Some readers may recall a column last spring by my colleague Michael Smith regarding a questionnaire he gave to his students at Emporia State. It produced the disturbing finding that most thought they’d be leaving the state after graduation to find opportunity.
Recently, I asked my state and local government students what was on their minds. One of them asked, “What is one industry that could generate sustainable economic growth in Kansas?” With six weeks remaining until the general election, here’s an answer that my student, those ESU students, their parents and perhaps all Kansans might wish to consider.
The following list of names is neither comprehensive nor arranged in any particular order: Clyde Cessna, Cyrus Holliday, Drs. Anton and Clement Smith, Walter Anderson, Dan and Frank Carney, Walter Beech, Henry Braum, Albin Longren, Arthur Capper, Terry Stafford, Dr. H.A. Warner, Fred Harvey, the Menninger brothers, the Coleman Company, the Carey Salt Company, and Graves Trucking.
Why have they been listed here? Because they represent the historical answer to my student’s question.
Each of these Kansas standouts made a choice to take a risk and successfully exploit an idea or a market. Many had great success – we usually don’t take note and glorify the losers. Some, however, did not do much more than capture the imaginations of the public for a brief time. And others left Kansas to fully realize their goals.
What they represent is the “lightning in a jar” quality of combining insight, inspiration, serendipity, capital and determination to transform an abstract notion into a concrete reality. In all these cases the primary pathway to the ultimate outcome lay through the brain and the exertion of the human body, and not the tax policies created by politicians.
Few of these noted individuals and enterprises had much contact with inspired plant site location experts at the Kansas Department of Commerce. The governor of the state at the moment of each one’s accomplishment probably did nothing of substance beyond offering hearty congratulations for their achievements. Their accomplishments are their own and they came about in a time, place, and circumstances that were fortuitous for them. Some occurred when times were booming. Some came about when the economic and social environments were highly volatile or even depressed.
What must Kansas do to see such achievements in the future? It must create a social/cultural/educational environment that enriches the minds of its children. It must foster institutions that can allow people with dreams to find sophisticated problem-solving and advanced technologies. It must provide first-rate infrastructure that enables effective communication and efficient, speedy access to large markets (perhaps the most difficult thing to do). And, it must encourage a culture that accepts change, welcomes new thinking, and tolerates the maverick.
If our greatest economic export continues to be our children, and our support for shared improvements remains lukewarm or hostile, the chance that some as yet unknown economic prodigy will burst on our consciousness is vanishingly small. If we condemn the less fortunate with a self-righteous judgment of self-inflicted failure, we grossly injure the prospects for success for them and their children. If we refuse to embrace the trends toward a greener, more global, more cosmopolitan world, we deny the innovators and the unorthodox the chance to flourish and exercise the potential insights of their alternative views.
As we confront the coming general election there isn’t a straightforward “There’s a great future in plastics” answer to my student’s question. But, if we endorse the politics of exclusion, divisiveness, slash and burn pruning of the public sector, resistance to diversity, and a preference for tradition over change there’s likely to be no answer at all.
Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.