The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1905-09-13
Or. MILLS TALKS ON
the GREAT NORTHWEST
Great Eastern Divine Was Captivated
With What He Recently Saw
in This State.

DR.. Newell Dwight Hills, the dis
tinguished pastor Of old Plymouth.
Henry Ward Beecher's church, in
Brooklyn, has Just returned to New
York from a lecture tour which took
him across the continent and through
the most active section of the thriv-
ing northwest. In response to the
Worlds request, DR.. Hills gives his
Impressions of what he terms
natures glorious garden spot. the
wonderful Northwest" In the follow
ing words:
In terms of nation building, three
quarters Of q century are not long,
but what wonders have these brief
seventy-flve years wrought! Today,
If Daniel Webster could return and
visit the Puget Sound as did Mr..
Blaine just before his death, he
would understand what the states
man meant when he stood looking
across the harbor to the horizon be-
You'd which lay Yokohama and
Shanghai, and said:
ION this spot, within fifty years,
will stand city of million people,"
Websters' vision was clouded. To-
day the great Northwest is the most
prosperous and promising section of
the republic. 1t is land of young
cities, named Portland and Seattle
and Tacoma and Bellingham, young
giants that are growing by leaps and
bounds. 1t is a land of glorious
mountains, forest-clad hills, fertile
valleys, rich mines, a land of mills
and factories, a land of wide rivers
covered with little craft, of great har-
bors filled with ocean steamers, q
land of wharves where the steel rail
ends and the voyage begins. Gone
the age of the worn and travel
stained explorer! Gone the era of
peril through wild beasts and savage
men! Gone the oxcart, the log cabin
and the trusty rife! The era of
wealth and unexampled prosperity
has fully come.
President Roosevelt, in addressing
a group of his fellow countrymen,
told them II his sons we're ready to
start out in life he would send them
either to Spokane or to Seattle, that
they might behold a nation in the
process of making and become them
selves architects Of states.
No one can live for two months in
Portland and Seattle and Tacoma,
mingle with its citizens, and watch
the development Of the resources,
without being convinced that this is
a veritable wonderland. Enthusi-
asm for the country becomes a con-
tagion. The treasures of my note
book, written in the peach orchard
country of Ashland, in the Hood river
apple country; in Yakima with its
hop fields, its pastures and meadows
and berry fields; in the lumber
camps, In the great wheat fields,
in farm and ranch and range of
western Canada, would fill the entire
Sunday issue Of the World or a
monthly magazine. In addition, one
scarcely dares tell the truth. To
keep ones reputation for veracity 1t
is necessary to find out the exact
facts, and then extract the square
root and give that to the skeptical
east.
Nature has done marvellous things
for the Northwest. The business
men of Portland and Seattle believe
that nature has been more prodigal
in her gifts to their region than to
any section of the United States,a nd
their achievements seem to have full
ly justified this confidence In their
country.
Two summers in the Northwest
have impressed we with the large
proportion of native-born Ameri-
cans. The Atlantic coast and the in
terror absorb all of our immigrants.
Now and ten one is bold, strong and
resourceful and he pushes on over
the tops of the Rockies-but this is
the exception. For the most part,
commercial leaders of Tacoma and
Seattle and Portland represent the
picked sons of the best Eastern fami-
lies. 1t Is as IL the household had
taken the brightest and most cour-
ageous boy and sent him west to in
vest the family fortune. OF necessi-
ty every new land is like an I'M
finished house, somewhat rough and
crude and lacking the final touches.
But when one meets group of a
hundred public men in a city like
Portland and Seattle or lectures to
great audience in Tacoma, Victoria
or Vancouver, the first impression
that he has Is of manhood at its best
of manhood mature, of iron
strength, with self-reliance, courage,
great power Of initiative, hospitality
to new ideas, with energy also, and a
determination that never knows
when 1t is defeated, and therefore
never Is defeated.
Today the three great opportuni-
ties in our country for young men are
the rice lands of Texas, that will be
taken by the youth OF the south; the
marvellous wheat lands of western
Canada and the opportunities for
fortune through farm or ranch or
range or mine or forest in the North
west. And the men that are on the
ground now are Just as wonderful
in their way as their mountains, their
forests. and their mighty rivers.
The forests and the lumber camps
Of Washington and Oregon are full