The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1877-06-14
MISREPRESENTATION CORRECTED,
stubborn Facts Relative - the Clana
OF tho 0OrtA WeAt.


r:f:; :s:s. s:::s ::t: :: tho
Last Monday the st. Paul Chamber of
Commerce had an interesting discussion
upon the Hopper question and Immi-
grafton. Governor Marshall, Hon.. E. F.
Drake and others, spoke of the fine pros
poets for a big crop in the State. They
had been over many counties, and from
every quarter came the most cheering
staten ents. They all regretted the ex-
agge rated accounts published over the
country as to the grasshoppers in Mime
sofa. -. -: -:
Col. Hewitt followed in few remarks
that set forth one prominent fact which
should have circulation wide as these
stories and especially wide and prominent
as have been published the exaggerated
stories about the severity Of our climate.
He said:
agree with the gentlemen who have just
spoken, that this hopper business has been
sufficiently advertised. tits about time new
done trutlaully, and honestly. 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 stories told Of our cold eli
mates-upon this point thei. inventions are as
countless as the chills with which their own
fcver-ridden 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,
nesota sown to-day for cop of forty million
bushels, the unequalled health Of our climate
these ovcrcide all that can be invented against
us or forged in favo: OF rival States. We who
have been here twenty and thirty years know
that the cruelest wrong, the greatest injuiy
we have facts at hand to crush out these mis-
representations. single fact to which you
can oil attest, broad, robust double breasted
fact that strikes these ialsehoods right
between the eyes, fact that is known
to us and should be known of men wherever
question Of climate is thOughtof-a fact that
is Of ITSELF single handed end alone, if properly
handled, the best immigration document ever
issued, or tha tever VIII be issued. The
fact is this: hundreds, even thousands,
Of thrifty farmers, who have lived
1Or tQe past twenty ana tn.fLy 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 bones. OF
those who thus change Their location, ten 20
North for one that goes South. Our climate
has no terlols for them. They have tried it
long and we'll. We saw this moin'ng, and
daily see, long trains of wh;te-covered wagons
loaded with we'll 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 have done we:i on our soil, and
with increasing means and incl easing FAM
lilies, they go to Northern Minnesota where
they get larger tracts at lower pl ices on which
to rear the scores of healthy children we see
along with each train. 1t is estimated that q
full hundred such teams cross the Minnesota
river daily, bound North and West, and WITH
these thousands OF robust boys and girls, in
this healthy county, we need not fear that
population will fall of in 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, con-
stltuting the city OF rather the metropolis of
the new Northwest. We are about through
with the 'hoppers, but letlany man look at our
broad acres and our hardy husbandmen aad
he will see that We can let the poor devils
have all they can eat and still spare enough
to feed half the continent. have known this
country long and well. I have seen it man
and boy until I am bald and gray, and know
something of other States but / would not
give Minnesota for all of them.