New York (NY) Tribune, "Kansas," May 22, 1855

                KANSAS.

   Amid the smoke and roar of the Kansas cannonade we fear that the Northern emigrant who is looking in that direction may find himself blinded and confused. Let us lift the curtain of fog and expose the real state of the case so far as it concerns him personally.

   We need not state at this late day that the Missourians desire to make Kansas a Slave State. Of course they are doing their best to accomplish this object. They rushed into Kansas in armed multitudes, and went through the farce of electing a Territorial Legislature as the first step towards securing their aims. But having done this, and having no other business there, they have gone home, leaving the country as it was before their incursion, extending its broad unoccupied acres under a genial and inviting climate open to all who may desire to find a home therein. What was proposed to be done toward making Kansas a Slave State has been done so far as this year's operations are concerned. Before another election comes round we have a right to expect that Congress will do its duty in the premises, and if it does not restore the inhibition of Slavery, which we judge it will find itself compelled to do to insure the peace of the country, it will put a stop in the future to such outrages as the last election witnessed. When the rights of the residents are restored by keeping interlopers from the polls we may anticipate that the affairs of legislation will fall into the hands of those who desire to make the Territory a Free State, and who comprise, we believe, even now a majority of the settlers. If the attempts to precipitate the conclusion of this Slavery stampede are properly resisted, time will thus cure the evils that now threaten the infant settlements. All that is needed is time to allow the emigration from the Free States to get in in order to oust the slaveholders from their temporary possession, even in the event of Congress failing to restore the Territory to Freedom.

   Thus there is nothing to deter the instant and constant progress of Northern emigration into Kansas, either in its present position or future prospects. No hinderances exist that should for a moment stop the steady, silent flow of the streams of population from all quarters. The emigrants have only to pour in and pitch their tents wherever they find the most attractive spots for their future homes. No obstructions exist to prevent the settler from planting himself wherever his inclination prompts. 

   As to the vague threats which are occasionally heard and trumpeted through the Press, that the organized band of brigands and cut-throats which entered Kansas from Missouri and carried the last election stand ready to oppose, and if necessary expel the emigrants who desire to make it a Free State, they are idle and absurd. As we have said, we believe the majority of the emigrants who have already established themselves in Kansas are for making it a Free State, and will hold fast to their purpose until sufficient reinforcements enable them to carry out their designs. The effort of the slaveholders now is to magnify the opposition to Freedom in Kansas by all manner of exaggeration, and so deter emigration from the Free States. Seven-eights of the stuff we hear about the intentions of the Atchison crew, seven-eights of their loud talk about throwing people into the Missouri River, and of lynching and the link, is gas and bluster. Atchison and his worthy lieutenant, Stringfellow, are both well understood to be arrant cowards who will stop threatening the moment they are resolutely faced. All they contemplate doing is to worry and alarm timid people, and try, under cover of their bludgeon talk and air, to get a Slavery Constitution imposed upon Kansas. Their schemes can be effectually thwarted without difficulty and without collision so far as the emigrants are concerned. All that is necessary is to outvote them. If the marauders attempt any of their threatened violence in any quarter, the United State Government must interpose and try the virtue of the cold steel of the regular troops by way of reducing their belligerent temper. We have no doubt that the first effort to do this, if it shall be necessary to do it at all, will be effectual. 

   We repeat that when the villains from Missouri who entered Kansas and elected a Legislature for the Territory had accomplished this object they returned to their homes. They are now scattered over the State wherever a whisky-barrel can be found on tap, and no longer disgrace Kansas with their presence. During the present season their services will not be again wanted, and we have a right to expect that before another year Congress will interpose the necessary guards to prevent a repetition of their crime. Meantime Gov. Reeder will return to his post; and although the system of threat and bluster will be kept up, we presume he will regularly administer affairs and be sustained by the force necessary to uphold the vigorous exercise of his authority.

   Let the emigration to Kansas then go on undisturbed by the clamor of the Atchison and Stringfellow crew, whose motives for it all are well known to be selfish and venal and have been fully exposed in our columns. Let the emigrant everywhere, seeking a new home, go to Kansas, where he will find Nature's bounties existing in lavish profusion; where salubrity of climate and fertility of soil combine to make a country than which none more delightful and inviting can be found in all our unoccupied domain.