KANSAS 



3208 



KANSAS 



sparse, is there any lack. The state has about 

 12,345 miles of railways, of which almost a 

 third is owned by the Atchison, Topeka & 

 Santa Fe. Other roads with a considerable 

 mileage within the state are the Chicago, Rock 

 Island and Pacific, the Saint Louis & San 

 Francisco, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. 



Of water transportation there is little, only 

 the Missouri River on the northeastern frontier 

 being navigable. 



Government. Kansas is governed under a 

 constitution which dates from 1861, but which 

 has been amended several times. The pro- 

 cedure with regard to amendments is about 

 as in other states; either house of the Legisla- 

 ture may propose them, both houses must 

 approve them by a two-thirds vote, and a 

 majority of the voters of the state must ratify 

 them. 



The legislative body consists of two houses 

 a Senate of. not more than forty members, 

 elected for four years, and a House of Repre- 

 sentatives limited to 125 members, chosen 

 for a two-year term. Sessions of the Legisla- 

 ture are held every other year. 



The chief executive officer is the governor, 

 the rest of the department consisting of a 

 lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, 

 treasurer, attorney-general and superintendent 

 of public instruction, all elected for two years. 

 The governor possesses the pardoning and the 

 veto power, the latter extending to separate 

 items of an appropriation bill. 



At the head of the judicial system is a su- 

 preme court of seven judges, who hold office 

 for six years. Below this are the district courts, 

 each headed by a judge elected for a four-year 

 term; the probate courts, one in each county; 

 and, at the bottom of the system, the justice 

 courts. The larger cities have special city 

 courts. 



Special Provisions. Kansas has always been 

 well to the front in progressive legislation. It 

 has pure food laws, a law forbidding the white 

 slave traffic, laws regulating child labor and 

 forbidding the use of tobacco by minors and the 

 sale of cigarettes, railroad-rate laws and direct 

 primary laws. The commission form of govern- 

 ment for cities is provided for, and most of the 

 large and many of the smaller cities have put it 

 into operation. Since 1880 Kansas has been 

 conspicuous as a prohibition state, and both 

 temperance and anti-temperance orators have 

 pointed to it to illustrate their arguments. 

 Kansas people are proud of the fact that few 

 children of the state have ever seen an open 



saloon. By an amendment to the constitution 

 passed in November, 1912, trfe right to vote is 

 extended to women on the same terms as to 

 men. 



Institutions. Two state boards, one for 

 charities and one for corrections, have charge 

 of the institutions of the state, and these also 

 supervise such private institutions as receive 

 aid from the state. The charitable institutions 

 include three hospitals for the insane, at To- 

 peka, Osawatomie and Lamed; a hospital for 

 epileptics at Parsons and a home for feeble- 

 minded at Winfield; a school for the blind at 

 Kansas City, one for the deaf at Olathe, and 

 an orphans' home at Atchison. In the penal 

 institutions the indeterminate sentence is in 

 force that is, those convicted of crime or mis- 

 demeanor are held until it seems to the 

 authorities that they may be trusted to mingle 

 again in society. Among the penal institutions 

 are the state penitentiary at Lansing, an indus- 

 trial home for boys at Topeka, one for girls 

 at Beloit, and a reformatory for young men at 

 Hutchinson. Near Leavenworth there is a 

 Federal prison. 



History. The Early Years. Kansas has had 

 some very interesting and romantic chapters 

 in its history, which began, so far as the white 

 men were concerned, in 1541, when the Spanish 

 explorer, Coronado, journeyed across the terri- 

 tory. His discoveries were not followed up, 

 and the land was left in the possession of the 

 Shawnee, Osage and Omaha Indians for over 

 two centuries. Frenchmen visited it in 1719, 

 but they, too, merely passed through, leaving 

 no mark but assumirjg nominal ownership in 

 the name of France. With the purchase in 

 1803 of the vast territory of Louisiana, the 

 United States gained possession of most of the 

 present state of Kansas, the rest coming as a 

 grant from Texas in 1850. Lewis and Clark, 

 Pike and Long all explored the region, but 

 brought back no glowing tales of it, describing 

 it all as a part of the "Great American Desert, 

 a useless waste of sand." 



The first white settlement was made in 1827 

 at Fort Leavenworth, but even before that 

 trade was begun with New Mexico over the 

 famous old Santa Fe trail. When the rush to 

 California and Utah began in the "forties," 

 Kansas lay on the line of march, and an almost 

 endless train of "prairie schooners," great can- 

 vas-covered wagons, crossed the territory. 

 Gradually it came to be known that much of 

 the region was most promising, and some of 

 the "prairie schooners" came to anchor there 



