CARRYING a message of faith, courage and hope into every section of the state, the Spring district meetings of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce were the most successful of any since they were inaugurated three years ago.

     Enthusiastic crowds were present at each of the eight meetings altho adverse weather conditions cut sharply into the number of individual delegations in the western part of the state. A shorter program and the change from luncheon to duinner meetings proved unusually popular.

     Starting at Clay Center on April 23 other meetings were held at Hays, Garden City, Hutchinson, Topeka, Wichita, Chanute and Kansas City where the final one was staged May 3.

     Roy F. Bailey, president of the State Chamber, and Paul Jones, editor of the Lyons News, carried the brunt of the speaking program. They addressed all eight meetings.

     Harry Colmery, Topeka attorney, spoke at Clay Center and Hays; Chancellor E. H. Lindley of the University of Kansas, at Garden City and Hutchinson; and, Carl Magee, famous Southwest editor from Oklahoma City, at Topeka and Wichita. Mr. Magee was forced to cancel his Chanute and Kansas City engagements when he was called back to Oklahoma by urgent business. Samuel Wilson, manager of the State Chamber , also addressed the Clay Center meeting.

     Exceptional interest was evidenced in each of these addresses and there was warm praise for the high calibre of the speaking program.

Following are excerpts from speeches delivered at the annual Spring district meetings of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce. An outline of the talk by Paul Jones is carried elsewhere.

SINCE AAA [Agricultural Adjustment Administration] checks began flowing into Kansas with the beginning of the adjustment programs, purchasing power of Kansas farmers has been boosted $53,500,000, says H. Umberger, director of the Kansas State College extension service. Seven Kansas counties have each received more than one million dollars. They are Barton, Ford, Gray, Pawnee, Pratt, Reno and Rush. Reno tops the list with $1,533,015, representing $1,340,490 in wheat checks and $192,525 in corn-hog payments.

     Of the 53½ million total, more than 40 million is in wheat payments and in excess of 13 million in corn-hog payments.

ORE than 7,400,000 children under 16 are on relief, says the Committee on Economics Security. They constitute nearly 40 % of the total on the relief rolls. Over 700,000 of these children are fatherless.

THE only garden homestead project in the United States, financed directly by the RFC [Reconstruction Finance Corporation], is going steadily forward a few miles out from Dodge City, Kans., along the Arkansas River.

     The first unit of Wilroads Gardens, as the project is known, consists of 29 homes, either built or now under construction. The second or third units, yet to be deveoped, will bring the number close to 100.

     The houses are being erected, under a system of pooled labor, by men living in the Gardens or who expect to have homes there. The Wilroads Corporation, headed by C. C. Isely, secured the RFC loan form the government; hires these men; allocates a certain amount of their wages to the payment of their homes.

     Under the contracts between the men and the corporation, payment starts when each home is finished at the rate of $8.50 a month. The second year it is $12 a month, then $1 a month higher each year until the buyer pays out in 10 or 12 years. Any buyer may pay up and secure full title at any time.

     To each home, modern in every respect, is attached an acreage for the growing of crops. Certainty is added by the fact that the entire tract is irrigated. Alfalfa is a favorite crop. Sugar beets is another. Chicken raising has a wide appeal and nearly every family boasts at least one cow, with sheep and hogs also popular. Several contemplate the planting of fruit trees.

     Basically, the idea is that, thru these agricultural pursuits, the families can sufficiently supplement their earnings from other part-time endeavors to make for themselves a comfortable livelihood. And, most important of all, eventually establish themsevles as home-owners. Applicants of garden homes exceed the supply of tracts. Tests applied to character, need, willingness to work, etc., aid in the sifting process.

     One of the by-products of Wilroads Garden is the development of a community spirit emphasized by the organization of a baseball team and a common interest displayed in the misfortunes of other members to the colony.

Just over a year ago, F. J. Atwood resigned as president of the First National Bank of Concordia, Kansas, after directing its destinies for 50 years. He has had a long notable career as a Kansas banker, including service as president of the Kansas Bankers Association.
     So, we asked Mr. Atwood to tell the readers of PROGRESS IN KANSAS about his philosophy of life as molded after dealing for a half centruy with bank customers. In this article he tells us.

MY philosophy of life, Mr. Editor? Bless my soul! Until you mentioned it such a thing never entered my head. Philosphy of life! It sounds Emersonian, deep, profound.

     I have a dictionary (eight volumes, including supplements) which, after much reading and analytical study leads me to conlude that you mean: What was your working code during those years? What basic principles guided you?

     Well ,the different phrasing doesn't help much. I have never, consciously, formulated a code nor adopted rules nor thought out a philosophy of life. I have lived day by day working, playing, reading a little, thinking some -- trying all the while to be a decent servant, citizen and husband. I did not seek the limelight nor try to be impressive. I was prone to court the back seat rather than the platform.

     Experience and observation led me, in my later years, to say that two things only are of prime importance; Good Health and A Good Conscience (emphasis on the latter). If this aphorism can be dignified sufficiently to be called a code or a philosophy of life, then, that is that.

     My forebears were English on both sides; Atwood -- Bosworth. The most remote grandsire bearing my name, of which I have certain knowledge, was in his earlier life a medical officer under Oliver Cromwell. He emigrated to Massachusetts and later to Connecticut where the family remained for several generations. My most recent grand-father Atwood removed from Connecticut to Vermont. I was born on a farm in Washington county, New York, close to the Vermont line. My ancestry seems to certify me to be a Connecticut Yankee of Puritan stock. I think, however, that I have more traits commonly ascrbied to the Puritan than of those attributed to a Connecticut Yankee. At any rate "blood" or early training -- more likely both - instilled in me an abiding respect for veracity and high moral standards.

     My ethical training was too thorough to admit of such an error as that made by a less fortunate lad who, when asked to give a scriptural definition of a lie, said, "A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, and a very present help in trouble." I was taught that a liar is no better than a thief, and that a thief is on the lowest rung of infamy.

     To my mother I am chiefly indebted for the basic principles of morality and religion. To my father I owe a sense of humor that has helped me in many trying situations. My father also endowed me a degree of common sense. (I regret that, too often, the qunitity has been inadequate).

     My work, including side-lines, has put me in touch with many people; high and low, rich and poor, literate and illiterate, good and bad. I have found nearly all of them interesting. While still young, I said I hoped not to live to lose faith in my fellowman. I am now nearing four-score and, in spite of present world conditions, I still have a kindly regard for my fellow mortals. I have seen in this one and in that one strength and weakness, nobility and its opposite, courage and cowardice, virtue and vice; and to my chagrin and perplexity I have noted like inconsistencies in myself. I know I have a deep and abiding desire to be definitely decent -- why, then, do I too often think or speak or act unworthily? . . . I do not wish to be measured by my occasional bad breaks -- it would be unfair . . . So, is it not up to me to look with kindliness and sympathy upon my neighbor? His heredity and environment may have been less fortunate than my own. Why not make much of the white spots rather than the black ones? If we stop to think, not one of us is snow-white; we all are more or less piebald.

     I will try to illustrate my attitude toward life by quoting two or three paragraphs from a brief address I once made to a convention of bankers -- the subject was "The Value of An Account."

     "A little fellow four or five years old came in, climbed on the footrail and said, 'I want to leave my money in the bank.' We had to ask his name. 'My name is James Fitzpatrick Donahue -- but my mother calls me Jimmie.' Do you think we said to him, 'We're sorry James, our rules do not permit us to take on your business. Your initial deposit indicates that the account would be unprofitable. Take your pennies and run home.' On the contrary, we assumed our most cordial manner, counted his pennies and nickles, gave him one of our most expensive pass-books, and thanked him heartily for his business.

     "A widow of foreign birth, probably over eighty, having no income except a small pension, comes regularly to us to prepare her papers. She deposits her government check and twice a week comes and draws a dollar. She cannot write. We prepare her check and attest her mark. We treat that old lady as courteously as we treat the richest woman that comes to our bank. You would do the same, of course.

     "The value of an account? In the case of a country banker, who can measure it? We know this: An account certifies confidence, good-will, friendship. True, good-will does not buy flocks and herds, stocks and bonds; but is it, therefore, valueless? Is it not worth something to have a shy smile fom Jimmie when we meet him, and a pleasant word from the old lady as she draws her semi-weekly dollar? We can't be millionaires -- we country bankers; many of us have no wish to be. But we can have enough to satisfy our modest wants. We can be the next friend to Jimmie and a lot of others. We can have the respect of many and the love a few in our little world. We can breathe good air and watch with wonder and delight man's co-operation with nature in the produciton of abundant harvests. We can safeguard the money that is left in our keeping, and, as the years slip by and Jimmie grows to manhood, still our friend, and the old pensioner cashes her last check, we come to know -- more than we can tell -- the real value of an account."

     After considering my off-hand statement as to Life's greatest vaues, I now deliberately pass up Pleasure, Wealth, Fame, Knowledge, Achievement -- in favor of Health and An Approving Conscience . . . To have and to hold the former is not always possible, nor is it it, in fact, essential; To have and to hold the latter, I believe to be possible, and to the last degree, vital.

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."