After five years as Chief of Police I returned to the
farm expecting to remain there the rest of my life, but fate had not so decreed.
A call came almost immediately to serve as superintendent of the Kansas State
Temperance Union. I could not refuse, although it meant a full schedule of
lecturing, educating, distributing literature, editing a monthly paper, analyzing
suspicious beverages for city and county officials, and running a detective
bureau and law enforcement department.
At conventions, Chautauquas, and street fairs I made vigorous appeals for
prohibition and had five speakers in various parts of the state nearly every
Sunday. We answered questions and refuted arguments, the most common being,
"You can't take away my personal liberty."
I pointed out that there is "no such animal" as personal liberty.
The Ten Commandments, written on tablets of stone, contain eight "Thou
shalt nots" direct and two others by implication. We are also hedged
in by man-made laws from every quarter. The law tries to make a good citizen
of you by taking away your personal liberty. To those who insisted that "we
need the revenue," I replied, "The saloon on the corner pays into
the city treasury $1,000 each year for what? The privilege of catching everyone
it can and turning men into drunkards, vagabonds, and jailbirds."
A marked change in public sentiment gradually became evident, and enforcement
machinery grew stronger and more efficient. Numerous amendments by the
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Kansas legislators tightened the clamp upon offenders until our state had
the most stringent anti-liquor laws in the country and was considered the
standard-bearer of the prohibition cause.
The victory in Kansas was far-reaching, serving as a mighty
lever in Eastern campaigns. I was asked to help in whirlwind crusades throughout
Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Ohio. Our meetings were usually in the open; the speaker's
stand was a wagon alongside a saloon. A driver, two speakers, and a bugler
made up the group. One or two lusty blasts from the horn gave us a start by
attracting passers-by, and soon we would have a crowd. Hostile gangs, egged
on by saloon-keepers, often tried to break up the meetings without success.
Our Ohio campaign lasted a month, giving me an opportunity
to revisit New Harrison, the place of my birth. I had never returned since
that day, more than half a century before, when I bade my comrades goodbye,
expecting to be back in two years, provided the "border ruffians"
were driven out of Kansas by that time. There was little chance, I knew, of
seeing a familiar face. Boyhood friends had either gone off to war or moved
to larger cities.
There were many changes. Swamps once impassable for man
or beast had become tillable land, and most of the timber was gone. Greenville
Creek seemed much smaller, Macadamized highways, railroads, and electric interurban
cars had revolutionized transportation.
Our farm seemed shrunken in size, with a railroad cutting diagonally across
the fields. The little house showed signs of age; but attachment to one's
birthplace,
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no matter if it is time-worn and weather-beaten, cannot be shaken off. Conjured
up from the past were all the early associations, as well as my own budding
hopes and ambitions.
As I wandered about the countryside incidents long forgotten flashed across
my memory. I thought of the otter slides, the bee trees, and the holes of
coons high up in leafy branches. Barns, as of old, were considerably larger
and more substantial than the houses. On farms the hand rake had been replaced
by the sulky rake, the old chaff-piler by the threshing machine, and the one-horse
shovel plow by the two-horse cultivator and double-row weeder. I learned that
whisky at sheep shearings and in the harvest field was a thing of the past.
When I crossed the common at Greenville I recalled the
drunken riot there and my father's admonition. Did my long, persistent fight
against the liquor traffic stem from that day of violence?
A few years ago my oldest son remarked, "Pa, if you had never left the
farm to work for prohibition, you'd be $100,000 better off than you are today."
He was probably right; yet I have no regrets. At a critical time in our state's
history I was given an opportunity that comes to few men to inaugurate a new
deal.
Now, as I approach my ninety-fifth year2,
I live all alone, spending the winters in Burlingame and summers in a little
cottage near the farmhouse where my brave sweet Jennie and I started housekeeping.
My thoughts go back continually to those happy days with her and with our
eight children, who are scattered far and wide,
_____________________
2 Frank
M. Stahl died on March 4, 1937, at the age of 95.
_____________________
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having homes of their own and little ones growing up. There is no cause to
complain. It is the way of life.
At the dedication of a boulder on the Simmerwell burial
site across Six Mile Creek, I was glad to pay tribute to the kind old missionary,
whose homestead is now owned by his grandson, John Carter, a former county
superintendent of Shawnee County.
Other Auburn boys have won distinction. There was William
Quayle, who attended my Sunday School class at the age of thirteen. One stormy
night he walked to a Methodist revival meeting at Prairie Center about two
miles away. When someone inquired the following day how many converts there
were, the reply was, "Only one—a little red-headed boy."
That one, Will Quayle, took his conversion seriously,
becoming an illustrious bishop of the Methodist Church. At the age of thirty
he was made president of Baker University, from which he had graduated only
five years before. He later presented to the university his famous collection
of Bibles, one of the finest in the nation. During his busy career he also
found time to write many books.
Lewis Lindsay Dyche was but a few weeks old when his parents
came to Auburn in a covered wagon. He spent his boyhood exploring the woods
and fields of this region, and was twelve years old before he learned to read
and write. His father used to say, "I don't know what I'm going to do
with Lew. He is smart, but all he wants to do is hunt, fish, and gather insects,
bugs, and butterflies." As Professor of Zoology at the University of
Kansas, he established a remarkable collection of mammals, now
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displayed in a museum appropriately named for him. His numerous scientific
expeditions took him from South America to the Arctic region.
On my tramps around Burlingame—I walk as much as
a man of fifty—I pass the home of a Mr. Twitchell, whose son originated
Coca Cola. On Buttermilk Lane lived a Civil War veteran, John J. Flinn, who
heard Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg address. He hired a Connecticut Yankee
to build his house, paying him $1.75 a day, but always subtracted a few cents
for the time he spent lighting his pipe.
Something in the atmosphere of this locality seems conducive
to longevity. Jesse Yeager, who lives a mile west of Auburn, has passed the
century mark. Sam Moran, another early settler, had the reputation of being
the oldest white man born in Kansas. I myself am the last living officer of
the Eighteenth Kansas Cavalry Regiment, which played a part in protecting
the lives and property of early settlers from the terrors of Indian raids.
We veterans agreed a good many years ago to meet annually to talk over old
times as long as two of our numbers remained. There is a feeling of camaraderie
among those who have stood together in peril and have drunk from the same
canteen.
For all of its trials and conflict, life has brought a good measure of contentment
and peace. On warm sunny days I sit out under the lilacs and chat with neighbors
and friends who stop to admire my zinnias, gladioli, and dahlias. As I prune
my grapevines or work among the fruit trees in the orchard, I look across
rich harvest fields
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stretching far into the distance. Kansas is by no means
a "Great American Desert."
In a nearby pasture, where the hard sod has not been touched
by the plow, one may still trace deep ruts cut by covered wagons and lumbering
Concord coaches. The old Santa Fe Trail traversed the entire length of Burlingame
from east to west, and it was here that the overland stage changed horses.
I have seen four horses led out with twitches, each horse held by one man
while another hitched them to the stage. When everything was set and the driver
seated with lines in his hands, the twitches were removed, allowing the horses
to dash off at full speed across the plains.
Past events are as clear and vivid in my memory as when they were happening.
These recollections sometimes have a way of spinning themselves into verse.
So let me end my story with a rhyme which, for want of a better name, I'll
call
In the long time ago, when the country was young,
Before her glories and praises were sung,The roads we traveled were over trails
That had been blazed through hills and vales.The trek was on; ‘twas Westward Ho!
And bye and bye to Ohio.Then on, still on, by slow advances,
Until they came to a place called Kansas.Their maps, tradition, and papers said
The land beyond that line was dead,
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That still beyond was a desert great
That never could be made a state.But there was a tale by campfires told,
That still beyond was a land of gold.Adventurous men, for the sake of gain,
Started to cross that trekless plain.The motor power was the oxen way,
And they trudged along from day to day….While grass was green the road was live
And busy as bees in the Kansas hive.When the grass was dead that once was green,
Not a wagon on all the road was seen.The men were scattered everywhere;
Some went here and some went there.Some built a cabin beside a rill,
Some dug a hole in the side of a hill,Some built a ‘dobe of grass and clay,
Called it home, and a place to stay.Then the laws of God and man were obeyed;
Women came, and the men they stayed.Wonder of wonders, seeds planted grew
And the few became a mighty crew.The land that was once a barren plain
Became a sea of golden grain,And the place we called the desert great
Became a great and wonderful state.
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Then things changed in many ways,
Since the time of the oxen was fifty days.The stagecoach came with an all-night drive
And the fifty days were reduced to five.Then the train came along with a wheeze and a choo,
And the five days were reduced to two.Then the telephone came, and the train wasn't in it;
The time was reduced to less than a minute.Then the radio came, and it took a part,
And now we're there before we start.Take the past and present for a text;
Can we but wonder what comes next?
