Posted on 05/18/2003 12:00:04 AM PDT by SAMWolf
heh heh. Thanks for sharing a little MO history with us. I like the tune....
It was terrible during the "Bleeding Kansas" days, but by the time I was growing up it was more of a rivalry. Kansas was dry, so all the best restaurants were in Missouri. On the other hand, the nicest suburbs were in Kansas.
I saw the Bond film Diamonds are Forever in a theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. When the bad guy wanted to demonstrate his death ray to Bond he looked up where his satelite was located and said, "its over Kansas, well if we destroyed Kansas no one would notice." The theatre went crazy with laughter. (He decided to destroy Washington, but of course Bond stopped him.)
It's similar, today, Sam.
The problem back in the 1850's was that Congress opened up Kansas and Nebraska to the theory of "popular sovereingty," the Douglas Democrat's solution to slavery. So, the people who would settle Kansas would decide if it would be free or slave. Missouri was a slave state. The slave states knew that if they didn't extend slavery into the western territories the day would come when there would be more free states than slave and the free states would dominate the Senate. The abolitionists decided the battle to stop the spread of slavery would be fought in Kansas. It was a life or death struggle not only for the individuals but also for the points of view they represented.
The free soilers won Kansas. As a result after the Civil War Kansas became solidly Republican and Missouri became part of the Democrats' "Solid South."
A hack from the Pendergast Democratic machine in Kansas City became a Senator from Missouri. When Roosevelt needed to boot his socialist Vice President, Wallace, off the ticket he wanted a more conservative Democrat from the heartland to balance the ticket and settled on Harry Truman. So, the man who grew up in Quantrill's stamping grounds became the President who decided to confront and oppose the Soviet Union in the Cold War with the policy of containment. (Some Presidents from former slave states, like Truman and Bush are pleasant surprises, some like Carter and Clinton are unpleasant surprises.)
Truman never forgot his origins. After the Truman presidency whenever the press wanted a juicy quote about a prominent Republican, they'd go out to Independence, Missouri, and get an earful from Harry.
Two of my relatives (a father and son) were pulled from their beds, hauled outside, and shot dead in front of the women of the household by these Jayhawkers for no reason other than the suspicion that they might be sympathetic to the Southern cause. The roofs of the house and barns were set afire, leaving the women husbandless, fatherless, homeless, and penniless. The surviving men of the family (who were away at the time of the incident) either joined Quantrill or hit the Oregon Trail and moved West to escape this bloody period of our history. This tale is recounted in family letters that survive to this day.
My great grandmother told of visiting this branch of the family on a trip back to Missouri and being shown bloodstains on a stone wall, a remanant of the burnt out house. She was told that that is where her uncle and cousin died at the hands of the Jayhawkers.
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