Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-03-30
BUILD UP YOUR STATE.


With the coming season of active labor
there will be many of our people in the
State of Maine looking about for employ
ment, some of them probably casting their
eyes anywhere exceptto the place in which
they are located, and considering the
chances in Arizona, California, or New
Mexico, with more care than the opportu-
mites which are directly before their eyes.
There are means Of obtaining wealth on
the farm, in the factory, workshop, mill,
or on the ocean, for the citizen of Maine,
if he win patiently work and improve
them; but the idea that there are better
places to make fortunes carries away year
" its thousands, and those who remain
lack the contcntment and steady persisten-
cy in improving their homes and State
necessary to the highest success. Wher-
ever there is resolution to overcome the
difficulties of getting livelihood at home,
and a feeling Of .contentment with the sit
uation, there is usually an ample reward.
Some go abroad and do better than those
who remain at home, and many do much
worse. The same application of the hands
and head and deprivation of luxuries and
even comforts which Settlers in the new
territories of the West have to undergo
will produce as much wealth here as there.
The young married man in Maine could
not think of taking his wife into a log cab
in in Aroostook. clothing her in homely
garments, depriving her of some of the
privileges of society, and bend his own
back to clearing the forest and guiding
the plow; but he can introduce his wife
to mud cabin in Nebraska, allow her to
go barefooted and in rags about erwork,
avail himself of her assistance in the
field, shut her out from the society of her
friends and almost her race, and make q
slave and savage of himself. The same
sacrificing spirit and energy exercised in
Maine would give large returns here. We
know it because it has been tried. Those
who have. travelled extensively among the
people of this and other States assert that
Maine shows as much real comfort, thrift,
health and happiness, as any State in the
Union. We cannot raise corn and wheat
in so great abundance rs they are produc-
ed in Illinois, but what we do raise is
worth much more per bushel to the pro-
Queer. What crop in the West compares
with our ice crop? Look at our rivers in
viting capital and industry to turn them
to profitable use, and promising at no
distant day to be the seats of large manu-
featuring interests. See our harbors
alive with vessels engaged in foreign and
domestic commerce or in the fisheries.
In Aroostook there are thousands of
acres of land covered with forests and
waiting for the hand of industry to make
them wave with harvests, to supply which
the State has justmade an appropriation for
immigration from Scandinavia. The
homesteads need to be divided and better
cultivated The ''old folks" will be glad
to share the farm with their sons and
daughters. Schoolhouses and churches
are every where. Our State is resort
for health in the sickly months. What
more do we want to increase our prosperi-
ty unless it be more home pride and con-
tentment? This is indeed the great need.
We must induce our young men to check
their rowing disposition and remain at
home to build up their own State, and we
must persuade those who have made their
fortunes here to spend their declining days
with us. Encourage every man who
would build house, mill, shop, or buy
and improve land, or establish himself in
any business of industry and productive
ness, and never be afraid to speak well OF
the State and its advantages. The fault is
largely in ourselves that Maine is not held
in higher estimation. Croakers and do
nothings should be treated with the little
attention which they deserve, and the men
who are willing to labor in and for the
State and teach and help others to do the
same should be the coming men in places
of leadership, trust and honor, not specially
to reward them but because we need theil
services and example to keep us in the
right way.