by the people of a small section of
Missouri. Is not this so? For if Kansas were not where and what it is,
what would Kansas City be? I have been informed that fully three-fourths
of the trade of this city comes from Kansas. I have also been told that,
excluding their circulation within the corporate limits of the city,
fully four-fifths of the readers of the Kansas City papers are found in
Kansas. And if these are facts, surely no people outside of Kansas can
have a larger interest in the development, prosperity and victories of
the Sunflower State than have the people of Kansas City.
Gentlemen of the Exposition management, I thank you sincerely for the
kind invitation you gave me to inspect this wonderful exhibit. People of
Kansas City, I salute you, and acknowledge with gratitude, the cordial
and generous reception you have given me. Fellow-citizens of Kansas, I
know you will enjoy your visit to the Exposition, and I am assured that
its officers and all the people of Kansas City are glad to greet and to
welcome you. And now, fervently hoping that the future may bring returns
of a fruitful harvest to the originators and managers of this great
enterprise, and that the Exposition may increase in interest and
importance year after year, I bid you, one and all, good-bye.