The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-10-01
THE NEW NORTHWEST.
Special correspondence.

THE NEW NORTHWEST.
Special correspondence
BISMARCK, D. T., Sept. 81, 1888.
A town without either history or pres
tige yesterday becomes metropolis today
by means of the boom Of course there
is vast amount of ProdigiCus lying in
this booming business but what other
mission had the real estate Spectator?
As one travels westward he encounters
more and more of these intelligent able
bodied liars, whose labors in beha f of
this, that and the other rising town induce
its prosperity, II matters little as to the
particular advantages place may pos
quality of soil, or mill facilities, or any
thing else, so long as it has good boom
era man with horn and a capacity for
blowing it, He is the first stage of the
growth of the town, and the second md
the last. He lies elegantly about the
attraction of the place which after all
consist chiefly in the inducements hela
out for speculation.
This is the sort of thing that has been
done for many OF these widely advertised
new towns in this New West, of which,
perhaps, Bismarck is an example. But
here and elsewhere, i. has been more or
less successful, and has attracted people
ald capital and caused rapid growth
and development. Real estate specu-
lation is the chief industry. Town plats
are marked off on some barren spot and
in few weeks lots are sold at fabulous
prices by means of the booming process
AS an auxiliary, a few hundred dollars are
invested in type and presses and news
paper is started for circulation chiefly
through the eastern states 1t is one of
the wonders of the frontier how so many
small towns support newspaper-some
daily; all a weekly. The eastern town
or city with population of $1,000 finds
hard work to support daily, but the
western town of 1,500 inhabitants that
doesn't have its daily is poor indeed.
Generally the editor relies to great ex-
tent upon some outside source-an office
or fat take of some kind-for his share of
jerked buffalo; but at any rate the news
paper is sustained at all hazards The
absolute success that ever follows the
skilful booming of town is shown by
the fabulous prices that town lots bring in
some of these growing villages With
agricultural land only ten or twenty miles
distant easily obtainable for So per acre,
here we find it readily sold at from $50, 900
to S25, 900 per acre, and with no great
promise of a metropolitan future at that
Corner lots in Winnipeg or jamestown or
Fargo or Bismarck, are simply fortune
in themselves, because as business marts
these towns have received the full benefits
of years of the best of booming and have
attracted that class of settlers whose ener-
gy and enterprise and pluck constitute a
perpetual boom.
Here is Territory that covers ISL 900
square miles, or more than two fifths
greater in area than Great Britain, five
sixths of which is capable of profitable
occupation and at least four fifths sus-
ceptible of the highest state of arabic cuI-
tivation. The mountains are few indeed
and there are neither absolute wastes, i'm
penetrablc swamps of bOttomess sloughs
such as are found in adjoining States and
Territories. It's territory, too. whose
people are harmonious ia the single aim
of developing the resources of the coun-
try and advancing it as rapidly as possible
to that condition of civilized life which
has made its sister State blossom as the
rose. With fresher and a newer history
than that of anv Territory that has ever
asked admission to the Union. it has al
ready possessed itself of railroads that
penetrate wherever the behests of com.
merce insured them, while in the number
and quality of its schools, in the beauty
and costiliness of its churches, court houses
and public buildings, its stands inferior on
ly to the old settled and pretentious
States of the East The politicians of
this new country are loudly knocking at
the doors of Congress for admission to
Statehood, and | find the majority of the
people agree with them, if they care any
thing about the matter at all. which many
do not join in the application. The others
have In view some imaginary advantage
to arise from admission as a State-except
the ambitious. politicians These latter
know what they are after. viz, the ioaves
and fishes.
The recent decision of the district court
propouncing the act creating acommission
for the establishment of the capital and
erection of public buildings therein, has
stirred Bismarck to its foundation, for it
is victory for the Yankton folks that
1 i
agreed to erect at its own expense the
public buildings necessary to transact
the Territorial business, provided that by
a vote Of the people the capital should he
permanently located here. The result of
the vote was overwhelmin ely in favor of
Bismarck, ana she has already entered up
on the word of carrying out her part Of
the contract All at once, however, the
Yankton people, who have all along been
tasting the sweets of capital life, have
discovered thai the enactment of the law
creating the capital commission was ac-
companied by vast deal of legislative
crookedness, and upon which the court
has pronounced its decision adversely to
the. claims OF Bismarck Of course the
end OF this controversy is not yet. Mean
time, however, the Bismarck folks, having
let the contracts for the different classes
of work and material for the new build
ings, are pushing ahead as if nothing had
happened and in accordance with their
original promise they propose to have the
buildings ready for occupancy on or be-
fore the first of January next.
Dom PEDRO.