The Life of Preston B. Plumb, 1837-1891: United States Senator from Kansas for the Fourteen Years from 1877 to 1891, "a Pioneer of the Progressive Movement in America" ...

"The object of this book is to present in a direct and simple way the leading events in the life of Preston B. Plumb. It has, however, a higher purpose than the mere exaltation of any name. A book which does not render service to society is worse than useless. Interwoven there will be found something here of pioneer life, the founding of a great State, the passing of the old order, a change in the destiny of the Republic, the coming of a new era, and teh influence of these on our industrial and political life. There will appear visions of the sword shaken over the land, and we shall see marches over the red roads of the Ozarks, on the prairies, through the rolling woodlands of Missouri, across the Great Plains, and in the Rocky Mountains. There will arise to view the shock of battle, the dead and dying on bloody fields, the crime and glory of war--an iridescent phantasmagoria of the baseness and sublimity of human passions and human actions. These are some of the reasons for this book. It is hoped that others will appear in its reading. Of Senator Plumb it must be said that he was a peculiar man. He was emotional and sympathetic--capable of friendship. Pioneer influences shaped Plumb's life and developed his intellect. he was an intense and independent American, and neither usage, precednet, nor party bound him. He was the apostle of the West, and Kansas was his inspiration. For in her rise she had rendered substantial service to the nation. Her course destroyed slavery. Her struggles produced liberal, freedom-loving, and patriotic people. One of her Senators, Plumb's fellow-soldier and friend, saved teh Union when revolutionists had decreed its subserviency to the Republican party and impeached the President. Plumb, knowing that the Civil War had caused inconceivalbe misery and suffering could not approve the course of his party in reconstruction; but supported Greeley, and become the friend of the South. In the efforts of his party to withhold (if not destroy) industrial liberty, he stood for the people, and became in a sense the forerunner of the present movement toward democracy in America. As to his adopted State there seemed to rest always on Plumb a sense of responsibility for the material progress of Kansas. this burden he could never escape. It was a personal matter, a felling of individual moral obligation which he never could shake off. He seemed not to realize that his portion of the work of developing the natural resources of Kansas and providing for the population which was to spread to her utmost bounds, was, in fact, no greater than that of any other citizen except as he had greater opportunities for achievement. He made the interest of Kansas and her people, present and prospective, his concern from the time he left his printing office in Ohio until the day of his death. And this was not wholly by design, nor was it to obtain favor or political preferment. It was inherent in him, a part of him, a spontaneous and involuntary manifestation of the soul. Through all his mistakes which, as he was but mortal, were many--through all his lapses and faults which, as he was but human, were serious indeed--Plumb's life was an effort to acquit himself conscientiously of the weight and pressure of the unseen hand laid on him by the Infinite."-- Preface pages v-vi.