The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-05-13
WISCONSIN AND VIRGINIA.

we received To-Day copy OF the U.s.
kosh Journal, one of the best local papers
of the Northwest, published by Ron
nsls & Mosley, at Oshkosh, Wisconsin,
The Journal has a kind word for us, which
we appreciate. We remember the thriv-
ing city, of which this brilliant paper is
fitting representative, when it was a
struggling town of Indian trading shops
and few rude dwellings. Only twenty
years have passed, aud it is a city of 10000
people, the outgrowth Of that wonderful
life and enterprise which has built up the
West. We want that enterprise to-day
here in Virginia. We have every thing
that God ever gave to make State great
and rich, but men Of the right kind and
money.
Looking back, however, we arc full of
hope for this new field of labor. We re-
member our first speech at Oshkosh, when
it was little less unpopular to teach Re-
publicanism there than it now is in Rich
mond. We had rough campaigning in all
that upper country in those days when we
attempted to teach the doctrines of progress
and humanity to rude and almost savage
men. The early population of Wisconsin,
like all the Western States, consisted large
ly Of adventures, bankrupts, miners,
raftsmen, Indian traders and large sprink-
ling of desperate men, who sought its
wilds to escape civilized restraints.
Such a population was naturally in
tensely Democratic, and that meant to be
in favor of the spread of slavery and op.
posed to education, enterprise and every
work Of humane aud civilzing tendency.
But emigration brought new men. From
the old States, from Europe, from all
quarters of the world they came, drawn
by the generous welcome of that Western
hospitality which, unlike that of the
South, was no empty boast, limited by
sect and party.
They awakened the slumbering resources
of soil and mine, forest and river, and or
ganized them into a prosperity unknown
before. They hewed down the great
forests, and flooded their spois all along
the mighty rivers to the sea. They delved
in mines, and gathered uncounted wealth.
They turned the soitudes Of the prairies
into gardens, dotted them with smiling
homes, school-houses, and churches /;
stretched over their vast expapses the iren
highways of trade and travel, and the
subtle wires where thought flies on the |
wings of the lightning and crowning this
grand series of material conquests, they
founded free and progressive common
wealth upon the enduring basis of educa-
ton, religion and liberty. Foremost among
the mighty States of the West in the great
struggle for nationality, marching in the
very van of American civilization, to-day
Wisconsin is the bright queen of the
upper lakes.
Looking around us now in this grand
old State, where the old and new, sleepy
conservatism and awakened enterprise,
strive for the mastery, where nature has
done so much and man so little, we see
something like the counterpart of Wiscon-
sin in its early days. AS we recall the past,
and see how surely
"Evermore the right comes uppermost
And ever is justice done,"
we are inspired with new hope. There
is no better field for enterprise in all the
West than Virginia offers to-day. 1t must
ere long draw to its ample domain it's
proper share of plucky, sturdy men, such
as settled the West and made her rich and
powerful. For them there is hearty
welcome from all whose welcome is worth
having.