Letter to Dr. William L. Stidger from his Uncle W. C. Robinson, Winfield, Kansas
Collection: Winfield Founders
Title
Letter to Dr. William L. Stidger from his Uncle W. C. Robinson, Winfield, Kansas
Subject
Robinson, W. C.
Stidger, Dr. William L.
Letters
Description
An epistolary autobiography of W. C. Robinson to his nephew, Dr. William L. Stidger, Copley M. E. Church, Professor of Homiletics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
Creator
Robinson, W. C.
Source
Winfield Public Library
Publisher
Winfield Public Library, Winfield, Kansas, USA
Date
1930-07-25
Format
text/plain
Language
English
Type
Correspondence
Citation
Robinson, W. C., “Letter to Dr. William L. Stidger from his Uncle W. C. Robinson, Winfield, Kansas,” Winfield Digital Collections, accessed December 22, 2024, https://winfield.digitalsckls.info/item/62.
Text
——-
Letter
to
Dr. William L.Stidger Copley M. E. Church Professor of Homiletics Boston University Boston, Massachusetts
From His Uncle
W. C. Robinson
Winfield, Kansas
Winfield, Kansas, July 25th, 1930.
Dear Will:
I have concluded to write a little of the history of my life. There are some things in it that will interest some, and it may be, interest them to do something similar. I have concluded to address it to you, knowing of your great fortitude. I have written you so very much and often, and you seemed to endure it with Christian fortitude, even claiming to enjoy it. I have never permitted myself to dispute it. I don’t like a controversy, because I see, in every case, one or the other must come out “the under-dog in the fight.” I will, however, attempt to make it as easy as possible for you.
I write it to you because I love you and have very great esteem for your ability—the life you have lead, and the good you have done, even while you were yet a young man. I pray the Good Lord to keep you for many years in your good work. I am sure He will listen to this prayer, even if I do feel that thousands offered heretofore have not reached or fully impressed Him. I may be wrong in this. I look through human eyes with the McKinley spirit, “Thy will be done.”
Now let us claim to be here on this mundane sphere in the year 1847. On the Twenty-Seventh of August there came a very small specimen of humanity, seemingly with no life—he couldn’t see, nor hear, nor in any way make himself known. After a careful examination the good old Doctor pronounced it STILL-BORN. But my good Mother said to me more than once that the greathearted old Doctor said, “Too fine a specimen to lose!”, and
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began to furnish, from his own, enough breath to make a slight movement, enough to keep it in time. So one more human was added to the growing list, and the wee, little thing started to battle and has kept it up now for eighty-three years. Little did the good old Doctor realize that he was putting in the line one more. If the Doctor had done his job the easiest way for him many of the family would have been saved annoyance, some little expense, and one party’s struggles, worries, and defeats. This occurred on a farm that is now a part of Springfield, Ohio, where our family spent a few years, but having spent so few, I carried away no impressions that I remember.
This little One was the fifth in a family of nine children, and now is the only one living. This little One was named 'William Coburn Robinson, following Francis Marion, Sarah Aldrich, Martin Luther, and Samuel Washington. After me came Amasa Read, George Washington, Ivan Adolphus, and Etta Bonita. Father’s name was Henson. Mother’s name was Sarah Ann. All are gone except the one born in Springfield. Why, of all that good family; I should still be here, the only one remaining, is a mystery which I shall not try to penetrate.
From Springfield the family went to Piqua, Ohio, where we lived for eleven years, and then to Fort Recovery, Ohio, where we lived for a short time. My brother Francis was a tinner by trade and we kept a tin shop. In a few months, however, we left for Illinois and spent a few years on a farm near Carthage with my uncle, George Capron, who in those days was a thrifty farmer. I
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was eleven years old and was much help with the chores—milking, feeding pigs and chickens, and at other things at which a boy can be useful.
At this time wheat was cut with a cradle, threshed with a flail, or tramped out with horses on the barn floor. The hay was cut with a scythe, making farming infantile compared with today. Yet, even then people were happy and contented.
After this we moved to a farm near Augusta, Illinois, where we remained for two years. It was a small farm of eighty acres and had on it a small orchard. On this farm Ivan Adolphus was born, being the eighth of the nine. We then moved to a farm adjoining the little town of Pulaska, Illinois, also near Augusta. Nearby was a country school, a little white frame building, where Sarah, Sam, and I attended. In 1860 Father bought a sixty-acre farm about three miles from Pulaska. We were now two-and-a-half miles from the school, which I attended, Sarah and Sam having gone from home, Sarah married and Sam employed in business.
We were comfortably fixed, as comfort was regarded then. About that time Mart and Sam joined the army on Lincoln’s call for one-hundred-day men enlistments. I shall never forget my last years on this little farm. We were happy and contented; didn’t know anything better. The last winter there we fed for market twenty-five steers. I fed them morning and evening, and Father looked after them during the day. I walked that winter two-and-a-half miles to school and enjoyed it. I was then sixteen years old.
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The following summer I worked for a good thrifty neighbor on his farm—got twenty dollars per month, and for five months work I got one hundred dollars, and I earned it. It was war times, but just opening, and this twenty dollars was full man’s wages.
With this one hundred dollars, and a little help from my brother Mart, I went to the State Normal University at Normal, near Bloomington. I came back with a good letter from the President and got a school in a little town called La Prairie, in Illinois, about five miles from our home farm and forty miles from Quincy. I took this letter to Quincy in order to get a certificate for teaching school. The County Superintendent read the letter and gave me a first grade certificate without an examination. That started me off on first grade, and always after that I carried a certificate of that grade. I taught the school in that little town for two years and then went back to Normal for another year. This school in this little town drew many from the adjoining country, among them young men who had been in the army and who were much older than I. In the school they called me Mr. Robinson; at the parties and little social gatherings it was Willie. The town was large enough that they gave me an assistant, and the school was not such a small affair after all.
After the second year at Normal I came to Abingdon, Illinois, where the Methodist Episcopal Church had quite a popular school. My folks had sold the little farm near La Prairie and moved to Abingdon as a home. I stayed then with my Mother, George, Ivan, and Etta. I
applied for the schools at Monmouth, Carthage, and McQuon, and got all three. I kept the school at Monmouth, got a friend for the McQuon School, and gave up the one at Carthage. I went to Monmouth on my twenty-first birthday, the Twenty-seventh of August, and was assigned the principalship of the westward school. I spent this year very happily and successfully.
At the end of the year our City Superintendent was not re-employed, and I was offered the place. I hesitated about accepting, as I was to spend one-half of my time, the morning, teaching in the High School. I was to fit a class in High School for entrance into the college in Monmouth, which required a year of Latin. The U. P.’s had their finest college there, and a very popular institution. I had not studied Latin. The Normal School at Norman didn’t have Latin in its course, as it prepared teachers for the common schools. It did seem a little risky for me to attempt this. I visited the President of the school at Abingdon, a Methodist College, who was a very fine scholarly man. He said, “Take it. We will spend the summer in the study of Latin.” So I did. I remained there two years and got along pretty well. One of the professors in Monmouth College was a member of the school board, and he came to visit me sometimes, which rather worked on my nerves a little. When he left from his visits I didn’t use the present-day, cordial, “Good-bye. Hurry back!”
We had, in the school, twenty-five teachers, and with one or some of them I spent my afternoons. I was the young
est man then in the schools of Illinois of that grade. I think I looked older then. Today, however, many of my friends claim I do not look to be eighty-three. I am inclined to think it is said to please me. It does my friends some good, and I flatter myself that maybe they are right. We don’t, however, mean many of the nice things we say.
I think you will be interested in this occurance during my second year in Monmouth. One morning quite early, before the work of the morning had begun, a party called on me and said he had a desire to present a proposition to me that I might be glad to entertain. I was glad to see him and said I would be glad to hear it. The party was one whom we then called the Presiding Elder, an important officer in the Methodist Church, a great preacher of those days. He was a big man physically, mentally, and spiritually, in fact a big man in every way. His preacher in Carthage, Illinois, had grown very sick and been compelled to give up his position. He wanted me to resign from my position in Monmouth and go to Carthage where I could be more useful, as he thought, and have a good field before me. I was astounded, and said, “I thank you for so great a compliment. I am not a preacher, and too, I am too young.” He said, “We will soon make you a preacher. We want young men, and such as you.” He was earnest and insistent, but I couldn’t listen to it.
I was not sufficiently educated. If, however, I had been educated along with and equal to you, and had your enthusiasm and deep-seated religious convictions,
it might have appealed to me. I have always admired preaching and preachers. My experience in Monmouth, to me was unique, and had it not been that I was without experience, realized my inefficiency and lack of education, and knew that I was devoid of any money and had to work out my Salvation, myself, “With fear and trembling,” as I assure you I did, I might have accepted.
I went to Monmouth wearing a pair of pants my Mother gave me—she had a tailor in our little town of Abingdon cut them for me and then, herself did the balance. I wore a coat I had bought when I was in school in Normal. I didn’t know but that I was well-dressed. It was proof of the adage, “Ignorance is bliss.” It was the time, too, when all men wore paper collars. I had left a few at home, having forgotten them, and it was Saturday night. I must go to church tomorrow morning—had to have a clean collar—and I had only twenty-five cents left after paying railroad fare over. I dropped into a dingily lighted Jew cellar and asked for box-collars, size fourteen-and-a-half. “How much?” “Twenty-five cents.” I parted with my last as if I had plenty left. I worked for a month and got one hundred dollars, a good salary then. No one knew what I had gone through. The first Saturday I was in Monmouth I went to a good tailor who made me a good suit for $40.00, and I felt as good as the best dressed man. I soon, too, got me a silk hat, such as the well dressed young man wore, especially on Sunday. It was a great time and experience for me, and I tried to handle it with great caution. I,
however, often got a little nervous, but I enjoyed it immensely. Those years, even now, are a delightful memory, with some regrets, but more of great happiness. I felt as if I were doing something and had a good future, and the dollar was my least consideration. I knew that I was making my Mother, with her three dependent children, happy, and that afforded me very great pleasure. I took brother Read from a brakeman on the C. B. & Q. Railroad, a dangerous position, and sent him to brother Mart then in Clinton, Missouri, in the clothing business. Read remained in the clothing business, a traveling salesman, for the balance of his life, and he was an exception for he left an estate of about $50,000.
Hedding Seminary in Abingdon was a Methodist School, and such schools, then as now, had as their ideal to fit many of their young men to make preachers of them, which was worthy, and I think they wanted to get me into the idea of being one. The idea was not variant with mine, but I knew my shortcomings and on that account could not be a preacher consistent with the picture I had as to what one should be. I think there is no calling in this life that measures up to what are the possibilities of it. I couldn’t conceive of the possibility that the Lord was calling me. If I had had the education, culture, and the enthusiasm, and what I, even then, regarded as real religion—such as I think you, Dr. Cadman, Dr. Kern, now Bishop in the M. E. Church South, and Bishop Quayle, and many warm friends in different Protestant Churches have—it might have appealed to
me, while risking the misfortune to me and the Church Crowd.
Generally, I have tried to be liberal in my views of the tenets of the different churches and could be at home in any of them, but more so in the Methodist Episcopal Church. I even admire the good preachers in Kansas of all creeds. I am liberal and have implicit faith in fair treatment when I get to the end of the Journey and its pleasures and tribulations are over.
I rather like the teaching of the Unitarians, and its effects should be good and wholesome.
TENETS
1. Fatherhood of God. 2. Brotherhood of man. 3. Leadership of Jesus. 4. Salvation through character. 5. Progress of mankind onward and upward forever. We give to Jesus MORE than THIS?
I know but little about the Catholic Church, but that it has done great good in the world—is active, with a promising future. I am inclined to think there is much good in the Confession to many of the poor and uninformed. Many, however, object to this. I have many good friends of that Faith whom I love and trust. The Priests and the Bishop in this area have always been my friends. The Priest here is my very cordial friend. We have many pleasant and cheerful little visits. I want to tell him this: A visit of a Protestant preacher to a Priest who had just moved into new and lovely quarters brought forth this conversation. The Protestant said, “Fine! Commodious! Lovely!” The Priest replied, “You,
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of course, have better halves, but we have better quarters.” Bishop Hennesy, who lived in Wichita, was of just my age, but he was called from this life several years ago. I am quite sure that he got through all right without stopping in Purgatory!
I thought to give you two other occurrences in Monmouth and Abingdon to show you how zealous the Church was in trying to fill the preacher ranks with what they regarded as promising young men, a practice I think very commendable. I, today, tell my own idea of the value to Youth by saying, ‘‘Only one thing I’m jealous of; it is Youth.” I often wish I could put myself back, say sixty years. We may have a second childhood, but not a second Youth. I am at a time in which I fully realize that you can’t, with safety, ‘put NEW wine into OLD bottles.’”
The first year I was in Monmouth I was twenty-one. The Methodist Episcopal Church had a young man in the pulpit, a fine preacher and scholar, a great friend of mine. He came to my school one Monday morning and said, ‘‘I must fill my pulpit next Sunday morning and hold an important meeting in the Town Hall in the afternoon. I want you to talk in my pulpit in the evening. I felt like treating his request with levity, but I said, ‘‘I am amazed.” But I finally told him I’d think it over and would answer at Wednesday prayer meeting. I went to prayer meetings in those days— Prayer meetings are scarce now-a-days, except with you, as I hear. I spent much thought during the next few days and much work at night in writing up some
thing and committing it. I told him Wednesday night I’d try it if he would promise that it would not be announced. He kept his promise, and I kept mine— “with fear and trembling.” I took for my subject, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” etc. I wrote out and committed my talk; I could do that in those days.
The next summer the President of the school at Abingdon sent a young preacher and me to Bushnell, Illinois, a few miles from Abingdon, a good town then. He preached in the morning, I in the evening. My subject, was, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” etc. I went to Galesburg one other Sunday. These two were about my last.
Brother Mart came to Abingdon and wanted me to come to Kansas with him. I told him I had agreed to stay in Monmouth another year and would then come. He insisted that I resign and come immediately. I tell it timidly that I offered my resignation and was surprised to find it so readily accepted. So I gave up teaching and left Monmouth in August, 1871, and went to Independence, Kansas. In 1872 we opened Read’s Bank in Winfield, named for M. L. Read, my Mother’s brother. I went to Winfield to remain in 1874—the year famous for the drouth we had and the big raid of the grasshoppers. They ate everything, whether green or not. If they had applied themselves only to green things many of us left might have been in danger. However, they left everything so bare that there was not much left to do business on, or about.
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I was, in the bank, the handyman, doing anything or everything. Most people, old and young, had gone, or were going, back to their friends or their “wife’s people.” It was difficult to find a teacher for their school. One of our relatives, a Miss Sarah Aldrich from New England, was visiting with our Mr. Read. I concluded with her help we could take the school for the winter, so we did. I did the book work in the bank of evenings Friday and Saturday, all day Saturday, and maybe broke the Sabbath a little sometimes, easy however, making only a slight crack. We remember reading where the Disciples picked corn on the Sabbath Day, which I thought justified me.
When I came to Kansas I was always more or less active in church work and have always been on the side of what I felt was right and best for the community and have always had a high regard for the Church and great esteem and sympathy for the capable and earnest ministry. I have been a good factor in the location of our college at Winfield—at first called the South West Kansas Conference College, now the Southwestern College, vieing, I think, with the North-western, at Evanston. I was active in locating and keeping up the college through many “lean years” and now it is a good and valuable college to the town and this part of Kansas and Northern Oklahoma, and it will be kept up and active if the church in this area—this Conference—gives it full support. I fear, however, that colleges—like banks—are too many in number and will come through and up like the “one hundred forty and four thousand.”
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We have here, also, a great Lutheran College that is doing much for the town. I used to say we must take care of our colleges, as they are all that invites people here, except the natural beauty of the town, which is full of fine trees, and has a very beuatiful park—none in the state finer, if equal to it—my home for thirty-five years, producing pain, almost agony, to have lost it AS and WHEN I did.
I think Winfield is appreciating what someone has said about a tree in contrast to a poem, “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” The tree is marvelous, and like the star says to us all the time, “The hand that made me is divine.” I have great esteem for Luther Burbank, who did so much to make this world beautiful, but whose esteem and relation to God, along with Lincoln’s, has been questioned,—but they both handled His handiwork as if it were divine.
It has always been my idea that the clique which conceived taking the Block, my old home, for a park went far beyond the intention of the Condemnation Law. That was surely intended for an emergency arising where the land was absolutely necessary in the building of a railroad, or in the promotion of some civic or industrial enterprise where nothing else would meet the purpose—otherwise it is unfair and cold-blooded, as I regard it was in this particular case.
I had lived there thirty-five years— my children were born there and spent their childhood there—my good wife, who did her full duty to the town as she saw
it, left there for her “Long Home.” A very short time thereafter the home was ruthlessly taken from me. I take it that I am not alone in this position of sorrow and regret—“Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” It is a beautiful place now, but the city was not compelled to take it just then— was not compelled to have another park just at that time. It is seldom that I pass by it, as it brings to me many sweet memories, in sadness; usually I go to town via Eighth or Tenth Avenue. It is a lovely place, and the trees and foliage are largely a result of my planting and keeping. I loved the trees and the place and would have liked to spend the few remaining years of my life there.
The vote for confiscation carried by a small majority; three or four changed votes would have defeated the scheme. I took the case to Supreme Court. It was sustained. The 'property was bought at a small figure—I had even intimated to the Committee that if they did not take it now, at my end it could result in a different memorial, including, too, the patriotic idea.
Island Park is beautiful and unique. About forty years ago Riverside Park was fine; it was offered to the city for twenty-five hundred dollars, but the offer was not entertained. It was owned by M. L. Read, M. L. Robinson, W. C. Robinson, Captain Smith, and Copland Lowry. It was expensive to keep up, some of the crowd wanted their money, so I sold it to D. D. Robinson. He trimmed out many of the trees for wood, and then held it as a pasture. The city should have bought it. It was kept up
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as a park for years, a lovely place, at the expense of the then owners. Memorial Park is “a thing of beauty.” Why not make it “a Joy (NOW and) forever” to the people? Take down the sign “Keep off the grass.”
September 15, 1872, from Independence we started for Winfield with a large Hall Safe on the biggest wagon to be found in this country. It was drawn by three yoke of oxen, six of them, and fine big fellows and willing, handled by two good reliable men who agreed to do it for a certain sum of money. We had no paved roads then, fifty-eight years ago. Roads, in that day, were not even “all-year roads.” There were not even fair roads then. On account of rain and the road conditions it took six days to make the trip. Today, a truck would make it in six hours, or less. We “go” today, but not more pleasantly than M. L. Read and M. L. Robinson—with their money in a travelling bag—went then. They stayed with the moving all the way. When they got to Winfield and straightened up it was found that the contract price was just a few dollars more than the expenses, so the teamsters were given an additional check for one hundred dollars. That was satisfactory to them, and they were surely our friends always after. But they didn’t ask for anything extra; we didn’t demand “the pound of flesh.” I think sometimes we did business more that way then than we do now.
We had rented one side of a room on the east side of Main—I think where the Crawford-Orr Shoe Store is today. Our furniture was not of today’s kind, but we, nor the town, had any complaint
to make. Everybody was glad to see us, and we, to see them. People then were young, cordial, and cheerful, and life happy. If I could be put back to my age then, I’d like to go through the same experience again—Wouldn’t be afraid even to meet the grasshoppers again.
There was a bank here then in a little frame building with the end toward the street, at the southwest corner of Ninth and Main, where the Winfield National Bank now is;—that building was not to be compared in architecture with the three bank buildings now on three of the corners—the oldest bank in Cowley County. J. C. Fuller was the banker then and for many years—I think he was at it in 1870 and ’71—a careful, proud man who did much for Winfield. In a few years Colonel J. C. McMullen came to Winfield with his little bank, from Arkansas City,—located on the north side of East Ninth Avenue. In a year or so he joined with J. C. Fuller in the Winfield Bank, making a good and well managed bank which has been such ever since.
In 1872 Read’s Bank built a two-story brick building, thought then to be a bold risk, on the lot adjoining the Winfield Bank, where we stayed until 1885.
I was in the banking business fifty-one years, and, altogether, had a very pleasant and happy time. I tried to work on the theory, “Live and let live.” I have always thought it was the province and duty of a banker to be a “builder” —not a “crusher.” Worthy young men and women are all about a bank, who, with good and kind advice and some
little financial help, make good successful men and women, and useful citizens, and who, otherwise, couldn’t go at all. Banks could be more liberal in handling their business forty years ago than now. Progress and close competition, possibly, make business now more hazardous than then, and the demands of the banking departments more rigid, no doubt, good and rightly so.
I’ll give one example that would be criticised and correction made—I could give many more similar ones, and some with even greater margins—on such I never had a loss, worry, or annoyance. A party came to my desk wanting to go into a deal requiring three thousand dollars. He had twelve hundred dollars and needed to borrow eighteen hundred. I knew the party well—admired him, and have ever since. He had never done business with me, but with another bank across the street. This will not name the bank, as there were then, as now, two across the street. I said, “Have you presented the matter to your bank?” He said, “Yes, but they seem to take no interest, so I come to you. I realize it is a little ‘cheeky,’ but it is a big matter with me. I want very anxiously to make this deal.” I said, “I’ll be glad to carry it for you.” He is with us now— for forty years has been one of our most popular citizens, and most useful. Everybody in town knows him, and with great esteem.
Another case was this: Two young men, say thirty years ago, wanted to buy a prominent drug store. One was a practical druggist; the other had a fine father and had been for several years an
employe in my bank, had a thousand dollars. The store in the purchase would want to borrow seven thousand, five hundred dollars. I made the loan on character, and family, and environment. These two loans never gave me anything but pleasant and prompt attention. I defy any banker to give a similar experience. Such loans, today, would not be permitted, and I think rightly, too. They would be called capital loans, and the examiners would agree that the probability of the bank having two drug stores too imminent.
I think I was fortunate in Winfield. For many years I did more than one-half of the merchant business of Winfield with a loss of six hundred dollars, and that was in a racket store. The party came to me then with a good letter from the Fourth National Bank of Wichita. His wife, too, had been a teacher in the Wichita schools, but it was not her fault. Barring the disappointment, heartache, and chagrin of having my home taken from me in the way it was, all other things have been pleasant and quite satisfactory. Many of the prominent ones in this scheme I thought of as friends, and for some I had done favors which I thought gave me the hope of fair treatment, anyhow. I did not ask for, or expect, favors. The great Shakespeare knew human nature in saying, in substance, “Past favors don’t count—favors to come.” I bear no malice; I am sure none was meant by the people of Winfield. I’ll take and bear in the spirit expressed in Edwin Markham’s Quatrain, a great poem, I think.
“He drew a circle that shut me out,
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Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout;
Love and I, with the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.”
So let it pass. I hope the town and the near country people around will enjoy the beautiful park, and that I will not be forgotten as the one who made it possible for it to be.
I am sure the people of Winfield will give me credit for having assisted in every enterprise of merit for the town, and for being helpful in its promotion. The Bank, and I personally, assisted, from 1872 to 1923, in the building of every church, the Opera House, and all other public enterprises. This town is not alone in such work; I presume all towns come up in a similar way.
My brother M. L. was the master spirit in the building of a water system which was the first and greatest enterprise in the town. There is no better water system in any town in Kansas of its size, or even some larger. The Water Company was composed of ten men, each putting in fifteen hundred dollars, making fifteen thousand dollars. Read’s Bank furnished the balance, fifty thousand dollars, making the entire cost of the system sixty-five thousand dollars.
The work was accepted and received by the city in the early part of December, 1883.
Everything was harmonious in the building of the system, but as to whether we should use wrought iron pipe or cast iron. The life of wrought iron pipe was fifteen years; the cast iron was indistruc-tible in the ground. We could put in the works by using wrought iron for
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fifty thousand dollars, and thereby have, in the deal, an immediate profit of fifteen thousand dollars—fifteen hundred dollars each. One of the crowd insisted on using wrought iron and having this immediate profit. Others argued thus: “Some of us, no doubt, will be here fifteen years, possibly many of us, and the works would have to be made and kept good at a cost greater than the fifteen thousand dollars immediate profit.” M. L. Robinson took the stock of the party who wished the immediate profit, who then resigned. Sorry, all of us, for him to go. He was a good man, and at that time our most prominent merchant—his good store is in Winfield today.
When the System was accepted the Company had in it fifteen thousand dollars; Read’s Bank had in it fifty thousand dollars, with the bonds of the Water Company to this amount in its safe as collateral, I managing the Bank. I got tired and telegraphed my brother M. L., then in Colorado, “Come home on first train. I need you.” He came; wanted to know what was the matter. I replied, “Nothing, only I’m tired of handling a small bank with fifty thousand dollars of its money in pipes in the ground. I want you to go to New York and sell these bonds.” His reply was, “I’ll go the first of the week;” mine, “I want you to go tomorrow.” He went, and in a few days the Bank had to its credit in the New York Bank fifty-five thousand dollars, a little premium.
We had no bank examiners then— couldn’t have a deal like that now. That was surely a capital loan—but good. All stockholders were then held in double
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liability. No stock but bank stock is held in double liability today. The double liability made the obligation of the company good to the bank. We had many deals then go through on account of the security of the double liability. I enjoyed the work then; it was good, clean, and fascinating.
We held the works then for five years, making three extensions, spending and bonding for twenty-five thousand dollars additional, making the total bonds ninety thousand dollars. We sold to the Pay sons of Portland, Maine, for one hundred thirty-two thousand dollars, making it a good deal—wouldn’t like to attempt such a one today. The Paysons held the system for several years and then the city, under the Page administration, attempted to put in a new system, making two. The town couldn’t support two. In the Page administration, or the next, the city bought, or otherwise got, the works and dropped the new system. These works were put in with the best material, and by skilled workmen, and have never given the city much or any worry or repair work. The Paysons, fine men, able, fair, and upright, fared worse than I did with my block.
Now, in 1884 comes the possibility of getting a college from the Southwest Kansas Conference. Realizing the possibility, a few of us, Read’s Bank and some of its friends, had purchased one-fourth section of land near what is now College Hill—land which was then the home of Dr. Davis, at that time our most prominent physician. We paid twelve thousand dollars for it, seventy-five dollars per acre. We knew we were not taking
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much risk. It was a good farm and up against a good county-seat town.
The College was chartered, and bids were asked from the good towns in the Conference. Almost every good town put in a bid, even Wichita, bid then as now for everything, and she has usually GOTTEN. Winfield’s bid was accepted. It was soon proved to have been the best bid and Winfield an ideal place for the College. The bid was two twenty-acre pieces of ground and sixty thousand dollars in money, forty thousand from the town and ten thousand from each of two companies, the College Hill Company, named for the Hill, on which a fine college building and a fine gymnasium now are located, and the Highland Park Company. College Hill with its wonderful view in every direction, which met the charm of the locating committee, was furnished. For several years it was a struggle to keep going. This has always been considered our best enterprise. The town and the county have stood well by it and it has had good patronage from Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. It is now classed as one of the great institutions in the Middle West and has been one of the hobbies of the writer and many others of the town. It stands on the Hill in its queenly, almost regal, beauty. Its first ambition is to send out young men and women for the Church, here and abroad, and it has, too, from its halls sent many for almost every profession and work. It also inspired our lamented J. P. Baden to establish here a similar institution for the Church of his love and devotion, the Lutheran Church. The town, therefore,
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has been doubly blessed in this enterprise. I claim, with the Bank, which in 1884 became the First National Bank, to have been active and devoted to this from which the town has received great good. To this and to every other good enterprise the town has given great loyalty and fidelity.
Then came, in 1887, the locating of the Assembly here, another enterprise from which the town got much good, pleasure, and notoriety. The Assembly gave the town education, culture, and character, making it unique among the towns of this section. At that time the Assembly idea was quite a fad of the many. Winfield was third in the list. Chautauqua, New York, was, in rank, first, and is still a great summer gathering place and doing a great work. Winona Lake and Winfield are both out and have been for several years.
The Assembly was for several years managed by a stock company which, after paying several times the amount of the stock, dissolved. Only required to use the double liability—loyally paid several times, but got tired and then turned it to the City. It soon got tired and quit. It was really a big loss to the City. People from the town took tents and camped for ten days and considered it a good outing and with great value in it. People came from over the county and farther distant and kept it up for years. There were many expressions of regret from all around when the Assembly was abandoned.
This enterprise started in the lobby of the old First National Bank building— the name was changed in 1884 from
Read’s Bank to the First National Bank. One morning Reverend M. L. Gates, the Presiding Eider for this district, living here, dropped into the lobby of the bank. Everybody was then fond of the Chautauqua idea. My brother M. L. said, “Why can’t we have one—this a good Church town—we have two fine parks. I think it will prove a taking idea.” Elder Gates said, “Sure.” They sat down and wrote for a charter. So it began, and was a great success for many years.
The next enterprise that rather cooled the ardor for new things by promoters, of whom I was one, was the Interurban Railway in the two towns, Winfield and Arkansas City. For a few years it was paying and popular. All put in some money and issued bonds for two hundred thousand dollars—borrowed from a Kansas City bank one hundred thousand dollars with the bonds as collateral. After renewing four times we paid the loan. Four renewals would not be permitted today. A good change too. For the first three years it was a good investment and paid well. When Henry Ford, Chrysler, Studebaker, and others came on with their theory of transportation we had to step out with ours, and so did all small and urban towns.
The banker, along beside the minister and the doctor, is about as much appealed to for confession, counsel, and advice, but not for boasting. The priest, however, is closer to his parishioners than any other one as shown in this occurrence. A sweet girl went to her Catholic priest saying, “I came to you, Father, thinking I should confess.” “Well, my dear Child, about what do you want
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to confess?” “I’ve been letting my Sweetheart, a Dear, you know, kiss me.” “How often, Daughter, do you permit him to kiss you?” “Pardon me, Father, I came here to confess, not to boast.”
I have, dear Will, another matter, not an enterprise, originated among the bankers of Winfield, but a plan of co-operation adopted and carried out by them, placing them in a unique position among the bankers of Kansas and the Middle West, showing the power and truth of the slogan, “In union there is strength.” Frequently, before the adoption of the present banking system, the Federal Reserve, consisting of twelve banks, each having its own distinct area, a bank for bankers, panics occurred. Now every National Bank must join the Federal Reserve System or surrender its charter. Any State Bank can join on the same conditions. Many State Banks have joined—the time will come when all State Banks will be members too. The system has already done great service to prove its worth. It has wiped out even the possibility of panics. It enabled the Allies to succeed in the great World War —otherwise the instigators of that beastly war would have succeeded and Germany today would have been in the saddle. The United States through this system was enabled to furnish money to the Allies to carry on the War to its success. It proved, “God was in the Heavens” and “taking care of His Own.” It also put the United States (claiming to be a Christian Nation?) in the lead of nations and the richest in the world. I trust she has enough good intentions and power to prevent future wars.
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We had a panic in 1873 from which Kansas banks suffered but little—too young and small to have had much liability, or (in confidence) many assets— too, we had few banks—now many—too many—too many to make even a small return to stockholders. Every bank should pay its stockholders an annual dividend, say ten per cent. Many banks in the Middle West are not paying any dividends and have not for years. Such conditions can’t last always. A bank of one hundred thousand dollars capital should have a deposit of one million five hundred thousand dollars to pay a dividend of ten per cent. A National Bank with ten per cent dividend must put ten per cent of its dividends to surplus until it equals twenty per cent of its capital, anticipating some loss. A good description of a thrifty country banker I heard once here in Winfield. A retired preacher, a friend, brought his little grandson to our bank years ago—then Read’s Bank—my brother M. L. then the leading banker of the town. The old Preacher then said, “Johnnie, I want to introduce you to Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson, Johnnie, is the banker; he has a LITTLE money in his bank of his own, and a great deal belonging to other people.’’ The next pnic came in 1893— the greatest panic we ever had, the Middle West suffering much. When this panic was announced the bankers of Winfield, four banks, had a meeting and entered into an ironclad agreement to be one bank. We entered into a rigid agreement not to take an account from each other during the prevalence of the panic, or from any bank in any of the smaller
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towns in this or adjoining counties about us. We agreed to meet every night and each make a full and detailed statement. We followed this agreement rigidly. We may have been the only banks in Kansas so operating. I am sure the Winfield banks were almost alone in this, and we have ever since been rewarded. Panics —1873—1893—1907—and 1914. We thank the Federal Reserve Bank System for the “wiping out’’ of these disastrous occurrences. I hope the time will soon come when we will have “fewer banks, but more bankers,” and when co-operation will more fully take the place of competition, and when the Brotherhood of Man will be, along with the Fatherhood of God, and the world will be more humane.
Today many towns formerly having four to five banks have three. I have been convinced for sometime that in our area here, in such towns as Winfield, Arkansas City, Ponca City, Blackwell, Wellington, and all such towns, two banks in each town would be sufficient and could do the business well and with the hope of paying a fair dividend on the investment to the stockholders, producing more smiles.
I know but little about the Catholic Church—not familiar with its tenets. I have in it many warm friends and know it has done, and is doing, great good in the world. I have had close business connections with many Catholics, and with only ONE who was unsatisfactory and fraught with suspicion.
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I quit, dear Will—to me
Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art, to dust returneth, Was not spoken of the Soul.”
Uncle Will, with Love.
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Original Format
Paper
Title
Letter to Dr. William L. Stidger from his Uncle W. C. Robinson, Winfield, Kansas
Subject
Robinson, W. C.
Stidger, Dr. William L.
Letters
Description
An epistolary autobiography of W. C. Robinson to his nephew, Dr. William L. Stidger, Copley M. E. Church, Professor of Homiletics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
Creator
Robinson, W. C.
Source
Winfield Public Library
Publisher
Winfield Public Library, Winfield, Kansas, USA
Date
1930-07-25
Format
text/plain
Language
English
Type
Correspondence
Citation
Robinson, W. C., “Letter to Dr. William L. Stidger from his Uncle W. C. Robinson, Winfield, Kansas,” Winfield Digital Collections, accessed December 22, 2024, https://winfield.digitalsckls.info/item/62.Text
——-
Letter
to
Dr. William L.Stidger Copley M. E. Church Professor of Homiletics Boston University Boston, Massachusetts
From His Uncle
W. C. Robinson
Winfield, Kansas
Winfield, Kansas, July 25th, 1930.
Dear Will:
I have concluded to write a little of the history of my life. There are some things in it that will interest some, and it may be, interest them to do something similar. I have concluded to address it to you, knowing of your great fortitude. I have written you so very much and often, and you seemed to endure it with Christian fortitude, even claiming to enjoy it. I have never permitted myself to dispute it. I don’t like a controversy, because I see, in every case, one or the other must come out “the under-dog in the fight.” I will, however, attempt to make it as easy as possible for you.
I write it to you because I love you and have very great esteem for your ability—the life you have lead, and the good you have done, even while you were yet a young man. I pray the Good Lord to keep you for many years in your good work. I am sure He will listen to this prayer, even if I do feel that thousands offered heretofore have not reached or fully impressed Him. I may be wrong in this. I look through human eyes with the McKinley spirit, “Thy will be done.”
Now let us claim to be here on this mundane sphere in the year 1847. On the Twenty-Seventh of August there came a very small specimen of humanity, seemingly with no life—he couldn’t see, nor hear, nor in any way make himself known. After a careful examination the good old Doctor pronounced it STILL-BORN. But my good Mother said to me more than once that the greathearted old Doctor said, “Too fine a specimen to lose!”, and
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began to furnish, from his own, enough breath to make a slight movement, enough to keep it in time. So one more human was added to the growing list, and the wee, little thing started to battle and has kept it up now for eighty-three years. Little did the good old Doctor realize that he was putting in the line one more. If the Doctor had done his job the easiest way for him many of the family would have been saved annoyance, some little expense, and one party’s struggles, worries, and defeats. This occurred on a farm that is now a part of Springfield, Ohio, where our family spent a few years, but having spent so few, I carried away no impressions that I remember.
This little One was the fifth in a family of nine children, and now is the only one living. This little One was named 'William Coburn Robinson, following Francis Marion, Sarah Aldrich, Martin Luther, and Samuel Washington. After me came Amasa Read, George Washington, Ivan Adolphus, and Etta Bonita. Father’s name was Henson. Mother’s name was Sarah Ann. All are gone except the one born in Springfield. Why, of all that good family; I should still be here, the only one remaining, is a mystery which I shall not try to penetrate.
From Springfield the family went to Piqua, Ohio, where we lived for eleven years, and then to Fort Recovery, Ohio, where we lived for a short time. My brother Francis was a tinner by trade and we kept a tin shop. In a few months, however, we left for Illinois and spent a few years on a farm near Carthage with my uncle, George Capron, who in those days was a thrifty farmer. I
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was eleven years old and was much help with the chores—milking, feeding pigs and chickens, and at other things at which a boy can be useful.
At this time wheat was cut with a cradle, threshed with a flail, or tramped out with horses on the barn floor. The hay was cut with a scythe, making farming infantile compared with today. Yet, even then people were happy and contented.
After this we moved to a farm near Augusta, Illinois, where we remained for two years. It was a small farm of eighty acres and had on it a small orchard. On this farm Ivan Adolphus was born, being the eighth of the nine. We then moved to a farm adjoining the little town of Pulaska, Illinois, also near Augusta. Nearby was a country school, a little white frame building, where Sarah, Sam, and I attended. In 1860 Father bought a sixty-acre farm about three miles from Pulaska. We were now two-and-a-half miles from the school, which I attended, Sarah and Sam having gone from home, Sarah married and Sam employed in business.
We were comfortably fixed, as comfort was regarded then. About that time Mart and Sam joined the army on Lincoln’s call for one-hundred-day men enlistments. I shall never forget my last years on this little farm. We were happy and contented; didn’t know anything better. The last winter there we fed for market twenty-five steers. I fed them morning and evening, and Father looked after them during the day. I walked that winter two-and-a-half miles to school and enjoyed it. I was then sixteen years old.
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The following summer I worked for a good thrifty neighbor on his farm—got twenty dollars per month, and for five months work I got one hundred dollars, and I earned it. It was war times, but just opening, and this twenty dollars was full man’s wages.
With this one hundred dollars, and a little help from my brother Mart, I went to the State Normal University at Normal, near Bloomington. I came back with a good letter from the President and got a school in a little town called La Prairie, in Illinois, about five miles from our home farm and forty miles from Quincy. I took this letter to Quincy in order to get a certificate for teaching school. The County Superintendent read the letter and gave me a first grade certificate without an examination. That started me off on first grade, and always after that I carried a certificate of that grade. I taught the school in that little town for two years and then went back to Normal for another year. This school in this little town drew many from the adjoining country, among them young men who had been in the army and who were much older than I. In the school they called me Mr. Robinson; at the parties and little social gatherings it was Willie. The town was large enough that they gave me an assistant, and the school was not such a small affair after all.
After the second year at Normal I came to Abingdon, Illinois, where the Methodist Episcopal Church had quite a popular school. My folks had sold the little farm near La Prairie and moved to Abingdon as a home. I stayed then with my Mother, George, Ivan, and Etta. I
applied for the schools at Monmouth, Carthage, and McQuon, and got all three. I kept the school at Monmouth, got a friend for the McQuon School, and gave up the one at Carthage. I went to Monmouth on my twenty-first birthday, the Twenty-seventh of August, and was assigned the principalship of the westward school. I spent this year very happily and successfully.
At the end of the year our City Superintendent was not re-employed, and I was offered the place. I hesitated about accepting, as I was to spend one-half of my time, the morning, teaching in the High School. I was to fit a class in High School for entrance into the college in Monmouth, which required a year of Latin. The U. P.’s had their finest college there, and a very popular institution. I had not studied Latin. The Normal School at Norman didn’t have Latin in its course, as it prepared teachers for the common schools. It did seem a little risky for me to attempt this. I visited the President of the school at Abingdon, a Methodist College, who was a very fine scholarly man. He said, “Take it. We will spend the summer in the study of Latin.” So I did. I remained there two years and got along pretty well. One of the professors in Monmouth College was a member of the school board, and he came to visit me sometimes, which rather worked on my nerves a little. When he left from his visits I didn’t use the present-day, cordial, “Good-bye. Hurry back!”
We had, in the school, twenty-five teachers, and with one or some of them I spent my afternoons. I was the young
est man then in the schools of Illinois of that grade. I think I looked older then. Today, however, many of my friends claim I do not look to be eighty-three. I am inclined to think it is said to please me. It does my friends some good, and I flatter myself that maybe they are right. We don’t, however, mean many of the nice things we say.
I think you will be interested in this occurance during my second year in Monmouth. One morning quite early, before the work of the morning had begun, a party called on me and said he had a desire to present a proposition to me that I might be glad to entertain. I was glad to see him and said I would be glad to hear it. The party was one whom we then called the Presiding Elder, an important officer in the Methodist Church, a great preacher of those days. He was a big man physically, mentally, and spiritually, in fact a big man in every way. His preacher in Carthage, Illinois, had grown very sick and been compelled to give up his position. He wanted me to resign from my position in Monmouth and go to Carthage where I could be more useful, as he thought, and have a good field before me. I was astounded, and said, “I thank you for so great a compliment. I am not a preacher, and too, I am too young.” He said, “We will soon make you a preacher. We want young men, and such as you.” He was earnest and insistent, but I couldn’t listen to it.
I was not sufficiently educated. If, however, I had been educated along with and equal to you, and had your enthusiasm and deep-seated religious convictions,
it might have appealed to me. I have always admired preaching and preachers. My experience in Monmouth, to me was unique, and had it not been that I was without experience, realized my inefficiency and lack of education, and knew that I was devoid of any money and had to work out my Salvation, myself, “With fear and trembling,” as I assure you I did, I might have accepted.
I went to Monmouth wearing a pair of pants my Mother gave me—she had a tailor in our little town of Abingdon cut them for me and then, herself did the balance. I wore a coat I had bought when I was in school in Normal. I didn’t know but that I was well-dressed. It was proof of the adage, “Ignorance is bliss.” It was the time, too, when all men wore paper collars. I had left a few at home, having forgotten them, and it was Saturday night. I must go to church tomorrow morning—had to have a clean collar—and I had only twenty-five cents left after paying railroad fare over. I dropped into a dingily lighted Jew cellar and asked for box-collars, size fourteen-and-a-half. “How much?” “Twenty-five cents.” I parted with my last as if I had plenty left. I worked for a month and got one hundred dollars, a good salary then. No one knew what I had gone through. The first Saturday I was in Monmouth I went to a good tailor who made me a good suit for $40.00, and I felt as good as the best dressed man. I soon, too, got me a silk hat, such as the well dressed young man wore, especially on Sunday. It was a great time and experience for me, and I tried to handle it with great caution. I,
however, often got a little nervous, but I enjoyed it immensely. Those years, even now, are a delightful memory, with some regrets, but more of great happiness. I felt as if I were doing something and had a good future, and the dollar was my least consideration. I knew that I was making my Mother, with her three dependent children, happy, and that afforded me very great pleasure. I took brother Read from a brakeman on the C. B. & Q. Railroad, a dangerous position, and sent him to brother Mart then in Clinton, Missouri, in the clothing business. Read remained in the clothing business, a traveling salesman, for the balance of his life, and he was an exception for he left an estate of about $50,000.
Hedding Seminary in Abingdon was a Methodist School, and such schools, then as now, had as their ideal to fit many of their young men to make preachers of them, which was worthy, and I think they wanted to get me into the idea of being one. The idea was not variant with mine, but I knew my shortcomings and on that account could not be a preacher consistent with the picture I had as to what one should be. I think there is no calling in this life that measures up to what are the possibilities of it. I couldn’t conceive of the possibility that the Lord was calling me. If I had had the education, culture, and the enthusiasm, and what I, even then, regarded as real religion—such as I think you, Dr. Cadman, Dr. Kern, now Bishop in the M. E. Church South, and Bishop Quayle, and many warm friends in different Protestant Churches have—it might have appealed to
me, while risking the misfortune to me and the Church Crowd.
Generally, I have tried to be liberal in my views of the tenets of the different churches and could be at home in any of them, but more so in the Methodist Episcopal Church. I even admire the good preachers in Kansas of all creeds. I am liberal and have implicit faith in fair treatment when I get to the end of the Journey and its pleasures and tribulations are over.
I rather like the teaching of the Unitarians, and its effects should be good and wholesome.
TENETS
1. Fatherhood of God. 2. Brotherhood of man. 3. Leadership of Jesus. 4. Salvation through character. 5. Progress of mankind onward and upward forever. We give to Jesus MORE than THIS?
I know but little about the Catholic Church, but that it has done great good in the world—is active, with a promising future. I am inclined to think there is much good in the Confession to many of the poor and uninformed. Many, however, object to this. I have many good friends of that Faith whom I love and trust. The Priests and the Bishop in this area have always been my friends. The Priest here is my very cordial friend. We have many pleasant and cheerful little visits. I want to tell him this: A visit of a Protestant preacher to a Priest who had just moved into new and lovely quarters brought forth this conversation. The Protestant said, “Fine! Commodious! Lovely!” The Priest replied, “You,
9
of course, have better halves, but we have better quarters.” Bishop Hennesy, who lived in Wichita, was of just my age, but he was called from this life several years ago. I am quite sure that he got through all right without stopping in Purgatory!
I thought to give you two other occurrences in Monmouth and Abingdon to show you how zealous the Church was in trying to fill the preacher ranks with what they regarded as promising young men, a practice I think very commendable. I, today, tell my own idea of the value to Youth by saying, ‘‘Only one thing I’m jealous of; it is Youth.” I often wish I could put myself back, say sixty years. We may have a second childhood, but not a second Youth. I am at a time in which I fully realize that you can’t, with safety, ‘put NEW wine into OLD bottles.’”
The first year I was in Monmouth I was twenty-one. The Methodist Episcopal Church had a young man in the pulpit, a fine preacher and scholar, a great friend of mine. He came to my school one Monday morning and said, ‘‘I must fill my pulpit next Sunday morning and hold an important meeting in the Town Hall in the afternoon. I want you to talk in my pulpit in the evening. I felt like treating his request with levity, but I said, ‘‘I am amazed.” But I finally told him I’d think it over and would answer at Wednesday prayer meeting. I went to prayer meetings in those days— Prayer meetings are scarce now-a-days, except with you, as I hear. I spent much thought during the next few days and much work at night in writing up some
thing and committing it. I told him Wednesday night I’d try it if he would promise that it would not be announced. He kept his promise, and I kept mine— “with fear and trembling.” I took for my subject, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” etc. I wrote out and committed my talk; I could do that in those days.
The next summer the President of the school at Abingdon sent a young preacher and me to Bushnell, Illinois, a few miles from Abingdon, a good town then. He preached in the morning, I in the evening. My subject, was, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” etc. I went to Galesburg one other Sunday. These two were about my last.
Brother Mart came to Abingdon and wanted me to come to Kansas with him. I told him I had agreed to stay in Monmouth another year and would then come. He insisted that I resign and come immediately. I tell it timidly that I offered my resignation and was surprised to find it so readily accepted. So I gave up teaching and left Monmouth in August, 1871, and went to Independence, Kansas. In 1872 we opened Read’s Bank in Winfield, named for M. L. Read, my Mother’s brother. I went to Winfield to remain in 1874—the year famous for the drouth we had and the big raid of the grasshoppers. They ate everything, whether green or not. If they had applied themselves only to green things many of us left might have been in danger. However, they left everything so bare that there was not much left to do business on, or about.
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I was, in the bank, the handyman, doing anything or everything. Most people, old and young, had gone, or were going, back to their friends or their “wife’s people.” It was difficult to find a teacher for their school. One of our relatives, a Miss Sarah Aldrich from New England, was visiting with our Mr. Read. I concluded with her help we could take the school for the winter, so we did. I did the book work in the bank of evenings Friday and Saturday, all day Saturday, and maybe broke the Sabbath a little sometimes, easy however, making only a slight crack. We remember reading where the Disciples picked corn on the Sabbath Day, which I thought justified me.
When I came to Kansas I was always more or less active in church work and have always been on the side of what I felt was right and best for the community and have always had a high regard for the Church and great esteem and sympathy for the capable and earnest ministry. I have been a good factor in the location of our college at Winfield—at first called the South West Kansas Conference College, now the Southwestern College, vieing, I think, with the North-western, at Evanston. I was active in locating and keeping up the college through many “lean years” and now it is a good and valuable college to the town and this part of Kansas and Northern Oklahoma, and it will be kept up and active if the church in this area—this Conference—gives it full support. I fear, however, that colleges—like banks—are too many in number and will come through and up like the “one hundred forty and four thousand.”
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We have here, also, a great Lutheran College that is doing much for the town. I used to say we must take care of our colleges, as they are all that invites people here, except the natural beauty of the town, which is full of fine trees, and has a very beuatiful park—none in the state finer, if equal to it—my home for thirty-five years, producing pain, almost agony, to have lost it AS and WHEN I did.
I think Winfield is appreciating what someone has said about a tree in contrast to a poem, “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” The tree is marvelous, and like the star says to us all the time, “The hand that made me is divine.” I have great esteem for Luther Burbank, who did so much to make this world beautiful, but whose esteem and relation to God, along with Lincoln’s, has been questioned,—but they both handled His handiwork as if it were divine.
It has always been my idea that the clique which conceived taking the Block, my old home, for a park went far beyond the intention of the Condemnation Law. That was surely intended for an emergency arising where the land was absolutely necessary in the building of a railroad, or in the promotion of some civic or industrial enterprise where nothing else would meet the purpose—otherwise it is unfair and cold-blooded, as I regard it was in this particular case.
I had lived there thirty-five years— my children were born there and spent their childhood there—my good wife, who did her full duty to the town as she saw
it, left there for her “Long Home.” A very short time thereafter the home was ruthlessly taken from me. I take it that I am not alone in this position of sorrow and regret—“Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” It is a beautiful place now, but the city was not compelled to take it just then— was not compelled to have another park just at that time. It is seldom that I pass by it, as it brings to me many sweet memories, in sadness; usually I go to town via Eighth or Tenth Avenue. It is a lovely place, and the trees and foliage are largely a result of my planting and keeping. I loved the trees and the place and would have liked to spend the few remaining years of my life there.
The vote for confiscation carried by a small majority; three or four changed votes would have defeated the scheme. I took the case to Supreme Court. It was sustained. The 'property was bought at a small figure—I had even intimated to the Committee that if they did not take it now, at my end it could result in a different memorial, including, too, the patriotic idea.
Island Park is beautiful and unique. About forty years ago Riverside Park was fine; it was offered to the city for twenty-five hundred dollars, but the offer was not entertained. It was owned by M. L. Read, M. L. Robinson, W. C. Robinson, Captain Smith, and Copland Lowry. It was expensive to keep up, some of the crowd wanted their money, so I sold it to D. D. Robinson. He trimmed out many of the trees for wood, and then held it as a pasture. The city should have bought it. It was kept up
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as a park for years, a lovely place, at the expense of the then owners. Memorial Park is “a thing of beauty.” Why not make it “a Joy (NOW and) forever” to the people? Take down the sign “Keep off the grass.”
September 15, 1872, from Independence we started for Winfield with a large Hall Safe on the biggest wagon to be found in this country. It was drawn by three yoke of oxen, six of them, and fine big fellows and willing, handled by two good reliable men who agreed to do it for a certain sum of money. We had no paved roads then, fifty-eight years ago. Roads, in that day, were not even “all-year roads.” There were not even fair roads then. On account of rain and the road conditions it took six days to make the trip. Today, a truck would make it in six hours, or less. We “go” today, but not more pleasantly than M. L. Read and M. L. Robinson—with their money in a travelling bag—went then. They stayed with the moving all the way. When they got to Winfield and straightened up it was found that the contract price was just a few dollars more than the expenses, so the teamsters were given an additional check for one hundred dollars. That was satisfactory to them, and they were surely our friends always after. But they didn’t ask for anything extra; we didn’t demand “the pound of flesh.” I think sometimes we did business more that way then than we do now.
We had rented one side of a room on the east side of Main—I think where the Crawford-Orr Shoe Store is today. Our furniture was not of today’s kind, but we, nor the town, had any complaint
to make. Everybody was glad to see us, and we, to see them. People then were young, cordial, and cheerful, and life happy. If I could be put back to my age then, I’d like to go through the same experience again—Wouldn’t be afraid even to meet the grasshoppers again.
There was a bank here then in a little frame building with the end toward the street, at the southwest corner of Ninth and Main, where the Winfield National Bank now is;—that building was not to be compared in architecture with the three bank buildings now on three of the corners—the oldest bank in Cowley County. J. C. Fuller was the banker then and for many years—I think he was at it in 1870 and ’71—a careful, proud man who did much for Winfield. In a few years Colonel J. C. McMullen came to Winfield with his little bank, from Arkansas City,—located on the north side of East Ninth Avenue. In a year or so he joined with J. C. Fuller in the Winfield Bank, making a good and well managed bank which has been such ever since.
In 1872 Read’s Bank built a two-story brick building, thought then to be a bold risk, on the lot adjoining the Winfield Bank, where we stayed until 1885.
I was in the banking business fifty-one years, and, altogether, had a very pleasant and happy time. I tried to work on the theory, “Live and let live.” I have always thought it was the province and duty of a banker to be a “builder” —not a “crusher.” Worthy young men and women are all about a bank, who, with good and kind advice and some
little financial help, make good successful men and women, and useful citizens, and who, otherwise, couldn’t go at all. Banks could be more liberal in handling their business forty years ago than now. Progress and close competition, possibly, make business now more hazardous than then, and the demands of the banking departments more rigid, no doubt, good and rightly so.
I’ll give one example that would be criticised and correction made—I could give many more similar ones, and some with even greater margins—on such I never had a loss, worry, or annoyance. A party came to my desk wanting to go into a deal requiring three thousand dollars. He had twelve hundred dollars and needed to borrow eighteen hundred. I knew the party well—admired him, and have ever since. He had never done business with me, but with another bank across the street. This will not name the bank, as there were then, as now, two across the street. I said, “Have you presented the matter to your bank?” He said, “Yes, but they seem to take no interest, so I come to you. I realize it is a little ‘cheeky,’ but it is a big matter with me. I want very anxiously to make this deal.” I said, “I’ll be glad to carry it for you.” He is with us now— for forty years has been one of our most popular citizens, and most useful. Everybody in town knows him, and with great esteem.
Another case was this: Two young men, say thirty years ago, wanted to buy a prominent drug store. One was a practical druggist; the other had a fine father and had been for several years an
employe in my bank, had a thousand dollars. The store in the purchase would want to borrow seven thousand, five hundred dollars. I made the loan on character, and family, and environment. These two loans never gave me anything but pleasant and prompt attention. I defy any banker to give a similar experience. Such loans, today, would not be permitted, and I think rightly, too. They would be called capital loans, and the examiners would agree that the probability of the bank having two drug stores too imminent.
I think I was fortunate in Winfield. For many years I did more than one-half of the merchant business of Winfield with a loss of six hundred dollars, and that was in a racket store. The party came to me then with a good letter from the Fourth National Bank of Wichita. His wife, too, had been a teacher in the Wichita schools, but it was not her fault. Barring the disappointment, heartache, and chagrin of having my home taken from me in the way it was, all other things have been pleasant and quite satisfactory. Many of the prominent ones in this scheme I thought of as friends, and for some I had done favors which I thought gave me the hope of fair treatment, anyhow. I did not ask for, or expect, favors. The great Shakespeare knew human nature in saying, in substance, “Past favors don’t count—favors to come.” I bear no malice; I am sure none was meant by the people of Winfield. I’ll take and bear in the spirit expressed in Edwin Markham’s Quatrain, a great poem, I think.
“He drew a circle that shut me out,
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Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout;
Love and I, with the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.”
So let it pass. I hope the town and the near country people around will enjoy the beautiful park, and that I will not be forgotten as the one who made it possible for it to be.
I am sure the people of Winfield will give me credit for having assisted in every enterprise of merit for the town, and for being helpful in its promotion. The Bank, and I personally, assisted, from 1872 to 1923, in the building of every church, the Opera House, and all other public enterprises. This town is not alone in such work; I presume all towns come up in a similar way.
My brother M. L. was the master spirit in the building of a water system which was the first and greatest enterprise in the town. There is no better water system in any town in Kansas of its size, or even some larger. The Water Company was composed of ten men, each putting in fifteen hundred dollars, making fifteen thousand dollars. Read’s Bank furnished the balance, fifty thousand dollars, making the entire cost of the system sixty-five thousand dollars.
The work was accepted and received by the city in the early part of December, 1883.
Everything was harmonious in the building of the system, but as to whether we should use wrought iron pipe or cast iron. The life of wrought iron pipe was fifteen years; the cast iron was indistruc-tible in the ground. We could put in the works by using wrought iron for
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fifty thousand dollars, and thereby have, in the deal, an immediate profit of fifteen thousand dollars—fifteen hundred dollars each. One of the crowd insisted on using wrought iron and having this immediate profit. Others argued thus: “Some of us, no doubt, will be here fifteen years, possibly many of us, and the works would have to be made and kept good at a cost greater than the fifteen thousand dollars immediate profit.” M. L. Robinson took the stock of the party who wished the immediate profit, who then resigned. Sorry, all of us, for him to go. He was a good man, and at that time our most prominent merchant—his good store is in Winfield today.
When the System was accepted the Company had in it fifteen thousand dollars; Read’s Bank had in it fifty thousand dollars, with the bonds of the Water Company to this amount in its safe as collateral, I managing the Bank. I got tired and telegraphed my brother M. L., then in Colorado, “Come home on first train. I need you.” He came; wanted to know what was the matter. I replied, “Nothing, only I’m tired of handling a small bank with fifty thousand dollars of its money in pipes in the ground. I want you to go to New York and sell these bonds.” His reply was, “I’ll go the first of the week;” mine, “I want you to go tomorrow.” He went, and in a few days the Bank had to its credit in the New York Bank fifty-five thousand dollars, a little premium.
We had no bank examiners then— couldn’t have a deal like that now. That was surely a capital loan—but good. All stockholders were then held in double
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liability. No stock but bank stock is held in double liability today. The double liability made the obligation of the company good to the bank. We had many deals then go through on account of the security of the double liability. I enjoyed the work then; it was good, clean, and fascinating.
We held the works then for five years, making three extensions, spending and bonding for twenty-five thousand dollars additional, making the total bonds ninety thousand dollars. We sold to the Pay sons of Portland, Maine, for one hundred thirty-two thousand dollars, making it a good deal—wouldn’t like to attempt such a one today. The Paysons held the system for several years and then the city, under the Page administration, attempted to put in a new system, making two. The town couldn’t support two. In the Page administration, or the next, the city bought, or otherwise got, the works and dropped the new system. These works were put in with the best material, and by skilled workmen, and have never given the city much or any worry or repair work. The Paysons, fine men, able, fair, and upright, fared worse than I did with my block.
Now, in 1884 comes the possibility of getting a college from the Southwest Kansas Conference. Realizing the possibility, a few of us, Read’s Bank and some of its friends, had purchased one-fourth section of land near what is now College Hill—land which was then the home of Dr. Davis, at that time our most prominent physician. We paid twelve thousand dollars for it, seventy-five dollars per acre. We knew we were not taking
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much risk. It was a good farm and up against a good county-seat town.
The College was chartered, and bids were asked from the good towns in the Conference. Almost every good town put in a bid, even Wichita, bid then as now for everything, and she has usually GOTTEN. Winfield’s bid was accepted. It was soon proved to have been the best bid and Winfield an ideal place for the College. The bid was two twenty-acre pieces of ground and sixty thousand dollars in money, forty thousand from the town and ten thousand from each of two companies, the College Hill Company, named for the Hill, on which a fine college building and a fine gymnasium now are located, and the Highland Park Company. College Hill with its wonderful view in every direction, which met the charm of the locating committee, was furnished. For several years it was a struggle to keep going. This has always been considered our best enterprise. The town and the county have stood well by it and it has had good patronage from Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. It is now classed as one of the great institutions in the Middle West and has been one of the hobbies of the writer and many others of the town. It stands on the Hill in its queenly, almost regal, beauty. Its first ambition is to send out young men and women for the Church, here and abroad, and it has, too, from its halls sent many for almost every profession and work. It also inspired our lamented J. P. Baden to establish here a similar institution for the Church of his love and devotion, the Lutheran Church. The town, therefore,
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has been doubly blessed in this enterprise. I claim, with the Bank, which in 1884 became the First National Bank, to have been active and devoted to this from which the town has received great good. To this and to every other good enterprise the town has given great loyalty and fidelity.
Then came, in 1887, the locating of the Assembly here, another enterprise from which the town got much good, pleasure, and notoriety. The Assembly gave the town education, culture, and character, making it unique among the towns of this section. At that time the Assembly idea was quite a fad of the many. Winfield was third in the list. Chautauqua, New York, was, in rank, first, and is still a great summer gathering place and doing a great work. Winona Lake and Winfield are both out and have been for several years.
The Assembly was for several years managed by a stock company which, after paying several times the amount of the stock, dissolved. Only required to use the double liability—loyally paid several times, but got tired and then turned it to the City. It soon got tired and quit. It was really a big loss to the City. People from the town took tents and camped for ten days and considered it a good outing and with great value in it. People came from over the county and farther distant and kept it up for years. There were many expressions of regret from all around when the Assembly was abandoned.
This enterprise started in the lobby of the old First National Bank building— the name was changed in 1884 from
Read’s Bank to the First National Bank. One morning Reverend M. L. Gates, the Presiding Eider for this district, living here, dropped into the lobby of the bank. Everybody was then fond of the Chautauqua idea. My brother M. L. said, “Why can’t we have one—this a good Church town—we have two fine parks. I think it will prove a taking idea.” Elder Gates said, “Sure.” They sat down and wrote for a charter. So it began, and was a great success for many years.
The next enterprise that rather cooled the ardor for new things by promoters, of whom I was one, was the Interurban Railway in the two towns, Winfield and Arkansas City. For a few years it was paying and popular. All put in some money and issued bonds for two hundred thousand dollars—borrowed from a Kansas City bank one hundred thousand dollars with the bonds as collateral. After renewing four times we paid the loan. Four renewals would not be permitted today. A good change too. For the first three years it was a good investment and paid well. When Henry Ford, Chrysler, Studebaker, and others came on with their theory of transportation we had to step out with ours, and so did all small and urban towns.
The banker, along beside the minister and the doctor, is about as much appealed to for confession, counsel, and advice, but not for boasting. The priest, however, is closer to his parishioners than any other one as shown in this occurrence. A sweet girl went to her Catholic priest saying, “I came to you, Father, thinking I should confess.” “Well, my dear Child, about what do you want
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to confess?” “I’ve been letting my Sweetheart, a Dear, you know, kiss me.” “How often, Daughter, do you permit him to kiss you?” “Pardon me, Father, I came here to confess, not to boast.”
I have, dear Will, another matter, not an enterprise, originated among the bankers of Winfield, but a plan of co-operation adopted and carried out by them, placing them in a unique position among the bankers of Kansas and the Middle West, showing the power and truth of the slogan, “In union there is strength.” Frequently, before the adoption of the present banking system, the Federal Reserve, consisting of twelve banks, each having its own distinct area, a bank for bankers, panics occurred. Now every National Bank must join the Federal Reserve System or surrender its charter. Any State Bank can join on the same conditions. Many State Banks have joined—the time will come when all State Banks will be members too. The system has already done great service to prove its worth. It has wiped out even the possibility of panics. It enabled the Allies to succeed in the great World War —otherwise the instigators of that beastly war would have succeeded and Germany today would have been in the saddle. The United States through this system was enabled to furnish money to the Allies to carry on the War to its success. It proved, “God was in the Heavens” and “taking care of His Own.” It also put the United States (claiming to be a Christian Nation?) in the lead of nations and the richest in the world. I trust she has enough good intentions and power to prevent future wars.
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We had a panic in 1873 from which Kansas banks suffered but little—too young and small to have had much liability, or (in confidence) many assets— too, we had few banks—now many—too many—too many to make even a small return to stockholders. Every bank should pay its stockholders an annual dividend, say ten per cent. Many banks in the Middle West are not paying any dividends and have not for years. Such conditions can’t last always. A bank of one hundred thousand dollars capital should have a deposit of one million five hundred thousand dollars to pay a dividend of ten per cent. A National Bank with ten per cent dividend must put ten per cent of its dividends to surplus until it equals twenty per cent of its capital, anticipating some loss. A good description of a thrifty country banker I heard once here in Winfield. A retired preacher, a friend, brought his little grandson to our bank years ago—then Read’s Bank—my brother M. L. then the leading banker of the town. The old Preacher then said, “Johnnie, I want to introduce you to Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson, Johnnie, is the banker; he has a LITTLE money in his bank of his own, and a great deal belonging to other people.’’ The next pnic came in 1893— the greatest panic we ever had, the Middle West suffering much. When this panic was announced the bankers of Winfield, four banks, had a meeting and entered into an ironclad agreement to be one bank. We entered into a rigid agreement not to take an account from each other during the prevalence of the panic, or from any bank in any of the smaller
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towns in this or adjoining counties about us. We agreed to meet every night and each make a full and detailed statement. We followed this agreement rigidly. We may have been the only banks in Kansas so operating. I am sure the Winfield banks were almost alone in this, and we have ever since been rewarded. Panics —1873—1893—1907—and 1914. We thank the Federal Reserve Bank System for the “wiping out’’ of these disastrous occurrences. I hope the time will soon come when we will have “fewer banks, but more bankers,” and when co-operation will more fully take the place of competition, and when the Brotherhood of Man will be, along with the Fatherhood of God, and the world will be more humane.
Today many towns formerly having four to five banks have three. I have been convinced for sometime that in our area here, in such towns as Winfield, Arkansas City, Ponca City, Blackwell, Wellington, and all such towns, two banks in each town would be sufficient and could do the business well and with the hope of paying a fair dividend on the investment to the stockholders, producing more smiles.
I know but little about the Catholic Church—not familiar with its tenets. I have in it many warm friends and know it has done, and is doing, great good in the world. I have had close business connections with many Catholics, and with only ONE who was unsatisfactory and fraught with suspicion.
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I quit, dear Will—to me
Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art, to dust returneth, Was not spoken of the Soul.”
Uncle Will, with Love.
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