The Kansas herald of freedom. [volume] (Wakarusa, Kan. Territory) 1854-1860, 1857-06-20
From life illustrated.
The West and Western Men.
BY Q. D. SHAVER.


mingleS in our society, or compares our
works of Improvement with the time in
whlch they have been accomplished, for
then his soul is filed with emotions of
wonder and surprise to find that the West
Is so unlike what his day-dream fancies
had painted it. The prairie with its rich
soil and profuse vegetation-a wide ex-
panse of Natures garden piot"-is like
what he had conceived. The forests. the
rivers, the lakes, the mounds-these are
somewhat like his fancifuI ideas. But
the characteristics of the people of the
West, and the works they have performed.
are totally unlike all that the Eastern
PEG; lie have imagined.
In Navigating to the West, men have
come here not to be conquered BY nature.
but TO make her lavish beauty subservient
to their wants and aspirations.
Therefore, in our Western homes. rude
ness and yuigarity, or ignorance, are rare
~ met. The father remembers the gentle
courtesy that gave such charm to the
intercourse which made his earlier wears
long season of almost undisturbed hap
piness; he remembers how, in his former
home, the priceless boon of education
raised men far above the common level:
he looks forward to the coming time when
his children will jostfe through a crowded
city, or dwell in country whose every
acre of rich soil shall yield to industry its
meet reward--and he builds school-houses.
patrOnizes booksellers, and introduces
into his family all the refining influences
that endear to his memory his old home.
The mother has like hopes in the future
OF the West, and shares her husbands
wishes, and encourages and aids him.
Thus it Is that pleasure, comfort, and in
-elilgence-free, perhaps, from any of the
restraints of Eastern life-are almost in
variably to be found in Western homes.
In Western life the trials and obstacles
before the early settler arouse his dormant
energies, and he becomes active and per-
seyerDg. Nature repays his toll with
abundant harvests, and his heart warns
with gratitude and grows great with gen.
erous impulses. Around him are cities,
villages and farm-houses. built up with
rapidity rivaling the fabulous wonders of
the Arabian Nights and he drinks in
large draughts of the spirit of enterprise
which does all this. He sees men whom
he knew in the East as onlv .'nobodies."
aspiring to be " somebodies" in the West
the van of political parties,
boldly debating in the councils of the
people, or vigorously laboring to advance
new and gigantic enterprises--an he forms
more exalted and correct estimate of
mankind perhaps he grows ambitious
too, and endeavors himself to become
leader instead of a follower. HetilIs with
his own hands more acres than his fathers
owned; he gathers larger crops than they
did he has brighter anticipations of the
future and all his ideas, impulses, ard
sentiments are, in proportion, vivified and
enlarged. And thus it is that Western
people become in the extreme energetic.
perscvering, ambitions, and generous.
In the union of these characteristics in
our people lies the true secret of the rapid
progress of the West, which is greater and
more widely extended than Eastern peo-
pie generally believe.
The sun goes down at night casting his
last rays upon the lingering form of the |
Indian journeyer to the father West. As |
1t rises i'll the morning, its beams flash |
back from the axe of the white man, as
he shapes the rude logs which are to form |
his habltation. A few days pass on, and |
the curling smoke rolls up from the fire III !
the new home of the first settler. Through I.
the long winter he plies his axe, and when !
the spring birds begin to carol, their music
Is drowned by the buzz of the saw-mill.
Summer passes. and when winter comes
again, new dwellings surround the humble
home of the first pioneer, and more axes
then his ring through the forests Again
spring returns, and with it comes new set
tiers to live with the pioneer. The tailor
and shoemaker, the milliner and dress
maker, to clOthe them the grocery keeper
and merchant to supply their wants /; the
farmer to raise their grain; the school
master to teach their children; the min
lister to preach to, and counsel and advise
with them the doctor to cure them when
sick the lawyer to settle or to make their
difficulties and the specializing capitalist
to make money out of them. Then the
settlement has become village-not an
Eastern one, but wide-a-wake, go-a-hcad
Western village
The newspaper soon makes its appear
ance the editor talks largely on the
prospects of the village, and of the agri-
cultural and numbering country around it,
and proposes more Improvements to the
village in any one number of his paper
than would be sufficient to paralyze a
down East" community. Adventures
push out into the country, pick out new
locations and build up more villages. More
farmers, mechanics. and lumbermen come
into the country; their products are more
than sufficient to supply the home de-
mand, and railroad is proposed TO carry
off the surplus In half the time it would
take an Eastern company to organize,
company is chartered. the route Is sur
veyed, and the read built.
Perhaps at the time when the first pio-
neer is erecting his log-cabin, in some
/ farm house or up in the attic of some city
boarding-house 'away down East sits
one who has map before him. He sticks
pin in some particular point, and tries to
! Judge whether il would be good place
for him to select for his Western home.
He inquiries of travellers, and reads
newspapers 10 learn WHae he Cdii VI INC
country. Two or three years pass before
he makes up his mind, and then he starts
for the West. When he reaches the spot
he had selected, great is his surprise to
find villages aud cultivated fields all
around him, and that the West OF which
lie has dreamed. and the hardshIps Of
which he had come prepared to meet, was
still in a far-off. utopian land. He hnds
that his new home is to be where he car
enjoy all the comforts, and meet with al
the refnements of the East-amons
people whom he cannot but admire, and
whose peculiarities will soon be his own
He gains a freedom that he could no
have experienced in the East. HIS iaoo
| is repaid better here than it was there
His mind every day coming in eontac
with the quick and strong intellect whlci
characterizes Western people, RECEIVERS It
natural polish and elasticity. In heaitl
he gains, because both mind and body ar
5 properly exercised-because he lives well
/. laughs occasionally, and IS always hight
I,oar+aj Thor, tho man Is n man IDdec