APPENDIX. 
351 
Of the public charitable institutions named in the constitution, a General 
State Hospital calls most urgently for consideration. In a new country, 
many must necessarily suffer from sickness and poverty, and, in the present 
unsettled condition of the people, it is eminently proper that the state should 
provide for their relief. 
The subject of finances and taxation is one of primary importance in every 
state, and particularly in a new one. Onerous taxes and large indebtedness 
should be guarded against as far as possible, and economy without niggard¬ 
ly parsimony should be the rule of action. For the present state of the 
finances you are referred to the report of the executive committee. 
Exposed as our citizens are to the scalping-knife of the savage on the 
west, and to the revolver and hatchet of the assassin on the east, a thorough 
and early organization of the militia is urgently called for. By the consti¬ 
tution, this duty devolves upon the General Assembly. Measures should at 
once be taken to encourage the organization of volunteer companies, and to 
procure the arms to which the state is entitled. 
The disposition of the public lands is a matter for serious consideration. 
Under existing laws, they belong to the general government, and are used 
as a source of revenue. The policy of such a use is at least questionable. 
The amount received into the treasury from the sale of public lands is 
inconsiderable, amounting in the aggregate to about two millions of dollars 
annually. 
This sum, distributed among the states where the lands are situated, 
would aid essentially the cause of education, or the establishment of char¬ 
itable institutions, but it is entirely unnecessary in the already overflowing 
treasury of the general government. Even as a matter of revenue, the 
treasury gains nothing by selling the public domain to the people, for the 
principal revenue is derived from the products of the soil, and these will be 
increased as the number of land-holders increases, and in proportion to the 
capital invested in its cultivation. The one dollar and twenty-five cents per 
acre, laid out on the land, will produce far more revenue to the government in 
a few years, than if deposited in the treasury. The true policy for any gov¬ 
ernment is to give, to every citizen who will cultivate it, a farm without 
price, and secure it to him for a permanent homestead. Especially should 
the citizen who deprives himself of the blessings of home and civilization for 
a time, to reclaim the wilderness that it may be added to the common¬ 
wealth, be allowed his land gratis. 
But if the land must be sold, and the proceeds applied to defray expenses 
of government, the state should be the recipient, and not the general gov¬ 
ernment. Every new state must incur extraordinary expenses in setting 
its government in motion. It has its public edifices, State-house, Asylums, 
Penitentiary, Universities, School-houses, Railroads, etc., to construct, and 
limited means at command. Should Congress, in its wisdom, donate, as we 
have reason to believe it will, all the public lands of Kansas to the state, it 
