The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-07-13

Whore to Find Work Go West, Young
Man."
From the New York Tribune.l


Man."
From the New York Tribune.l
In all the cities and towns in these
hard times there is much suffering. The
number of the weary unemployed is
very large. Strong and brave men wear
out their hearts as they see wives and
children in want, and after months of
vain searching for employment too often
are tempted to crime or maddened to
suicide. Yet the land is broad enough
for all, and millions of acres which will
yield sure subsistence to patient work.
ers lie waiting for any man to till them.
Our cities are overcrowded. The growth
of rural population has been slow, while
the towns have advanced with rapidity
far exceeding the demand for such SER
vices as can be rendered at the centers of
population. In 1850, the rural popula-
ton of the Northern free States = the
newer States, Kansas, Nebraska, Colo
RADIO, and the Pacific States not being\
included, of course-was 10, 20S, 727, or
76I per cent of the entire population OF
those States But the changes since
that time, as shown by successive census
reports, have been remarkable, and in
deed alarming. The following shows
the population living in cities and towns,
and in the country, with the proportion
of each class to the total population:
Cities and 76rns. Per Cent. Rural. Per Cent.
1850 Sss 2sS is2ss 7 1879
1870. -. .7,S41950 $40 15,2lb.02o $50
The same services, In commerce, man.
ufactures, and other tasks performed in
cities and towns, which less than one
fourth of the whole population sufficed
to perform in 1850, more than one-third
of the entire population was struggling
and crowding for opportunity to per-
form in 1870 At the ratio of 1850 the
population suffcing for the cities and
towns Of these States should have been
only 5,614,2 in 1870, and, though
many changes in our industrial condi-
ton have justified some change in the
proportion, it is indisputable that We
have gathered by far too large part OF
the population into towns and cities.
There they crowd and crush each other,
fighting desperately for the work which
is not enough for all, and wasting no
small share of the industrial force and
productive power, which, rightly dis
tributed, would add to the nations pros
perity. Beyond all doubt this over
crowding of civic employments, this dis
propOrtionate massing of the population
in places where hundreds of thousands
must struggle in vain for work, has
been an important cause of recent pro-
longed disasters.
The remedy? Mr.. Greeley taught it:
$50 West, young man y Look at the
advertisements offering free of first cost
millions of acres to actual settlers. A
single company, the Union Pacific, is
now offering in other columns 5000, 900
acres of rich land in Eastern Nebraska,
in the great Platte valley" free home
steads to actual settlers :" while the
Central Pacific has been similarly adj
vertising the varied attractions of Cali
fornia, the laborer's paradise and yet
the crowding and crushing millions in
Eastern towns still struggle, suffer and
die. Happily for them, thousands have
found homes, permanent labor, and
sure subsistence on these Western lands.
There, too, they have found degree of
independence which few can find where
all the paths are overcrowded, and
"every door is barred with gold," or
opened only as favor. Why is it that
a much greater number, warned by pro-
longed prostitution in business, have
not migrated from Eastern towns to the
safety, independence and prosperity OF
the Western farms, who can tell