The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-10
SEATTLE. TUESDAY, NOv. 10.
GO WEST.

GO WEST.
Horace Greeley's advice to young men
out of employment was I'd go West and
grow up with the country. This advice is
sneered at in many quarters as deceptive
counsel today for an impecunious man
who undertakes with little money and
small knowledge Of the farmers calling to
subdue homestead and render it capable
of supporting family. A leading writer
for the agricultural columns of large
Eastern newspaper declares that city
laborer who planned ''to go West and grow
up with the country" would have to sup
port his family for two years and spend
$1,000 in preparing his homestead for occu-
patton and fitting it to produce
enough to support his family. Of
course If nobody came West save
men who were ignorant of the rudi-
ments of agriculture and stock raising,
and If nobody went outside of the arid,
treeless, waterless portions of Dakota,
Western Kansas and Western Nebraska,
and the other states of the West, where
the farmer suffers intense cold in winter,
destructive cyclones are not infrequent, a
land wasted by locusts and inhabited by
lunatics screaming for wild money, this
picture Of the absurdity of poor man
"going west to grow up with the country"
would not be overdrawn, but the Pacific
coast offers opportunities and advan-
tages to an energetic poor emigrant
who desires to achieve success that are as
good as existed when Greedy, forty years
ago, said; go West. young man; go
West" In Western Washington the rain
fall is so ample that the farmer is
always sure Of crop, and the
winter Is so mild that the expense of feed
ing stock through the year is small. A
farmer-bred man stranded in Washington
could find work In q logging camp or as a
mill hand. He could probably get living
~ tenant farmer, and pay part of his
rent in labor for his landlord. In land
like the Pacific coast q man, bred on an
Eastern farm, could, even If poor, find
something to do that ultimately would
help him to secure q homestead of his
own. There are parts of Wisconsin about
Green bay where the timber does not COM
pare with that of Washington, which
twenty-five years ago a number of poor
Belgians settled under the most unprom-
Using circumstances. Today these Belgians
are well-to-do people. There are similar
illustrations to be found in both Washing
ton and Oregon of hard working Germans
who have taken up homesteads on the
Columbia and in ten years hewed and hoed
their way up from poverty to comfort. Of
course. when Greeley said to young men,
seeking employment, go West" he was
not talking to young men who had become
stranded either as artisans. farmers or
laborers through incorrigible Incidence,
improvidence, intemperance-for there IL
no opportunity anywhere for such men,
who spend their lives spelling the horn
while pretending to be both able and anx-
ious to make spoon. Greeley was talking
to young men of health. strength, energy
and industry, who were sincerely anxious
to get up and get on in the world.
Such men might honestly fail If
from lack Of judgment they pitched
their tent in land where all the forces of
nature were against them in the shape of
worthless soil, barren Of water or timber;
or climate that was periodically fatal to
crops, but there Is no need to fail in land
like Washington, whose western part is
well watered and timbered, with fertile
soil, while the arid portions of Eastern
Washington produce under irrigation,
which is easily applied. great crops OF
wheat, vegetables. and all the fruits of the
temperate zone. A young man, farmer
bred, would no more need to fail today
than did the poor young men who were
the pioneers of Washington at an early
day when the country was new and
without diversified industries. OF course
really able. sober. industrious
artisan does not need to leave the
great cities of the East to find employ.
ment in "breaking" q Western homestead
tract, but farmer-bred man, whether
native or alien, ought to be able to get a
decent living on the Pacific coast. The
ordinary impecunious Scandinavian, Bel.
gian or Irish immigrant has been wonder
fully successful in .redeeming cheap land
TO agriculture, not only at the Middle
West but even In the small deserted
mountain farms of New England, and
there Is no reason why equally sturdy
men Of small resources could not get on in
this part Of the Pacific coast. The gov.
ernmentwill this year open the lands of the
Colville reservation to occupation. These
lands are described as of excellent quality,
and ought to prove good place for settle
ment TO industrious, energetic, sober men
seeking homestead. The Yakima lands
are described by Senator Eshelman as OF
excellent quality when irrigated, and II
would seem IS If these lands of Washing.
ton offered as promising an outlook fol-
the future to the settler as any left open "a
occupation east of the Rocky mountains.
An annual good crop is secure; there is
plenty of timber and tolerable coal; there
is long sea coast with its chance for fish.
ing or coasting commerce; there are nc
blizrards in winter, drouth or cy.
clones in summer. The dismal pict-
nre of some parts OF DakotS is
not reproduced in Washington or Oregon,
vhere there are natural conditions tina.
ensure great wheat crops annually, bet