Coverage of the Quarter Century celebrations by the Atchison Daily Globe
In 1886, D.R. Anthony and his fellow Kansan’s celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their state’s admittance to the Union, an incident D.R. Anthony had been intimately involved in. From far and wide, Kansan’s of all stripes gathered to the state capital of Topeka to take part in the celebrations, scheduled for the afternoon and evening of January 29th. As President of the recently (1875) founded Kansas State Historical Society, D.R. Anthony occupied a central role in the proceedings. According to its own website, the KSHS was founded by an association of Kansas journalists, publishers, and editors, Anthony among them. Never one to miss an opportunity, he became a life-member, and in 1886 was serving as president. The event was closely covered by other newspapers however, including the Atchison based Daily Globe and Daily Champion. According to both, Anthony “was to “preside during the evening” while other speakers, including D.W. Wilder, gave speeches. Wilder’s speech, incidentally, was titled “The
D.W. Wilder
Press of Kansas” and was quoted in full (or nearly in full) by the Atchison Daily Champion. In his speech, Wilder extolled the virtues of the American press, namely its being “the freest, the most self-reliant, the most loyal to home…in the world,” and that Kansas papers represented the best of all American papers. Like his Massachusetts-born friend and colleague, Wilder did not know the meaning of modesty. He and Anthony, whose partnership in Kansas dated back to land speculation activities in 1857, shared another trait – an appreciation of history. Wilder also commented on the Historical Society. Founded and watched over by journalists and publishers, it contained “every Issue of every paper in Kansas…bound and preserved.” Though Wilder does not mention Anthony by name, he does describe some of the qualities of a Kansas editor, qualities that Anthony had in spades. “The Kansas editor…makes a name in that…will live while the world turns round.” Of the people of Kansas he said they “cannot get along without newspapers, and lots of them. The Press is the Iron and the editor the blood” of Kansas towns.
D.W. Wilder was Historian who wrote The Annals of Kansas, a thorough study of Kansas history going back to 1541, the year of Hernan De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi. As such,
The cover to an 1882 Kansas Day brochure for school children (courtesy, Kansas Memory)
his credentials as a student of History need no verification. Anthony however, deserves to be in the discussion of stewards of the past for his role in the creation of the Historical Society. While it may not have been his idea, he was almost certainly in the group of founders. He and his fellow journalists understood the importance of historical memory, and Anthony, always ambitious, wanted to be remembered. No doubt he also understood the impact he had has in both his editorial activities and otherwise. Nor was he the only one who acknolwedged this; the Iola Register of February 5, 1886, would remark on just how many of the “old-timers in connection” with the Quarter Century celebration were in the newspaper business. Anthony topped their list.
The attendance list and Wilder’s speech speak to the importance of newspapers and newspaper editors to life in Kansas during its first thirty years. Anthony was part of that – his role as an editor took him to great heights of power, as well as danger. Always conscious of his place in history and the way Kansas history would be remembered, he and his fellow editors strove to both preserve and write Kansas history.
It is also interesting to note that at that 25th anniversary of Kansas as a state, Noble L. Prentis, a leading Kansas editor for 21 years, addressed the assemly with: “The Women of Kansas”:
But the worst is over; gone are border ruffians and drouth and privation; gone danger and difficulty. The sunflowers are growing on the roof of the abandoned dugout and within the roofless walls of the old sod house. The claim is a farm with broad green, or golden, or russet acres now. The family is sheltered in a stately mansion now. Having brought Kansas about where she wanted it, the Kansas woman is devoting her attention to culture, to literature, to music, to art. She discusses all the artists from Henry Worrall, a Kansas artist, to Praxiteles; all the musicians from Nevada to the piper who, according to Irish tradition, played before Moses. She belongs to the Kansas Social Science Club, and traverses the field of human knowledge and investigation, from the hired girl to the most abstruse problems of society and government. In the summer she goes to Long Branch and Saratoga, and is accom- [Page 280] panied by her daughter, born in Kansas, a girl who has caught in the meshes of her hair the light of the Kansas sun, and in her eyes the violet shadow that girts the Kansas sky at evening. With this beauteous companion she goes about the world, blessed with that calm serenity which characterizes people who have an assured position; who do not want the earth, because they already possess all of it worth having. But if you would disturb this dignified repose; if you would see the frown of Juno, and hear something like the thunder of Jupiter, just intimate to her that Kansas is not the best country in the world, or that it was ever anything else.
“And today in Kansas song and story stands Kansas woman. She has climbed through difficulties to the realms of the stars. Below her lower the dark clouds, and mutter the reverberating thunders of civil strife; below her are the mists of doubt and difficulty; below her are the cold snows and bleak winds of adversity; above her God’s free heaven, and before her Kansas as she shall be in the shining, golden tomorrow.”
This illustrates a point that was certainly driven home in my own research; that the rhetoric of Post-Civil War Kansas was very optimistic. Certainly the Editors in particular believed the Sunflower State had a bright future. As I recall, by this time Kansas was also high on the list of Susan B. Anthony’s battlegrounds. I’d be interested to know where Prentis fell on the Women’s suffrage issue. Thanks for the comment.
At the 25th anniversary observance of Kansas statehood, Noble L. Prentis, noted Kansas editor for 21 years, who addressed those assembled with: “The Women of Kansas”:
But the worst is over; gone are border ruffians and drouth and privation; gone danger and difficulty. The sunflowers are growing on the roof of the abandoned dugout and within the roofless walls of the old sod house. The claim is a farm with broad green, or golden, or russet acres now. The family is sheltered in a stately mansion now. Having brought Kansas about where she wanted it, the Kansas woman is devoting her attention to culture, to literature, to music, to art. She discusses all the artists from Henry Worrall, a Kansas artist, to Praxiteles; all the musicians from Nevada to the piper who, according to Irish tradition, played before Moses. She belongs to the Kansas Social Science Club, and traverses the field of human knowledge and investigation, from the hired girl to the most abstruse problems of society and government. In the summer she goes to Long Branch and Saratoga, and is accom- [Page 280] panied by her daughter, born in Kansas, a girl who has caught in the meshes of her hair the light of the Kansas sun, and in her eyes the violet shadow that girts the Kansas sky at evening. With this beauteous companion she goes about the world, blessed with that calm serenity which characterizes people who have an assured position; who do not want the earth, because they already possess all of it worth having. But if you would disturb this dignified repose; if you would see the frown of Juno, and hear something like the thunder of Jupiter, just intimate to her that Kansas is not the best country in the world, or that it was ever anything else.
“And today in Kansas song and story stands Kansas woman. She has climbed through difficulties to the realms of the stars. Below her lower the dark clouds, and mutter the reverberating thunders of civil strife; below her are the mists of doubt and difficulty; below her are the cold snows and bleak winds of adversity; above her God’s free heaven, and before her Kansas as she shall be in the shining, golden tomorrow.”