Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-02-12
HOMES IN MINNESOTA

HOMES IN MINNESOTA.
DILLON sO,BRIENS EASTERN FORK.
Abstract of Mr.. O'Brien's Speech in Bos-
ton--A Conscientious Statement of Min
nesota's Acknowledgements Which Ought
to Induce Immigration.
The following is a synopsis of Dillon
O'Brien's speech at st. James Hall, Boston,
on the 3lst ult., as reported by the Boston
Pilot::
have felt the responsibility, / may say,
the awful responsibility of advising men in
the matter of breaking up their old homes
and seeking new ones, the change embracing,
as it does, change of occupation but the
weight of that responsibility has been much
lessened in my estimation since came East,
and judged for myself the position of large
numbers of my countrymen in your Eastern
cities, and the prospects before them.
speak now on matters that you understand
better than do, and speak subject to your
correction if my views are not correct. do
not expect that the present fearful depression
in business, and the extreme hard times Incl
dent thereon, are to continue. God forbid-th
would be too dark picture to contemplate.
I have witnessed many sad incident in my
life, but the procession of honest, able-bodied
workingmen, through your city, asking only
for employment and unable to procure it,
was among the saddest | ever witnessed.
This great depression viii pass away but
nevertheless say to the working class that
there is no prospect that the flush times for
laboring men-when man willing
to work could get plenty of it and good
wages-will return, but there is a certainty
that labor-saving machinery will increase and
improve, will successfully compete with hand
labor in almost every branch of industry. and
that in the near future, in the workshop and
factory, it will be the water in the boiler of
the steam engine rather than the sweat of
mems brows that capital will call to its aid.
Turn now to the land that God has given
to the children of toll as perpetual inner
itance. What does it offer to labor? 1t Of
tfers to industry an honest independent
home where the profits of his labor 90 to
himself and his family;a home of broad
acres, bountiful with the realization of Gods
promise to men, that ''seed time and harvest
time shall not fall a home where labor is
no longer servitude, but independence: a
home whose every surrounding fills man
with self respect-for the farmer ploughing
OF reaping in his own fields feels that no
man better than he is shall pass him by all
day; he is landowner on his own property
above all. home where poor man can
bring up his children far away from the
dangers and vices of the crowded city; this
is the home that the land offers to him
whose honorable lot it is to earn his bread
by the sweat Of his brow.
But there are conditions. MI men are not
adapted for agricultural life. God forbid
that in my humble efforts to do good, to
stimulate my own people to take their due
share of the soil of their adopted country, !
should iniure any one. To the man who
has a good home in the city, with fair pros
poets before him, do not, l say, unless pri-
vate motives actuate you, break up youl
home to make new one i'll the West but
rather stay where you are, and thank Cod
for giving you such home: but if a MAI
feels himself going back, his means slipping
away from him, the future looking dark, te
! such man | confidentially say: secure
home on the land THAT can never slip away
from you if you are industrius, -while yor
have the means to do so. But listen first to
the conditions.
If your capital is small, few hundred dol
lars, at the most, you must have, capital Of
muscle, either in yourself or your boys, able
and willing to hold the plough.
II have this man says to me, '.and
will take your advice and go West"
Stay; there are other conditions: heal
them; take time to consider them.
The man fitted to go West should be one
who, when he makes up his mind to do &
thing, does it with will that cannot be over
come by temporary obstacles or idle advice
Such a man, under God. is bound to succeed
| But if he is a married man he should con
suit his wife's feelings. If she has become
SO welded to city life, to its gossip and tea
drinking, and visits, that her life on a farm
| would be one continued lament for thos,
past blessings, then, in that case, believ,
he had better remain where he is. and le
the gossiping go on. For discontentet
wife on new farm is far worse than tn,
grasshoppers. But if she says to him, 'Come
we will have the children out of harms way
anyhow" then let him go with brave heart
and the smile of the good wife and mothe
shall be the sun of their prairie home.
How much capital will man require *
90 upon a farm?
The Catholic Colonization Company 0
Minnesota, in its invitation, says that man
say with wife and four children, SHOULD
have about four hundred dollars. With thi
he can secure, under the homestead act, l6
acres of land, build house, break so acre
of his land for his next years. CROP brea]
five acres for garden, which will give hin
in three months as much corn potatoes, ant
other vegetables as will do him for a veal
and have still enough of his capital left t
buy him COW OF two, and support his fam
lily until his first crop Of wheat comes in.
Mark you, this calculation is made by thos
who, giving an invitation, know that the
will be held accountable for the truth O
every figure; but. nevertheless, a man wit
good courage and good muscle can make 70
himself home on 100 acres of as fine Ian
as there is in the world, if he has 5000 whe
he lands in st. Paul.
OF the soil of Minnesota it is unnecessar
for me to speak. for to-day she is recognize
as the great embarrassing State of America
having produced last year forty million c
bushels. You have doubtless heard of th
cold of our winters, but | would not chang
the climate of Minnesota for that of an
other State: cold is a positive blessing con
pared to great heat.
The air of Minnesota is SO pure and dr.,
and the temperature so steady, that when
is ten degrees below zero with us, we do NJ
feel the cold half as much as you do in Bo.