Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.

by John Alexander Martin

This tri-centennial anniversary year ought, therefore, to be a year of jubilee for editors and publishers. You, ladies and gentlemen, are first among the fraternity in Kansas to celebrate it. I am glad to see you, and proud that to me has been assigned the very pleasant duty of formally welcoming you to the capital. I shall not, however, tax your time and patience with a lengthy address. I know the craft too well to attempt anything of that kind. It is said that the American people will stand more speech-making, and, seemingly, enjoy it, than any other people on earth. But my experience is that editors, in this regard, are exceptional—especially when they are enjoying a holiday. You don’t need to be told how vast is the domain and how electric and irresistible is the influence of the newspaper press. You do not care to listen to a lecture on the duties and responsibilities of your profession. You would “jeer me with jeers”—or ought to—if I discussed, on this occasion, such hackneyed themes as “the independence of the press,” or the beauty of “impersonal journalism,” or the turpitude of “delinquent subscribers,” or the criminal stupidity of the man who don’t advertise, or that curious and interesting but never solved arithmetical puzzle, “what paper has the largest circulation?” All these things may interest the editor at home. But the editor abroad wants to forget them. At home, you are engaged in a serious and laborious vocation; but abroad, here and now, you want your holiday to be a real holiday—not such an one as the miserly old farmer gave his boys when he said to them: “My sons, this is the Fourth of July, and when we finish grubbing that acre of hazel-brush on the hillside, and get the hay from the bottom meadow into the barn, we’ll have some apples and cider.”

Every Kansan, Mr. President, is proud of Kansas, and has a right to be. But above all other Kansans, the men of the newspaper craft have a just right to be proud and happy. This great commonwealth of ours has not been builded without effort. Dangers and difficulties, trials and vicissitudes, have marked every step and stage of its growth and development. But no Kansas editor ever saw a season so gloomy or disastrous that he wanted to run. No Kansas editor, within my knowledge, ever saw the time when he was willing to write Ichabod on the face of his paper, and turn his face to the east. Day after day, week after week, the editors of Kansas have sung the praises of Kansas, and glorified her name, and neither border wars, nor Indian raids, nor drouths, nor grasshopper invasions, have ever for a moment discouraged, dismayed or disheartened them.

I welcome you, then, as representatives of a craft whose courage, enthusiasm, earnestness and ability have been conspicuously illustrated in the struggle which made Kansas one of the greatest and proudest of American States. I welcome you as representatives of that profession which is the representative of every industry, the voice of every art, the controlling power of every civilized government. I welcome you, as fellow-citizens, to the Capital of the State, and I sincerely trust that your journey, and every incident or event connected with it, may be thoroughly enjoyable and enjoyed. I know that the Press Club of Topeka, the municipal committees, and all the people of the Capital, will do everything in their power to make your visit pleasant. In their name, I bid you welcome, and with their full and cordial assent, I say: “If anything you want is not in sight, ask for it.”

ADDRESS.

At the Annual Meeting of the State Temperance Union, held at Topeka, June 12th, 1888.

I do not intend to make a speech. I so informed your Secretary when, a few days ago, he invited me to be present. But it has seemed to me that, on an occasion of this character—the annual meeting of the organization which conducted the canvass for the prohibition amendment, and to whose zeal, energy and influence the success of the temperance legislation in Kansas is so largely due—it has seemed to me that, at this meeting, I might appropriately present a few facts concerning the progress of the temperance cause in Kansas.

During the past four years I have had, I think, a fair opportunity to learn what has been accomplished in this State. I have visited nearly every section of it, and have talked with officers or citizens from every county. I have watched, with interest, the course of events, and the development of public sentiment touching the temperance question. I certainly have no reason to misrepresent the condition of affairs in Kansas. I have never made any secret of the fact that I voted against the prohibition amendment, and I cannot, therefore, be suspected of a desire to vindicate my own original judgment when I declare, as I do, that in my opinion this State is to-day the most temperate, orderly, sober community of people in the civilized world. I realize, fully, the force of this statement, and am prepared to sustain it, here or anywhere.

First, I assert, in the most positive language, that the temperance laws of Kansas are enforced as earnestly, as fully and as effectively as are any other laws on our statute books, or as are the criminal laws of any other State in the Union.

Second, I do not believe that there is, to-day, an open saloon within the limits of the State of Kansas; nor do I believe that such a saloon has existed within the borders of this State, for more than a year past. I do not mean to say that intoxicating liquors are not sold in Kansas. But I do assert, with earnestness and emphasis, that the open saloon, as it existed here at the State Capital three years ago, and as it is known to-day in all other States where the liquor traffic is legalized or licensed, has been banished from Kansas, utterly.

Third, I assert that whenever or wherever liquors are sold in Kansas at all, they are sold just as all other crimes are committed, namely, in secret—just as houses are robbed or horses are stolen—and by men who live in daily and hourly terror of the law.