Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1892-11-17
PIONEERING, YESTERDAY AND
TO-DAY



Going west fifty years ago meant tray-
cling in farm wagon BY weary stages
into the wilderness Of far Illinois Lv-
ing On the frontierinvolyed life Of hard
ship Of which there Is noN no counterpart ;
life whose hereism must be nourished
BY year-long round Of salt pork, iurnips
ard potatoes, in a land Of hard water,
I've soap and bare. wind-racked cabins.
Lincoln spent yeai Of his boyhood in
the West in a shed with one side open to
the weather To the colonist who came
from the East, from a civilization in all
essentials as lar advanced as that OF to-
day, il is almost ino0nceivable what must
have been this plunge into barbarism.
They suddenly found themselves con-
fronted with the alternative OF making
shoes or going bare foot; OF wearing i'll
tanned buckskin jenkins or fig leaves; Of
living upon earthen floors in windowless
huts or dying in the underbrush-these
were the vital questions Of the day. The
possession Of money gave a man little ad-
vantage over his neighbors where there
was nothing TO buy, and the possession
Of goods but involved him the more
deeply in the hopeless dilemma Of trans
portation. The bride with dover was
but encountered, for did not the young
husband who swan six rivers with fifty
pounds of feather bed upon his back with
the threat Of desertion from his bride, ii
he refused, sounding from the further
bank, know all there is to know OF the
embarrassment OF riches?
Then when the Eldorado was at last
reached, the cabin built Of rough hewn
logs and plastered with mud, when furni-
ture was shaped out with an Ak, and on
the walls were pegged few heart-pierc-
ing relics from "home,D to add swords
thrust Of memory to the daily grind Of
labor-when all this was achieved, con-
ceive the life which followed, For the
men, the work of clearing away forest
trees, grubbing up the stumps, blowing
the new land and shooting game for food
Tie life of the women was even more
laborious, with the carrying of firewood,
preparation Of food. fashioning of gar
ments. first Of buck-skin and later the
spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing of
coarse fabrics, tending OF the children
and those sick OF malarial fever common
in the cabins of the ill-fed colonist. 1t
is not strange that man OF forty-fiye was
an "old man" or that he outlived four
wives. This life came, not to the labor
sodden woman Of a peasant race, but
often to young women, gently born and
daintily reared, who followed an adj
venturous husband into The new West.
She brought with her, unfortunately, not
the ideals Of the carpenters wife and
German house-frau, but those traditions
OF refinement and gentle living so precious
to woman that she often sacrificed life
itself to what she considered s'only decent
ways" The truism that woman is more
adaptive than man is only half true; it
Is to improved surroundin gs that she so
readily adjusts herself Man is the first
to fit bis nature to harsh and primitive
conditions. In the sordid struggle for ex-
istence even self-education was impossi-
Bile; family often lost trace offs origin,
the name itself emerged from the rough
usage Of generation or two Of people
who could neither read nor write in an
unacceptable condition But BY far the
worst feature Of the life was its utter
isolation from everything that could slim
uiate thought or nurture ambition neither
books nor mail penetrated to this outer
fringe OF civilization, and the mental
stagnation was complete. The excite
ment Of a hanging would draw people
nom fifty miles away. and the scarcely
more moral dissipation Of lurid reviy-
alist wrought violently upon their dead
ened minds.
What an absolute contrast all that is
to the present environment OF the pio-
neer. In the past the pioneer was in the
main an agriculturist, he was in search
Of land and yet more land today he is a
civilian in search Of lots and lots Of lots.
In the past he wanted more room, today
it Is company that he seeks. The old
colony passed through every phase, from
barbarism through slow laborious years
Of gradual improvement TO semi-civiliza-
ton; today Western town springs with
absurd completeness, full-grown, from
the blueprint of its projectors. Even the
cowboy of the middle West, Colorado
and Montana, bears no trace OF the old
pioneer; he, too, is a modern specialist.
cattle specialist. Many times every
day his cattle lift their heads to ruminate
at the retreating, telescoping length of
the rushing cars. The blight of the pio-
neer who labored through long years of
depressing solitude is absolutely lifted !;
for now he is in touch with the great
world and great thoughts; he is not only
in America, but of it. That one fac. has
developed the dumb and hopeless drudge
into full-voiced manhood, giving him
power to hope and plan and realize.
Nowhere in the world have railroads
done 80 much for civilization as in the
infant towns Of the new West. Through
their agency alone is the present curious
anomaly Of the tiny s'city" in the wilder
ness possible. During the last five years
scores Of towns have sprung into vigorous