Daily globe., 1882-10-03
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MINNEsOTA's TEMPTATIONS.

NElSOxA,S IE01FIAIlONSs
The Inducements She Holds Out to the Idle
Capital Witch Is DecayinO in the East.
wv, B. Hawkins, Editorial Cor. Aurora,
nl.) Daily News.
A trip through portion of Minnesota
convinces me that what few years ago
said was dangerously rapid growth is
not dangerous unless unexpected an al
most impossible failure of several crops
interferes.
st. Paul, a city that boasted of 10000
inhabitants in 1876, now has at least 75, 900
persons, and has ceased to boast, because,
looking into the future, it sees itself in
light that makes its present seem small.
1t is truly wonderful city, with still more
wonderful prospects. The growth is so
substantial that men have ceased to use the
bombastic words which made Minnesota a
subject of sarcastic jest few years ago.
There is as much difference between the st.
Paul of 1S79-7-S and the st. Paul of to-day
as there is between snob and nobleman
"a counterfeit and the thing that is coun-
terfeited. We often hear a man brag
about what he is worth. We always con-
clude he is not worth much. So l. con-
cluded from the brags of st. Paul in the
years lately named. We know the really
rich man does not brag about his riches.
So find st. Paul-really rich in the pres
ent and prospective making no brags;
content with consciousness of her own high
position and higher possibilities.
When speak of. St. Paul wish to be
understood as including Minneapolis. I
am aware that Minneapolitans (among
them many whilom Aurorans, who, by the
way, are becoming rich, every one of them)
may be- offended because use the name
st. Paul instead of Minneapolis to desig-
nate the dual city, but somebody must be
offended or I must make awkardly long
sentences to include the two names.
Rhetoric here triumphs over Minneapolis,
and Minneapolis should be satisfied to be
left out if the omission makes prettier
sentence. Beauty before usefulness is a
rule of this age.
Going back into the state one finds rea-
son for censuring eastern capitalists, who
stand around with their hands in their
pockets waiting for borrowers at per
cent Why do they not take their money
to the lumber districts of northern Wis
consin Or Minnesota and set machinery to
making furniture on the very ground
where the material therefor is growing
Why do they not move with their money to
one of the thousand places in Minnesota
where excellent water power may be had
| for the asking, and where straw that is now
burned in the fields may be owned by any
one who will have it carted away? What
an opportunity for paper manufacturer
And, returning to Minneapolis, one
must ask himself why the sawdust from the
many, many busy mills is permitted te
float away in the river, injuring the navi
gable stream and creating neighborhoo6
quarrel with st. Paul, when little well in
vested capital would give men and ma
chinery work pressing that sawdust into
bricks of kindling that would sell in Illi
nois for $40 cord.
Enough raw material is wasted in Min
| nesota every year to make ten Thousand
fortunes for men who have few thousand:
to begin with, and to make labor for ter
times ten thousand men who have moth
ing.
Perhaps there is good reason for the alb
sence of manufactures at the points where
material is native. There may be gooi
reason why there are practically no cotto1
mills in the South, where cotton might be
picked at the very doors of the factories
There may be good reasons why furniture
manufacturers prefer to ship lumber from
Minnesota or Wisconsin or Michigan te
Illinois or Indiana or Ohio and manufac
ture it to be sent back to its native state
for sales There must be some good reason
for all this, though do not see it, for the
rule, the world over, seem to be that q
producing district is not manufacturing
district.
And here is another general rule. The
man who has no capital is almost always
ready with advice to capitalists, Just as
ones rusty looking neighbor is ever pre-
pared to tell one how his personal appear
ance may be improved. It may be come
under the head of the one who advises
capitalists, but the advice comes cheap,
and will not be likely to stop the Aow Of
money eastward. By the way, the very
cheapness of it may explain even this.
Probably if I could patent my ideas about
the feasibility of manufacturing on the
ground where the raw material is produced
I could make several fortunes selling those
ideas to men who do net wish them now
that they cost nothing. It is the way of
the world.