The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1877-06-20
"A ROBUST FACT.

u ers
Last Monday the st. Paul Chamber 81
Commerce had an interesting discussion
upon the Hopper question and aImmi-
grafton. Governor Marshall, Hon. E. F
Drake and others, spoke Of the fine pros
poets for a big cropain the State. ~ They
had been over many counties, and from
every quarter came the most cheering
statements. They all regretted the cxag-
gcratcd accounts published over the coun-
try as to the grasshoppers in Minnesota.
Col. Hewitt followed in few remarks
that set forth one prominent fact which
should have a circulation wide as. these
stories, and especially wide and promi-
nent as have been published the exag-
gerated stories about the severity of our
climate. He said: >,73w r'> n 3atAng
Iagrec with the gentlemen who have, Just
spoken, that hopper business has been
sufficiently advertised. It is about time anew
song was put in our mouths and it can be
done truthfully, and effectively We have for
twenty years again and again, had to bear
with stories published wide cast to our pref
udice. States east. and south of us have on
every occasion exaggerated our little troubles
until those seeking homes here have had to
fight their way to- our state. This applies
especially to the sterics told of our cold eli
mate. Upon this point their inventions are as
countless as the chills with which their own
fever-riddcn citizens annually suffer. We have
borne all these patiently and the new north
west has grown in wealth and numbers far
beyond our expectations. Our growth our
products, the broad wheat fields of Minnesota
s0wn to-day for crop Of forty million bush
els, unequalled health of our climate these
override all that can be invented against, us
o. forged in favor of rival states. We who
have been here twenty and thirty years know
that the cruelest wrong, the greatest injury
is done us by misreprcsenting our climate and
yet VIC have facts at hand to crush out these
Misrepresentation. A single fact to which you
can all attest, a broad robust double breasted
fact that strikes these falsehoods right
between the eyes, a fact that is known
to us and should be known of men wherever
the map of this continent finds its way or the
question of climate is thought of; fact that
is of itself, single handed and alone, if properly
handled, the best immigration document ever
issued, or that ever will be issued. That factis
this: hundreds, even thousands of farmers
who have lived for the past twenty and thirty
years in upper Iowa and Southern Minnesota
have sold their good farms to newcomers and
gone three hundred miles further north into
upper Minnesota, to open new homes. OF
those who thus change their location, ten 20
North for one that goes South. Our climate
has no terrors for them. They have tried it
daily see long trains Of whitc-covered wagons
loaded with well to do immigrants passing
from points south of us to points away up
north and into the very jaws of the hopper re-
gion. They had done well on our soil, and
with increasing means and increasing families
they 10 to Northern Minnesota where they get
larger tracts at flower prices which to rear the
scores of healthy children we see along with
each train. It is estimated that full hundred
such teams cross the Minnesota river daily
bound north and west, and with the thousands
Of robust boys and girls, in this healthy coun-
try, we need not fear that population will fall
otfin the regions directly tributary to this city,
or rather, the cities Of st. Paul and Minneapolis
which nearly touch each other, and should and
will be one, constituting the city, or rather the
metropolis of the new north west. We are
about through with the 'hoppers, but let any
man look at our broad acres and our hardy
husbandmen and he will sec that we can let
the poor devils have all they can eat, and yet
have enough to feed half the continent. Ihavc
known this country long and we'll. have
seen it, man and boy, until am bald and gray,
and 1 know something of other States, but
would not give Minnesota for all of them