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                                ADDRESS
                            DELIVERED AT THE
                     QUARTER-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
                                 OF THE
                    ADMISSION OF KANSAS AS A STATE,


                                   BY

                          GOV. JOHN A. MARTIN.

                  Topeka, Kansas, January 29th, 1886.




                                TOPEKA:
                        KANSAS PUBLISHING HOUSE,
                                 1886.




                       THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANSAS:

   AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE QUARTER-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE
             ADMISSION OF KANSAS, TOPEKA, JANUARY 29, 1886,
                      BY GOVERNOR JOHN A. MARTIN.

 _Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen_:

In Grecian mythology it is related that Zeus, warned by an oracle that
the son of his spouse, Metis, would snatch supremacy from him, swallowed
both Metis and her unborn child. When the time of birth arrived, Zeus
felt a violent pain in his head, and in his agony requested Hephæstus to
cleave the head open with an ax. His request was complied with, and from
the brain of the great god sprang Athena, full-armed, and with a mighty
war-shout. She at once assumed a high place among the divinities of
Olympus. She first took part in the discussions of the gods as an
opponent of the savage Ares. She gave counsel to her father against the
giants; and she slew Enceládus, the most powerful of those who conspired
against Zeus, and buried him under Mt. Ætna. She became the patron of
heroism among men, and her active and original genius inspired their
employment. The agriculturist and the mechanic were under her special
protection, and the philosopher, the poet and the orator delighted in
her favor. The ægis was in her helmet, and she represented the
ether—pure air. She was worshipped at Athens because she caused the
olive to grow on the bare rock of the Acropolis. She was also the
protectress of the arts of peace among women. She bore in her hand the
spool, the spindle, and the needle, and she invented and excelled in all
the work of women. She was the goddess of wisdom and the symbol of
thought; she represented military skill and civic prudence. In war she
was heroic and invincible; in peace she was wise, strong, inventive, and
industrious.


                     THE ATHENA OF AMERICAN STATES.

Kansas is the Athena of American States. Thirty-six years ago the Slave
Oligarchy ruled this country. Fearing that the birth of new States in
the West would rob it of supremacy, the Slave Power swallowed the
Missouri Compromise, which had dedicated the Northwest to Freedom. The
industrious North, aroused and indignant, struck quick and hard, and
Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war-cry of Liberty, and nerved with
invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed a high
place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of Slavery; she gave
voice and potency to the demand for its abolition; and she aided in
burying Secession in its unhonored grave. The war over, she became the
patron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism,
and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within the
shelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist and the mechanic were
charmed by her ample resources and inspired by her eager enterprise.
Education found in her a generous patron, and to literature, art and
science she has been a steadfast friend. Her pure atmosphere invigorated
all. A desert disfigured the map of the Continent, and she covered it
with fields of golden wheat and tasseling corn. She has extended to
women the protection of generous laws and of enlarged opportunities for
usefulness. In war she was valiant and indomitable, and in peace she has
been intelligent, energetic, progressive and enterprising. The modern
Athena, type of the great Greek goddess, is our Kansas.


                       THE CHILD OF A GREAT ERA.

It is not a long lapse of time since the 29th of January, 1861. A boy
born during that eventful year cast his first Presidential vote at the
last election. But no other period of the world's history has been so
fertile in invention, so potential in thought, so restless and
aggressive in energy, or so crowded with sublime achievements, as the
quarter-century succeeding the admission of Kansas as a State. During
that period occurred the greatest war the world has ever known. An
industrious, self-governed, peace-loving people, transfigured by the
inspiration of patriotism and freedom, became, within a twelve-month, a
Nation of trained and disciplined warriors. Human slavery,