There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of these only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, of which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 20 dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation aggregated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers, and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to the State. WHAT OF THE FUTURE? And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quarter of a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer, with confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been broken by the plow—ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply the present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of the Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining upon our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual, permanent settlements in the counties along our Western frontier—not settlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organized counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river to the Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic changes, and questioning whether the western third of Kansas is fit for general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton counties entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge or barometer, but he sees the buffalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint sending its long roots deep into the soil; he sees the trees growing on the high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and waving its green guidons of prosperity in the wind; he sees the clouds gathering and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof—and he knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to stay. A PROPHECY FULFILLED. On the 7th of May, 1856, a great American, learned, sagacious, and confident in his faith that right and justice would at last prevail, said, in a speech delivered in the City of New York: