Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1890-12-30
SALEM AS A HOME.
Its Superior Advantages in
this Respect.
THE MORAL ATMOSPHERE PURE
Educational and Religious OPP
pOrtunities Plentiful, a
Healthful Climate and
Beautiful Scenery.

Among the important questions
asked by those seekinga location Ill
which to establish permanent
homes, are, "What are the moral
surroundings" "What the educa-
tional, the religious, the sanitary,
the attractive"
To these questions there are few
cities in any part of the United
States from which more favorable
answers can be truthfully giveh
than from Salem. While we have
long since passed from the dimen-
sions of a "towu"-wherein every
body knows his or her neighbors and
all their doings, public and private,
and discusses them at pleasure
and have assumed all the habili-
ments and attributes of city life in
a commercial sense, yet the city is
largely free from its concommitant
vices and it is matter of pride to its
people, as we'll as the subject of re-
mark with soiourners, that the
moral atmosphere is exceedingly
pure for place Of such life and
hustle. The reader can easily verify
this by referring 10 the statistics of
churches, schools aud societies OF
different kinds. No scandals of any
magnitude ever shock the ear OF
modesty; the divorce courts develop
none of these; the police courts have
comparatively few cases even of
common drunks, and there is no
time of day or evening in which
woman or girl is not perfectly safe
from insult in traversing the streets
in any part of the city.
The educational and religious
advantages can be aseertained by
perusal of the chapters relating
thereto in another part of the paper,
and are, as above suggested, the
great promoters of the healthy
moral conditions. Our excellent
system of schools, from the primary
grades to the highest University and
Academic, brings families here TO
enjoy those privileges and such
families are apt to be of the right
disposition to eschew the immoral
or unclean. Then, it is the seat of
the state government and all the
state institutions. Here reside
nearly all the state officers and the
officers of the different institutions;
here biennially meets the legisla-
ture, many members bringing their
wives and daughters, all these
mingling in social intercourse and
the consequence is a continuous
state of refinement, homelike hospi-
tallty, easy and graceful pOliteness,
which has become so natural as to
lose the stiffness of these arts when
studied, hence the stranger of in
telligence, respectability and culture
is at once made to feel at home
There is no shabby-genteel or cod
fish aristOcracy here, nor does it
take large fortunes to gain the
entree of respectable society-moral
worth and usefulness to the body
polite are the ''Open sesame"
The sanitary-Here Salem is
again especially favored. Sloping
back from the Willamette river, the
drainage of the city has been an
easy matter. Nature has provided
a large creek at either end of the
city, which have been useful in this
respect, while the artificial means
employed ii the intervening terri
tory are enumerated in another place
under thu. head of sewerage, which
completes the sanitary provisions of
one Of the healthiest cities on the
continent.
dIlhaLllONS.
To the eye-Nature placed the
site of Salem where it is as a muni-
ficent gift to the town builder who
had an eye for beauty. The Villa
mette winds along its front Oh the
west and away from this rise the
picturesque hills of Polk county,
with their cultivated fields and re-
naming patches of timber, while
from the more elevated portions Of
the city can he seen above and be-
yond those hills the Coast Range
mountains. making Il beautiful pic
ture. On the east the scene is still
more engaging. The rich and fer
tile Salem Prairie stretches away to
the famous and equally productive
Waldo Hills, all dotted with groves
and prosperous farm homes. Be