Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-12-01
Frontier Civilization.

It is not an unusual thing for peo- pie in the eastern states, who think of coming to the western states and ter ritories, to imagine that they will find there only an ignorant, frontier, hunt ing, shooting and carousing sort of so ciety, where lawlessness is the rule, refinement unknown, education at a discount and religious observances mere superstitious rites. They enter tain a sort of feeling that they are to cut loose from everything that distin- guishes civilization, that they must give up cherished privileges and even take extraordinary risks of life itself in attempting to live and have home tout west" Nothing could we'll be further from the facts than such ideas, as intelligent people who have the cover by coming here or by going al- most anywhere else on the Pacific coast There are just such things as they dream of, but they are not confined to the western territories and states. The same isolated conditions may be found even east of the Hudson river, north and south of the Ohio river, and be- tween the Mississippi and Missouri rivers as well as farther west and south and, indeed these peculiar con ditions occur more frequently east of the Rocky mountains than they do west of them. The old-time frontier style of two or three generations ago, east of the Mississippi river, has long since been submerged by the tide of restless energy and enterprise that fills the bosom of the pioneer of to-day, Here and there are lawless little com munilies such as Tombstone once was, but does all the lawlessness that ever occurred in Arizona, heaped up to- gether and condensed into months time compare with the fierce Ken lucky feuds we read of in our daily papers? Does all the lawlessness on the Pacific coast compare with that of Missouri, or Illinois, or Ohio within the past six years2 The facts are that our friends in the east when they arrive on the coast are astOnished at the wonderful energy and rapid develop ment, i'll all directions, that they find. Education, the arts and rehnements, are by far more generally distributed and of higher grade than will be found further eastward. There is more push, energy and enterprise here i'll small community than in whole counties of the eastern, middle and Mississippi states Phenix, for in stance, with population of but little over 5000 persons, maintains and reads three daily papers, where like towns in the east of twice the popu- latien think they do well to keep up one or two weekly papers; and they are very weakly. Take Pacific coast community at large and it will show more refinement, more educational in- huence in any general collection of people than will be found in like col i lections farther eastward, matter that has time and again been noted by close observers. How is all this to be
 accounted for? The explanation is simple and convincing. From every
 community of the east has come out it's new, vigorous, enterprising, talent
 ed and educs ted young men and wo-
 men who now constitute the back
 bone of society and business on the
 Pacific coast. The timid, the weak
 the uncultured, whose ideas of life
 were sadly limited, were largely left
 behind and are there to-day, where
 they are growing into a majority, while
 the other class has long been major.
 ity on this slope of the continent, and
 is likely to grow yet stronger in that
 direction as the same class of indiyidu als continue to hurry westward.
 Our eastern friends will find here g
 culture that exceeds their own, 1T
 most respects. An exquisite polish may sometimes be wanting for tn, simple reason that the vigor of oul , education and life in these regions does not permit of stopping for th' , finer polish; the demands of business of state, of church, of society, are tot great and energetic to give time fo exquisite touches that only come witt , retirement and measure of inactivi | ty. Our schools, however, are better r more thorough, more energetic, thal f eastern schools. Church association l are as plentiful and command mucl ; higher grade of pulpit talent. Tn
 bar of this western country attract
 and holds large percentage of first class legal talent. And who ever say western man of ten years successful business standing, that was not thorough financie- and man of char
 acter and standing in his community 5 -Phenix Herald.