Delivered at Clay Center, at a meeting to celebrate the completion of the water works, June 6th, 1885.

Mr. Mayor, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I have no doubt that the founders of Clay Center confidently predicted a rapid and substantial growth for the town they had established. The Kansas men who located towns were, as a rule, sanguine and cheerful persons, and no matter how bleak and desolate were their surroundings, nor how unpromising the future really was, the ground in which they planted their stakes seemed to them specially designed, from the beginning of all things, as the site for a prosperous city. Before the first rude frame building was completed, they had drawn on the map of Kansas numerous lines of railway that must and would be built, and they lay down at night to dream delightful dreams of fortunes that were to be realized from corner lots.

For nearly thirty years I have been noting these town-building experiments, and at times it has seemed a reckless waste of energy and of enthusiasm. But the wildest anticipations of the town-builders have, in most instances, been more than realized. The map of Kansas is dotted all over with prosperous, steadily-growing towns and cities, where beautiful homes abound, where pleasant school rooms welcome throngs of eager children, where church bells chime, where the roar and clatter of mills and factories blend with the clangor of hurrying trains, where the streets are noisy with commerce, and where business and industrial thrift, and the charms of congenial and intelligent society, unite to make life opulent and happy.

And we are yet at the threshold and in the morning of it all. The Kansas of to-day only foreshadows the Kansas that is to be. Within our favored borders, soil and climate combine to give to an enterprising and intelligent people the best reward for toil and skill, for energy and thrift. No disaster, no calamity, can permanently check the development of a country so rich in natural resources. So the growth of Kansas, through the terrors of civil war, through drouths and grasshopper invasions, through evil and good report, has been constant and often phenomenal. The growth and prosperity of Clay county and of Clay Center afford a splendid illustration of the possibilities of Kansas. I can remember when the general judgment, even of our own people, condemned all the territory west of the Blue river as unfit for agriculture. Yet to-day, among the eighty-four organized counties of the State, Clay ranks as the fifteenth corn-producing and the sixteenth wheat-producing county; and here, the natural result of this agricultural development and wealth, is this beautiful and prosperous city of five thousand contented and intelligent people.

You have assembled to-day to celebrate the completion of one of the most important enterprises that has ever enlisted your energies and your enthusiasm. Byron said that “till taught by pain, men really know not what good water’s worth.” Perhaps the drouths of 1860 and 1874 have taught our people the worth of water, for it is certain that every thrifty Kansas town is ambitious to have a generous and unfailing supply. Indeed it may be said that the construction of water works in a Kansas town marks the dividing-line between hope and certainty. Every prosperous and growing Kansas community looks forward with ardent hope to the coming of the day when it can afford such a luxury, and when that day does come it may be accepted as indisputable evidence that the town is no longer an experiment; that its future is no longer doubtful; that it has attained such wealth, population, business and strength as will enable it, in the future, to defend its interests and its rights against all rivals or enemies.

I congratulate you, citizens of Clay Center. All that makes life enjoyable you have here. A lovely and fertile country surrounds you. Your streets are thronged with business, and your numerous commercial houses indicate a growing and prosperous trade. Your industrial establishments are increasing, in importance as well as in number. Railways give you speedy and direct connection with the markets of the country. Pleasant and inviting homes welcome you to their comfort and repose after the toils of the day are ended, and churches and schools abound. And now you have secured what thousands of older and more populous towns have not, a permanent and abundant water supply.

You have a right, therefore, to rejoice. You have just reason for the pride you feel in your fair city, for within its gates business thrift and industrial activity, municipal growth and individual enterprise, the joy of beautiful homes and the charms of an intelligent society, combine to benefit and to delight. As a citizen of Kansas I share in your pride; I rejoice with and I congratulate you. For I know that what you have already accomplished is but an augury of what is to be; is but the prophecy of a larger growth and greater influence in the years to come.