Charles City intelligencer. [volume] (Charles City, Floyd County, Iowa) 1864-1866, 1865-02-23
THE GREAT WEST.
BY THnuIoRR TILroS.

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Republic. The West is the Empire :
fact unacknowledged at the East,
because the East knows not the West.
But an impartial traveller soon per-
ccives that the East is not the country.
New York and New England are but
the thumb and forefnger the West
is the rest of the hand.
\ Western visit in summer is best
for seeing the country in winter best
for seeing the people. And are they
not the heartiest, friendliest, most hos
pitable of the human race? What a
Scotch welcome" may be, we know
not but if better than Western well
come, it is better than plain man de-
serves. Jostle a Westerner in the
street, and at once you are acquaint-
ances : meet him the next day, and
You are old friends. A shake of the
hand in the West has more grip in it
than between New York and Bangor.
Child Of the East, the West is the
chief crown of the parent. The uni
versal New England element west
ward is not only the best part of the
West but the best part of New En-
gland /: for only the courageous, the
energetic, and the conquering have
had the will to quit Eastern homes for
Western prairies. Thus the early Pill
grims to New England have their tru-
est sons in the later Pilgrims from
New England. A Yankee, therefore,
does not come to his fullest stature in
1ankeeland the grown Yankee is
the Westerner. At the East he is a
geranium in pot, thrifty and prim
at the West, geranium in a garden,
where he grows rank, exuberent, and
generous. New countries greaten
mems souls.
Does the West seek a heraldic sign?
Let it choose shock of corn. Oh
bounteous land of small houses and
big barns SO fertile is the Great
Valley, that, as Jarrold said of Aus
tralia, "Only tickle the earth with a
hoe, and she laughs with harvest !"
Though beaten down from their full
height by SHOWS, corn stalks are yet
standing i'll January SO high that one
riding among them on tall horse,
and rising in the stirrups, cannot
touch the tops The prairies, common
place, sad, and sublime-are the gar
den of the world May they ever
make farmers rich and cattle fat.
Trade, the maker of cities, has am
phibious opportunities in the West.
The Mississippi and tributaries yield
forty-eight thousand miles Of waters
angered by steamboat wheels-a chan
mel Of navigation long enough to
twice grid the globe Already the
great lakes are partners with the At
lantic in a direct trade with Europe.
The railroads are wearing out their
tracks with hard work, and paying
state debts with their profits. Chica-
go counts $50 trains coming and GO
ing daily at her depots, and says to a
New Yorker, "Sir, yOu have not half
so many 7" And New Yorker must
say to this wondrous water lily of
Lake Michigan, "All hail Chicago
bazaar of the West, and miracle of
cities :"
The daily press of New York scat
ters its leaves very thinly through the
West. Mr. Grccley's Wee&ty Tribune
goes everywhere, but the metropolitan
dailies set westward only until, like
tide-streak, they meet the outer cur
rent of the Cincinnati press, chiefly
The Commercial and The Gazette, which,
in turn, cover the country as the wa
ters do the sea, till they meet the wide
spread Chicago Tribune; which in
like manner, divides the Southwest
with the St. Louis Republican and the
Missouri Democrat. All these journals
are able and notwithstanding rich
faster than their brethren in New
York The great influence which the
New York press undoubtedly exerts
upon the whole country, is, in the
West, an influence not directly upon
the people, but upon the journals.
But even this influence is diminishing,
not increasing. New York perhaps
will always remain the metropolis of
the Union but it never can become
like Paris to France.
Western churches, Sunday schools,
and day schools, thrive like saplings.
An Eastern man, hearing habitually
of Western churches as feeble sell
dom hears Of any as being strong.
And yet many, like young lions, shake
their locks for very strength. In ST.
Louis, on single Sunday, We saw
two church debts killed, each at a
stroke-a Methodist church paying
SIS, 900, and Presbyterian $50, 600
Perhaps no other city in the Union
cancelled $45, 900 of church debt ON
that day. The largest Sunday school
in America Judged by attendance,
not the roll list is west of the Missis-
sippi-founded by Brig. Gen. Fisk,
who equally well commands an army,
administers a department, or conducts
children's meeting. In Chicago, .
mission-school, originating in a rail-
road car, is now larger than any in
New York. And the largest deposito-
ry of Sunday-school books is neither
in New York nor Philadelphia, but
Chicago. OF two millions Of popula-
ton in Illinois, half million are in
day-schools--a larger proportion of
school-going children than in Connec-
ticut or Massachusetts. But not to
color our picture too highly, We eager
" say that thousand Western
churches, and a score Of Western coli
leges are piteously pleading to be