1783 The Thirty-fourth Star

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THE THIHTY-FOURTH STAR, As far as the eye could sec stretched the monotonous landscape. tree shielded'the grass from the rays of the sun. intercepted the heated breaths of the southland.

No

Ho friendly ollff No sound broke the

stillness, save the unmusical bark of the prairie dog| while all around to an unbroken horizon, lay yhe drowsy, wearisome prairie. was this land to that of which Ooronado had dreamed. their gates.

How different

No cities had closed

No people had fled in terror from his troops.

no silver, no treasure had awaited this lusty Spaniard,

So gold,

Treeless, trackless

windswept, and sunbaked, it lay before him as a desert In the tropic sun. The seven cities of Cibola had already fallen before him, when news had come from the north of this region of Quivira.

Here, it was Baid,

people lived in palaces, rivers were leagues wide, while gold and silver abounded in enormous quantities.

The exploits of Cortez in Mexico, and

Pizarro in Peru, Coronado had hoped to repeat in Quivira.

Crossing the

staked plains, he had forded the river now known as the Arkansas, and with his little band of followers, had reached the fabled Quivira, on the banks of the Osage. As he stood in the midst of this endless prairie, with the sun beating unmercifully on his head, his visions of Quivira faded.

His imagined cities,

towns, rivers, gold and silver, were replaced by traokless plains.

Dis-

gusted, downcast, and broken spirited, he turned his face to the southland, his expedition considered a failure by himself and by his countrymen. But in this region, which this doughty Spaniard explored three hundred and seventy years ago, by the help of time, patience, and toil, was to arise a fairer and firmer f4rimfrc than could the Montezumas or the Incas boast. Here, on this desert, was to arise a state, whose duty would be to save a

#2 nation in the greatest crises of all history.

Here, on the ruins of line

fabled Qulvira, was to have its foundation, the State of Kansas. Quivira, this geglon discarded by Coronrdo, was a part of Louisiana. In the early part of the Eighteenth century, it was claimed by Spain, because of disoovery, and by France, because of exploration.

In the treaty of

176S, France relinquished all her claims to Spain, who in 1800 deeded back the whole region, with the express stipulation, that no part should ever be sold tfa the United States.

In 1803, France, under the leadership of

Napoleon, sold all to our nation.

With the Louisiana Purchase, Quivira

became the territory of the United States.

But Spain, disputing the sale

of this territory by France, erected outposts within its boundaries, which she stolidly held until 1806, when Zebulon Pike, with a small band of followers, tore down the flag of Spanish oppression floating over $he territory.

.That event narked a new era in the history of the United States.

When that flag was lowered, and the emblem of Castile and Ar^agon was replaced by the stars and stripe^ it meant, that the English people should rule the western continent, and that the sturdy, robust Anglo-Saxon had won the prize of a three-hundred year struggle.

Upon the ruins of the fabled

Quivira, the Stars and Stripes now first floated over Louisiana, dedicating forever that new territory to liberty and Justice. Upon the first entrance of Louisiana, the one question was, wshall!t be slave or free?"

Greater and greater became the agitation, until in

1820 it became a National issue.

In the Missouri Compromise, which split

Louisiana in halves, a north and a south, we first find Quivira figureing in the battle of slavery.

Thirty-six thirty was the dividing line oftthe

slave and free territory, and thirty-six thirty was the southern boundary of Kansas.

For over a generation the Missouri Compromise quieted the slavery factions of the south} hut the acquisition of more territory again brought up the old question, and slavery again became the National issue*

The Wilmot

Proviso was the notorious bill which was the undoing of all the good that the Compromise of 1820 had accomplished*

For four years it was debated in

Congress, when in 1850, Clay, fearful lest the rising contentions would prove disastrous to the country, proposed a compromise.

The eminent union savers,

who proposed, and oarried through Congress the Compromise of 1850, fully believed that it would drive XOJEBXS of National legislation. swallowed in vain.

the question of slavery, forever out

But the drowsy syrups of Compromise had been

Slavery, so recently banned from Legislative halls,

returned again, almost before the applause greeting its exit had died away. While the Legislators were congratulating themselves, the notorious KansasNebraska bill stalked into the midst of that august assemblage. which followed, has few equals in history.

The debate

The bill repealed the Missouri

Compromise, and established Squatter Sovereignity in the territory west of the Mississippi.

Town meetings, conventions, and State Legislatures, denounced

its passage as infamous, and severely criticised its repeal of the Compromise of 1820, while the establishment of Squatter Sovereignity, had a decidedly pro-slavery aspect to the people of the north.

But the bill, although

infamous in principle, performed a service for the country, in, that on the site of the fabled Quivira, it staked off the territory of Kansas.

Situated

in the heart of the Union, substantially unhlstoried, and with no meddlesome past to mar the trial, Kansas became the courtroom in whioh Squatter Sovereign* ty was to be tried as a Union saving expedient. With the passage of this bill, virtually began the great Civil War. There was at that time no secession, nor any declaration of war, but every body predicted and Imer that the outcome of the battle in Kansas, rcould

determine the policy of the Union, and the fate of slavery. Thither hurried partisans of the north and of the'south,—representatives of ihcompatable civilizations,— to take a hand in the impending struggle. Missouri, knowing what the verdict of this territory meant to either oause, rushed hundreds of slave holders across the border, and captured the polls by violence, and murder.

The Free-state men of the north, in order to

overcome the depredations of the Missourians, established Immigrant Aid Bureaus, which immediately began an exodus to Kansas.

It was a cross-purposed

and diversified migration—hirelings, adventurers, reformers, philanthropists, and patriots,-- representing peoples from Maine to the Rio Grande.

Drought,

disease, and death followed these early settlerp, causing MHyaafc hundreds to return, but those who remained were strong in their beliefs, and determined to wage the battle to the bitter end. For the first three years the cause of freedom suffered.

Armed invasions

from the Missouri border, aided the Pro-slavery people in their licentious acts.

They dominated the elections;

destroyed the free-state newspapers;

burned the homes of the free-state men;

murdered their occupantsj

sacked

and burned cities, and wade the life of the free-soiler a veritable burden. By these unlawful methods, the first Territorial Legislature was made unanimously pro-slavery.

Upon its first meeting, it furnished the territory

with a most brutal and shameless slave code.

According to it, nothing could

be written or printed in the territory against slavery, while the bringing of a Hew York Tribune into that region was a penitentiary offence.

Besides

the Territorial Legislature, tr.e Government at Washington waB fully committed to the extension of slavery.

All the officers were radical on the subject,

for it was the one point on which all elections and appointments were deter* mined.

In the face of these difficulties, which at times seemed insurmount-

#5 able, under the despotism of the law of the border ruffians, and with no protection, except their own strength, these Free-State men of Kansas kept up the great battle for freedom.

They were prosecuting squatter sovereign-

ty, while the Nation, realising the significance of the conflict, awaited the outcome with marked interest. .

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Twice the Free-soilers, rallying to a cause noble and just, elected Constitutional Conventions to formulate a free-state constitution for Kansas. But the government at Washington, dominated by slaver* factions, and without regarding the ooneequenceB, laid the petitions of the Kansas Patriots on the table, and turned a deaf ear to the voice of this virgin state.

The

Slavery factions, emboldened by government aid to their cause, and by succor from the Missouri border, twice elected Constitutional Conventions to fasten. I the yoke of slavery on the sunflower state. But twice the Free-statemen, realizing the high and noble cause dependent on them, concentrated their strength, rejected the infamous bills, and relegated the Leavenworth and Lecompton documents to history. ??hen the Lecompton Constitution fell before the onrushing Free-soilers, their eyes were opened to their own strength,

For the first time they

Realized that they were masters of the situation. had waged the bitter war in "Bleeding Kansas." country had become separate nations.

For three years they

She two sections of the

laut Kansas, by a majority of over

ten-thousand, had raised her voice against slavery, and the south knew then that hers had become a losing fight.

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She had

learned at last that neither force, violence,or murder, could conquer a people steeped in their convictions of Justice and right.

She knew now

the verdict that the Kansas patriots were going to present. In 1858, the free-state men by arced forces, and increased numbers.

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captured the polls, and for the third time elected a Free-state Constitutional Convention.

In this assembly, the great Wyandotte Constitution took

form, was ratified by the people, approved by Congress, and Kansas became a free state.

For a moment there was a lull.

Then a shout of jubilation

arose, a shout that heralded the death of slavery, forever.

The echo of

that shout was heard amid the roar of battle In the great Civil War.

The

Free-state men of Kansas, that little feeble territory on the western f ronp* tier, had handed their verdict to the states of the Union, a verdict that struck the death blow at slavery, killed Squatter Sovereignity, and pointed out the way of justice and right for the States of the Union to follow. Thus came Kansas) & commonwealth with a history which has no parallel among the states?

with a history unique in purpose and spirit;

history unrivalled in achievrnents In war and peace.

with a

Here, on these treeless,

trackless plains discarded by Coronadoj

on this larld of desolation where

Pike first raised the Stars and Strinesj

on this great American Desert

of the geographers, was inaugurated that great civil strife which freed a race, and in the end established more firmly,"this government, of the people, for the people, and by the people, that should not perish from the earlh." The explorers of Qulvira found gray, Monotonous plains, stretching to a horizon unbroken, unmitigated by the habitation of man, barren, vapid, intpV^- tele to the eye.

Today no fairer landscape stretches to the sun.

Ho thing bold or sublime In it.

No towering peak.

No gloomy gorge holds the heart in awe.

No sparkling waterfall.

Only the beauty of hearty, ordered

line, of well tilled field, peaceful, and smiling in the Kansas sunshine. But the sun that smiles on us today is the same as looked down on our forefathers.

Just the same as in olden days, it gilds the dawn, and setsiin

oloudless splendor.

The same air that inspired our forefathers breathes

on us today.

Fresh and invigorating as the ether of creation, it inspires

and exalts us, and impels our hearts with faith and courage.

How as then,

now as always, the *ym who faces a Kansas dawn knows no doubts, no fears, no trepidations.

For him, the furure holds no terrors, the past no regrets.

But the men who made Kansas are passing away.

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The reins of power are

slipping from the hands of age, into the hands of a generation born in Kansas, Eone of the Kansas hone, flesh of the Kansas flesh* early pioneers brought with them but a divided allegiance.

At best lihese But this new

generation, cradled and nourished on the bosom of KanBae, knows no otharr motherj

they have no past but hers;

they ask no other future.

are strong with the brawn and-vigor of the new lafld. the blood of martyrs, and ^

pioneers.

They

They are brave with

They take up the reins of power

under the Thirty-Fourth Star of that flag, on whose far flung glory the sun never sets, and here, on these plains of Kansas, where the Stars arid Stripes first floated over Louisiana, they shall rear the grandest Commonwealth this world has ever seen, since the morning stars first sang together, and their children's children will shout 6n the future, as do their sons today, "To he a Kansas is greater than to be a king J"

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