Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1895-03-01
Farmer Wallace Talks Interestingly
Of His Observations of the
Past Two Years.
Too Much Ambition and Too Much
Rainbow Chasing Has Cahsed the
Peoples Trouble.
We Must Get Down to a Common
Sense Basis, and Try a
New Plan.
Glad to Be Back.

home again." said Farmer Wallace, Sat-
urday. II am glad because of the pleas
ant personal acquaintance and relation
ship which has always been mine on the
Missouri slope, and which it is pleasant
to renew. I am glad because it has been
the country where I have spent some of
the best years and put in some Of the
most earnest efforts of my life. What
reputation I have gained, in these
efforts, has been here in North Dakota.
The majority of the friends I have made
are here. I could go nowhere else and
do anew and again what I have done
here. 1t is my home-the most natural
place for me to return to-and I am glad
to be here.
II have travelled considerably since l
left two years ago. I have seen new
lands, new conditions, new faces. [ got
to Colorado about the time of the
Cripple Creek troubles. I have observed
conditions as carefully as could. We
had a comfortable little home there, with
John, but when he died, it was broken
up. And after looking over the ground
on all sides, 1 decided it was best for the
nook in the streets, every bend in the
creeks, every hill on the p%rairles and
nearly every face in the multitude. I
have a homestead, and I paid up the
taxes on it today. I can fence in the
land again and farm in the old way at
the outskirts of the city. I have here a
home and an opportunity for a liveli-
hood. And I want no more. Indeed,
no man wants more, for there can be
nothing more to be gained by any man
than a living and a home-a place to
educate his children, and a Preside at
which to teach them that too much am
bition IS not good-that a happy home
shonld be the chief end of their efforts.
The state is all right. We have no
paupers here. We don't know anything
about poverty. We have plenty of in
dustrious and prosperous families living
on farms which afford them the neces-
saries and many of the luxuries of life.
We have come down to a new condition.
In the past we have been ~extravagant.
We have scared higher than we should.
We have run too much to dream of
fame and riches, and neglected the hum
bier opportunities which have been pre-
scented to us. Many of the old-timers
have achieved comfortable circumstan-
ces. Some Of them have been too ambi-
tious, and have sought new fields for
operations, and lost what they have
made. We have raised too many bushels
of politics and too few Of wheat and po-
tatoes. We have gone through an era
of initiation, and have come to another
condition, which I think will result in
a greater degree of happiness all around.
It is a condition which must be met by
the practice of individual economy in
many things. We must cease to strive
for too much. That has been u fault
in the past. We must remedy it. There
is not now any west to migrate to.
Migration Is now no longer in one direc-
tion-westward-as it was twenty years
ago. People travel now more like the
wild pigeons-in any direction IN which
they think is a better feeding ground.
From eastward to westward and from
westward to acknowledgements of
of them always on the move, led by the
ambition for greater wealth and personal
gain. But it looks to me as though the
time for sudden wealth and lucky strikes
was over All we have to do is to get
down to a basis of honest, earnest, steady
effort for a home and a livelihood with the
more moderate pleasures OF a painstak-
ing, honest, steadfast career. We must
not ask or expect too much. We must
settle down to a new basis"
The farmer and his wife have moved
into the old house, and are getting set
tied down. Mrs . Wallace has been i'll
somewhat, owing to the ted%iousness of
the journey. but will improve with the
restfulness of the air about the old home
stead, and the genial and familiar sur
roundings of the slope.
Prison Lub0r.
The Minneapolis Journal prints IN
article on convict labor which will be
read with especial interest at this time
because of the legislation pending on
subject:
n
Organized labor in Minnesota is anxious
for legislation this winter which will re-
move the competition of convict labor. and
emissaries of labor bodies for months have
been working with members of the two
houses, trying to enlist them in a move
ment in this direction. The labor side of
the case has been stated with frequency
and emphasis, in the labor departments of
daily newspapers, in resolutions adopted
by labor bodies, and by public speakers,
and the public knows pretty thoroughly
what the grounds are upon which the legis-
lature is asked to interfere with the indus
tries that are under way at Saltwater and
throw the 800 convicts out of employment.
In a report, which the board Of managers
OF the state prison has just made to the