The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-09-23
oKLAHoMA-A FAIRY LAND

oAA-AHoMA-A FAIRY LAND.
What may be regarded as one of the
most readable contributions to the cur
rent periodical press is that entitled.
Oklahoma, written by Helen c. Can
dee for the September Atlantic Monthly.
Making allowance for the natural parti-
atty of the writer, the tale she tells is a
most extraordinary and unlooked-for one.
She reveals Oklahoma as a veritabie
American paradise, wherein, when the
trusts and all the other unholy combin
atoms for commercial gain have cornered
everything and everybody to the fulfil
ment of every purpose of plumber that
they can entertain, the distressed and
impoverished modern man may get
/ everything for song.
that eharm.ngly written recital of the
glories of the soil and the climate Of
Oklahoma and of the progress made by
the young land in material prosperity
! which are not altogether reconcilable,
without some slight exercise of the poetic
| license. But that after all rather adds
to than detracts from the peculiar merits
of the story of Oklahoma, as told by the
writer
All the tales of border ruff1anism which
| the effete Eastsis so fond of circulating
to the material injury of the West arc
set aside, and it is almost plain that
never did a man die with his boots on
in that lovely land but that he died, as SO
many men who go into exile, for the good
of the country that gets rid Of them While
everything is cheap on an extraordinary
scale in Oklahoma and watermelons can
be bought at any, time from July to the
cold wea Their for five cents each, it is
carefully borne in on the mind of the
reader that available agricultural land
is becoming very scare and very. dear in
Oklahoma The desirable farms are now
! all absorbed, we are told; yet there are
a few left which. can be had if sufficient
industry is shown by those in pursuit of
them. s
Nothing can exceed the bless
ing Of Owning an Oklahoma
! farm. It would never. =, do ..o to
attempt anything like a fair abstract
of the glorious possibilities in Oklahoma.
as outlined by the writer in the Atlantic.
But a few specifications will not be less
than interesting.
Five years. 1t after the opening
Oj.T-
the principal towns were firmly estab-
lished; not on boom principles, of course,
but on steady growth. Within that same
time there sprung up from the virgin
prairies two towns of 10000 inhabitants
each, and in these towns a man could
live in as much comfort as anywhere in
the West. Houses were comfortable and
were furnished with luxuries, lighted by
electricity and supplied with city water.
Daily papers served the days news, local
domestic and foreign; large brick school
houses harbored Industrious children, and
all promised well. Now, ten years after.
the promises held out to settlers are more
than fulfilled, and men can find there,
we are assured, "a better chance for sue
cess in farming or commercial interests
than they can elsewhere.
Great as has been the growth of the
new territory there is still the one all
pervading need, OF American life-the
need of additional population. Closing
her grand portrayal of Oklahoma lowell
ness and light. the writer grows sad in
the reflection that in even that delight
full abode there are not yet enough Ia
borers to keep things permanently tidy.
It would be difficult of course to say
lust what influence this delightful picture
will have in immigration to Oklahoma:
but one might reasonably expect that the
results would not be trivial. Yet this is
a highly pessimistic state of society in
| which we are living, at the close of the
| nineteenth century, and all that is writ
ten may not be accepted as gospel by
! or :. natever the extent Of the magma
tive which reveals itself in this sketch
| of Oklahoma, there can be no mistake
nor misunderstanding as to the extent or
| character of the devotion of the writer
to her adopted land, wherein musk
| melons, delicious as nectar, are fiye
cents q dozen; spring chickens. twenty
| Ave cents a pair; beef and lamb, fifteen
cents a pound, and grapes one cent a
pound, for thezbest