Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.Martin, John Alexander
History
Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.
Martin, John Alexander
Kansas
Kansas has also elected three Governors who never served, viz.: Charles
Robinson, elected under the Topeka Constitution; George W. Smith, chosen
under the Lecompton Constitution; and Henry J. Adams, elected under the
Leavenworth Constitution. My honored predecessor, Charles Robinson, thus
enjoys the distinction of having been elected under two Constitutions.
He is the first Governor of Kansas in a double sense—he was chosen to
that office under the first and last Constitution framed for the State.
Of the Governors of the State, four were under 35 when elected; all
except two are now past 50; and the oldest was first chosen. All have
been residents of Kansas for more than twenty years; two, the first and
the present Governor, for over twenty-nine years; and all except one,
Governor Harvey, are still citizens of the State. Eight of the ten
served in the Legislature previous to their election to the Executive
office, and the other two, Governors Robinson and Anthony, have since
served as members of the law-making branch of the State government. One,
Governor Robinson, is a native of Massachusetts; three, Carney, Green,
and Glick, are natives of Ohio; two, Osborn and Martin, of Pennsylvania;
one, Harvey, of Virginia; one, Anthony, of New York; and two, Crawford
and St. John, of Indiana. Governor Robinson was a physician; three,
Crawford, St. John, and Glick, were lawyers; one, Carney, a merchant;
two, Osborn and Martin, were printers; Green was a clergyman, Harvey a
surveyor, and Anthony a tinsmith. All except four, Robinson, Carney,
Osborn, and Glick, served in the Union army during the war. Only one of
our Governors, Green, graduated at a college or university. One,
Governor Harvey, was elected to the United States Senate after the
expiration of his term as Governor, and Governor Osborn represented the
country as United States Minister to Chili and Brazil.
Twenty-six years have come and gone since the first Governor of the
State took the oath of office, and he and all of his successors are with
us yet. Here are the Executives who organized the splendid regiments
young Kansas sent out to battle for the honor of the flag. Here are
those who saw the dawn and morning of that marvelous development which
began with the close of the civil war, and has since spread over four
hundred miles of fair and fertile country. Here are those who were
called upon to protect our frontiers against repeated invasions by
merciless savages. Here are those who witnessed the still more dreadful
desolation wrought by insects whose baleful flight darkened the light of
the sun at midday. Here are those who have occupied the Executive chair
during the later years of peaceful prosperity and unexampled growth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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