At a banquet to the Press and Modoc Clubs, Topeka, February 28, 1885, in response to the toast, “Behold how Judicious Advertising has created a great and prosperous Commonwealth.”

Mr. Chairman: I do not know that the sentiment I am called upon to respond to, does full justice to Kansas. Judicious advertising is a wise thing, as the most sagacious and successful business men know. It draws public attention, and thus multiplies customers. It may even attract patronage to a humbug, for a brief while. But even advertising is not able to make a humbug a permanent success.

Kansas has been in the advertising business for thirty years. With Kansas, everything in the advertising line goes. Kansas, for three decades past, has been the best advertised spot on the continent. The border troubles, the civil war, the Price and Quantrill Raids, the drouths of 1860 and 1874, the grasshopper invasions of the same years, John Brown, Jim Lane, Indian raids, the Benders, the Centennial Exposition, prize exhibits at horticultural shows, the railroads, our flambeaux clubs, the Modocs, Tom Anderson, our newspapers, cyclones, political and otherwise; the St. John-Legate-Clarkson controversy; Charley Jones’s banner at Chicago, the Oklahoma boomers, prohibition, the new judicial districts, the New Orleans exhibit—all these, and a hundred other things, have contributed their share toward advertising Kansas.

But behind and above all these inspiring and ephemeral incidents, wonders, troubles, excitements and personages, there is Kansas, growing always, not because of these things, but often in spite of them; prospering, not by their influence entirely, but because Kansas has nothing that is unsubstantial in her makeup. A fertile soil, a healthful climate, an intelligent, enterprising and brave people—these are the enduring foundations on which has been built our great and prosperous Commonwealth. Kansas is, so to speak, “all wool and a yard wide.” Kansas is sound in wind and limb. Kansas is the electric light of the Union. Kansas is the State of great crops, great herds, great flocks, great railroads, great school-houses, great development and great prosperity. There is nothing small about Kansas except her rivers, and these were probably made small because Providence, in fashioning the State, created a land so rich and goodly that it was deemed extravagant to waste much of it in big water-courses.

There was a time, years ago, when it was necessary to do a great deal of advertising for Kansas. But the reputation of the State is now fixed. First in corn, first in wheat, first in school-houses, and central, not only in the heart of the continent, but in the hearts of its citizens, the Kansas man, wheresoever he may wander, is proud of his State, and advertises, judiciously or in any other way, its attractions and advantages.