I am confounded, too, by the printed text of your programme. The local committee telegraphed me, this morning, that I was to respond to the sentiment, “The Sunflower State,” but on arriving this evening, I was handed a programme, in which the toast, “Our Country,” is assigned me. This reminds me of a story I heard, years ago, concerning a tramp printer. He had walked all the way from Denver, and, on arriving at a frontier Kansas town, was arrested as a horse thief. It seemed to him a cruel irony of fate, and he indignantly protested. Taken before the Mayor, whose office was the printing office of the village, he readily established his innocence, and was discharged. He then asked: “Who owns this printing office?” The Mayor replied: “I do.” Said the typo: “Who is the foreman?” The Mayor responded: “I am the foreman.” Said the typo: “Don’t you want to hire a printer?” The Mayor responded: “No, I am the printer, and the pressman, also.” “Well, my friend,” said the wandering typo, “you seem to be spread out a good deal for one man.” It seems to me that I had better ignore the toasts, and not attempt to spread out too much. I would like, indeed, to tell you something of Kansas. Better still, I wish you could see Kansas; and I give you a cordial invitation to visit the Sunflower State, and learn, by practical observation, something of the resources, the development, and the possibilities of that diamond set in the heart of the American continent. Kansas is gridironed by 8,335 miles of railway. It is a State of common schools. It has the smallest percentage of illiteracy shown in any State of the Union. Its people believe in printer’s ink. There are eight hundred and fifty newspapers published in Kansas, and seventy-two of them are dailies. Fully four-fifths of the Kansas newspapers are, I think, owned and edited by practical printers. And within the borders of the State are gathered 1,650,000 intelligent, energetic, industrious people, who believe in school houses and popular education, who patronize the printer, who believe in printer’s ink, and have spread it everywhere in advertising the State of their love and their faith. Mr. Chairman, I accepted the invitation of your local committee, to be present at this banquet, with sincere pleasure. I have a right, indeed, to hail the guests of this occasion as fellow-craftsmen. I entered a printing office, in the old town of Brownsville, Pa., at the age of fourteen, and served a three-years apprenticeship. Those of you who are graduates of an old-time printing office, before the era of patent outsides or plates, know what such an apprenticeship meant. During those three years I was, in succession, office-boy, typesetter, pressman, job printer, and foreman, and, occasionally, I enjoyed the keen delight of seeing some item of local news I had written, printed in the paper on which I was employed.