The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-10-21
The One Thing Needful.

sion OF two years ago, and all branches of
trade and manufactures have resumed their
wonted activity, the States of the frontier
may be said to have only yet reached the
real crisis of the terrible probation, and in
the sheer exhaustion of their resources to
have fallen into that doubtful sleep, from
which the awakening may be into renewed
and replenished life, or the complete wreck
of ALL
This remark applies with especial force
to the newest of the organized settlements,
whose thin populations are scattered over
large distances from the great arteries of
trade, and whose facilities of communication
with markets bear no proportion to the
capital and labor employed in production.
In the States in which the abundant har-
vests OF the present year have contributed
to any return OF financial activity, the bene-
fit realized has been apparently in exact
proportion to the means of expectation.
Illinois is better off than Wisconsin. Wis.
consin than Iowa, Iowa than Minnesota.
and of all the States in the Western slope
of the Mississippi valley, Minnesota is de-
cidedly, in some respects at least, in the
worst condition. There is no use denying
the fact, or attempting to cover it up. A
large majority of the active business men of
1857 are bankrupt, while few money
lenders have grown rich upon the ruin of
whole communities of creditors And with
these bankrupt men in whom was lodged
the marrow of the public spirit, all the
superb enterprises and splendid hopes of
their golden age, have gone down with them
to common grave.
Towns that seemed aourishing have been
wiped from the map. Lands are no longer
worth anything. One of the finest fabrics
of internal development ever attempted in
any State, involving the honor as well as
prosperity of the people, has been undermined
at its foundations by enemies, not without,
but within the walls, and threatens with its
impending fall to PROSTATE the faith and
credit of the State.
Our imports of almost all the manufac-
tured articles of subsistence or commodities
of luxury, have not, it is true, very largely
decreased. But though, within period of
two years, we have become an exporting
State, our shipments, as yet, bear no pro-
portion to the return supplies, and such ex-
portation as we have of the large surplus
production of the last and present years, is
carried on against disadvantages of transit
that make competition with our railroad
States hard thing for our farmers.
Wheat, in Chicago and Milwaukee, is
quoted 50 to 80 cents, while in St. Paul
better wheat-after being brought by team
a distance of hundred miles - is sold
for so or 60 cents. The returns from the
affluent harvests of the present year against
all these odds, will scarcely have an ap-
preciable effect upon the general condi-
ton of business. 1t will Tighten the balance
against us, but will bring no money into the
country. The old arrears of farmers and
landowners have been partly paid, Or are in
course of payment, by transfers of their es.
tates to their mortgages. Many fine farms
are lying fallow in the hands of absentee
money-lenders. The products of the soil,
then, at present prices, and with the present
means of transportation, even if the pros
porous harvest of this year is repeated for
two or three seasons, can hardly balance the
most economical scale of importations. All
the artificial expedients for manufacturing
money-the banking on railroad paper, the
municipal creations of wild. cat currency,
in different cities aid counties, have exploded,
and left the big and little fish of trade
stranded and gasping in the deserted chan
nels of monetary circulation. There has
been, meanwhile, no increase-we wish we
could be sure there had not been positive
decrease-of population.
We are coloring nothing in these state
ments. 1t is we'll to look the sober truth in
the face-to meet the facts boldly, and, if
possible, to conquer them.
What, then, are the elements of bust
ness revival in Minnesota ? Agriculture
and numbering are the main resources of
profitable production in the State, but the
latter is too small an interest to perform
anything but an adjunctive share in the
work of restoration, and agriculture, we
have already shown, can never make the
mass of the community prosperous, while
pursued under its present disadvantages.
1t may be regarded as settled principle
of political economy, that community can
never be prosperous of which the producing
population is thinly scattered over large dis
tricts, and long distances from markets. For
the profits of production are swallowed in
the expense of transportation. ......
If the population of Minnesota were all
collected upon the thin soil and small area
of Ramsey county, the aggregate product Of
the State might be smaller, but the capital
Of the community would be many times
greater, and every individual inconceivably
better off, than when scattered at wide in