The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-12
THROUGH THE WEST
North CaroIinians we're
Seen Everywhere.
Interview with Mr.. Clarence n. Poe,
Who has just Returned from
a Tour of Seventeen
States. @

CITY, MI. Clarence III. roe, eultOr OF
the Progressive Farmer has returned
having travelled 1904 miles by rail
and visited seventeen states. Mr.. Poe
was one of the party of editors who
left the Guthrie, oklahoma, meeting
of national editors for a tour OF the
West, there being nearly 800 news
paper men and women from all sec
tons of the country in the special
train of nine Pullmans. The entire
trip was made without accident,
though at Yuma the Colorado river
treStle was swept away two hours after
the passage of the special, and in
Dunsmuir, Oregon, a fatal wreck &C.
Cured ten minutes behind the edi-
torial train.
The West is nothing short of
marvellous, and my vacation has been
thoroughly delightful" said Mr.. Poe
yesterday, but it is good to be at
home again, and 1 have seen nothing
to make me sorry that my lot has
been cast in North Carolina. In spite
OF all that has been said about the
West for young men, l am sure that
enterprise and energy will accomplish
as much here as anywhere else in the
country. AS Dr. Charles ID. McIVer
says, we have pioneer opportunities
without pioneer. privatons.
The, first thing that strikes the
Eastern traveller in the West is the
neWness of the country. We are just
at the beginning of things, and this
great eXpanse of territory which has
lain unimproyed since the dawn of
creation has in day been developed,
and the foundations laid for a civili-
Zation that surprises the Fastener.
By the way, on the Pacific you find
that Nebraska and Minnesota and
Iowa are all reckonedsas Eastern; and
the San Francisco papers put their
Chicago dispatches under the head Of
Eastern News Everybody from this
side the Rockies is an Fastener IN
Portland.
THE next thing you will probably
notice is the cosmopolitan character
of the Western population. This is
all the more striking to a North Car
Gilman because the Old North State,
l believe, has Il smaller percentage or
population born outside her borders
than any other in the UniOn-prob-
ably little more than per cent. But
west of the Mississippi three-fourths
of the $50 people l asked told me
they We're born in some other state
than that in which they live.
Everywhere from Oklahoma. to
Utah, / found North Carolinians, and
most of them still carry some tar on
their heels. In Muskogee, Indian Ter
ritory, ex-Judge Charles A. Cook has
a large law practice. Another North
Carolina-br lawyer is John Dew
ereaux, formerly of Raleigh who is
now one of the most prominent citi-
ZenS of Guthrie. All through Texas
Tar Heels kept bobbing up, and i'll
Dallas / heard the very finest speech
of the many that l heard while away
1t was by Judge Norman G. Kittrell,
and | was not surprised when he told
me later that his father was a native
of Vance county, and that he is a
cousin of Armistead Jones, of Raleigh
1T would take a whole paper. >
continued Mr.. Poe, "to tell about the
scenery: the endless sweep of the
praries, the dreary desolation of the
deserts, the beauty of of the California
Edens the colossal piles Of the Rocky
Mountains"
Mr.. Poe then spoke of oklahoma as
a fine illustration of the development
of the West Fifteen years ago it
was not on the map, and now it not
only has a large population, but a
most excellent class.
"There is no longer Wild West.
saw 10000 people from the territories
at the 101 ranch entertainment and
there was no more disorder or roWdy-
fairs Automobiles are more in evil
dence than blanket Indians; the IL
brary in Guthrie contains as we'll Sc
lected a lot of books as you would
find in New England; a bath room at
Cleveland is doing better business
than it would do i'm many Eastern
towns; and the Guthrie girl whom
found preparing to go to Vassar was
only natural product of the terri
IN n
school system"
Mr.. Poe also gave a practical turn
to his Investigations. Because of the
presence of the negro race problem
i'm the South he was very much inter-
ested in studying the Indian race prob
lem in the territories, and the Mon
golian race problem on the Pacific
Coast. "And l think | have heard
worse things said of the Indians ana
MongolianS by the people out there.
he said, than I have ever heard said
of the negroes by our Southern folk.
Neither the Japanese nor Chinese can
vote. so there is no fear of them polit-
ically, but because they compete with
the white man in the lnduStflal
world, the feeling against them seems
to be growing more and more intense.
So far as my observation goes, the
Southern people are more magnani-
nous and cool-headed in handing
their race problem than are the peo-
pie of the West or northwest in deal
ing with theirs"
'What about the Portland EXPOSE
ton 2" Mr.. Poe was asked.
'WelI. it's a pretty good fair. but
hardly larger than Charleston's In
1903, and it does a Southerner GOOD
to know that our South Carolina city,
with only about 10000 white people,
if / remember correctly, made as
creditable an exposition as Portland
with about 10000 whites, has made.
AS stated; the Portland Fair is too
far from home to attract many people
from the South. 1t might pay them
to go to see the Northwest, put not
. to see the Exposition alone.