The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-03-23
FROM THE SUNNY SOUTH.
Gen. j. n. Baker Contributes Anoth-
er Interesting Letter from New
Orleans.
Attempts to Create a Boom on
Southern Soil.
New ORLEANS, March IL.

To he Editor:
| There has recently been held in this
city an immigration Convention, in
! which the whole State was represented
| by its best men. / attended the sittings
and heard all the addresses. They mean
business. Our State and Dakota will
soon be flooded with tropical literature
of vernal lands and sunny skies. Louis
lana wants a new infusion of blood, and
of Northern blood, and they say so.
They are fifty years behind the times.
What they want is st. Paul or Duluth
real estate "boomer" to wake them up /;
one of the fellows that can boom a GEM
etery and make dry bones rattle. If
could pick out some of the crowd that
invaded Duluth or stormed Ashland +,
and import them here, Louisiana would
feel as if she was struck by a red hot cy-
clone. The best stock in trade this State
has got is climate. Tney-A&ll -play that
for all it is worth, rose-colored with end
less summer and perennial verdure,
against snow storms and billiards.. But
there are many things concealed behind
all that, of which their immigration cir
cuiars will be painfully silent. OF these,
/ may write hereafter, in order to put
upon guard any of our people who may
be influenced by the siren songs of the
South. l desire to see the South pros
per. l entertain no partisan prejudice
or sectional feeling. If ever harbored
a spirit of that sort, it has long since
passed away. These people fully realize
that there must be a new South, having
the energies which have made the North
great and prosperous. They invite
Northern blood, and will cheerfully open
their doors to receive it. That was the
spirit of the most remarkable convention
ever held in this State. In their hopes
and aspirations, wish them God speed.
But write for such of our people as
may entertain q notion of selling out to
find home in the "Sunny South"
There are many things of which they
should be informed, before they "pull
soil, methods of work, crops, schools
and social conditions. Every one of
these things enter into the proposition.
And each one is radical factor, too. 1t
is like being born over and beginning
the world anew. 1t will take the rest of
your life to learn how to live and work
here, and shed your old habits and
methods. Never come South to live I'M
til you have previously visited it, and
thoroughly studied the thing you pro-
pose to undertake. Don't sell your Blue
Earth county farm till you have done
this, and then my word for it, you will
never sell. 1t is very different thing
to come South and spend the peel of a
tough winter from coming to stay all the
year round and fight the battle of life on
totally new lines. l say these things as
a note of warning, in case the extrava
gantly colored immigration documents
which will soon pour in upon you, affects
your imagination or judgment.
This topic reminds me to make re-
mark concerning the late blizzard litera-
ture of our own journals. Every word
OF the extravagant pictures which our
leading newspapers, both in Minnesota
and Dakota, drew of the billiards. and
cold of the past winter in the Northwest,
have been faithfully reproduced in ev-
cry Southern journal. Nothing has been
omitted or overlooked. The blizzard
stories have been repeated here over
and over again. We can't blame the
Southern newspapers. The extravagant
stories were coined at home, as if fer cir
culation abroad. Exaggerations, as most
OF these stories were, are never correct
ed abroad. Our papers, In their greed
for news, overleaped the mark, and
have done the Northwest an injury. No
one objects to newspaper telling the
truth. But the outrageous things which
were published, would seem to indicate
that the North pole had moved into our
latitude, and established its hyperborean
home somewhere in Dakota. If were
to believe the frigid stories published
here, copied from our own journals, my
home in Minnesota is portrayed asa ter
ror to man and beast. And vet the stock
ON nv farm in Blue Earth county is, and
-, 60, hot ho
winter through, than any l have been
able to find in the South. 1 have not
lost single animal by the storms. My
cows have dropped calves and my ewes
lambs, in the coolest of the weather, and
not one lost or injured. Ny hogs are in
excellent condition, better in the dead
of winter than any l have seen here. l
visited the stock and slaughter yards of
this city this week. saw about one thou
sand hogs being slaughtered. There is
not a farmer in Blue Earth county but
what would be ashamed to acknowledge
the best one in the lot as belonging to
him. The cattle were about in the same
condition. l have yet to see the animal
in the South, that has come through the
winter here, as we'll as ours there. AS
for the people, the Northern home is
the most comfortable of any in the
world. The seventies and inclemencles
of our winters are passed without danger
to life, or loss of property, or Interrupt
ton of business. But our newspapers
have made it appear as If life in the
Northwest was at times quite lnsuppor-
table. When the yellow fever was deci-
mating cities and whole regions In the
South in 1876, when pestilence and death
was abroad in every breath of air, more
10 10 hni in, civ 10
season here, than will be frozen to death
in billiards. in the Northwest in thou
sand years. But it will take a good
many years to undo what our own news
papers have done for us in the way of
"black eye" to the Northwest.
j. H.BAKER.