Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-02-08
GREAT INTEREST SHOWN

tate men and the railroad corporations.
know that it is true, from my own
experience and observation, that it
takes lot of hard work and the pa
tient presentation of facts and figures
to get the people generally to realize
the actual truth as to new country.
And have also learned that the most
of us in the first twenty-five years of
our lives accept as facts whole lot of
things and get good many impressions
that it takes the next twenty-five years
to unlearn; and among such impress
sions and among those which I have
learned to regard with great deal of
suspicion is the recollections Of the old
settler and THE ordinary table of sta
tistics. 1t is true, perhaps, as you have
often heard, that figures do not lie, but
it is just as true that they are frequent
ly awfully misleading, and that is be-
cause, l assume, that they are COM
piled by human beings who are sub
jject to all the i1lfrr,lities of humanity.
| One of the first things I learned in
mathematics was that two and two
make four. That is many times true,
but, nevertheless, two and two do not
always equal four. 1t depends upon the
relation of the figures to each other
and upon their alignment. Two and
two placed under each other, do equal
four, but two and two placed side by
side make twenty-five differ
tence. s72j;
Now the ordinary recoilections of an
old settler, in my judgment, depend
upon the same things. They depend up
on the relations which the particular
old settler bears to the country in
which he has lived And especially is
this true in new country. His recol-
lections depend upon the manner in
which he has adapted himself to the
conditions of that country. 3
1t has been my fortune never to have
lived in an old-settled country, and yet
never to have been a pioneer. In 1880,
! when a mere boy: L came to Iowa, to-
CEnckasaw county. At that time Chicka-
saw county, at least most of it, was as
bare prairie as the county OF. Burleigh
/ is today. 1t had been, as i learned on
coming there, wheat producing coun-
try, and at about that time the chinoh
bugs had come and the. people were
abandoning their homes and their
farms, and many of them went from
| Iowa into the territory of Dakota which
was then having its early boom. And
remember well that the old settlers
| there in ChickasaW county declared that
the country was no good, that it would
not raise anything but wheat, and that
wheat was played out, and they made
practice OF telling new Corners there
that the country WAS worthless and
| that it was depopulating, as. in fact il
twas. But | lived there long enough to
see that same country settled I'D as
it had not been before, and that land
, which was by the old timers considered
no good, prosperous, and saw it sell
E / for from fifty. to sixty dollars an acre;
: saw it used for diversified farming and
E becoming the home of thousands and
/ thousands of settlers. $E.,z..
| d, - .t, . , T. j.
r At that time had reached my earl,
manhood and went to the counties soi
Winnebago and Kossuth, Iowa, and
t found the same conditions existing
I there. It was a wild prairie covered
: with frog ponds and mosquito sloughs
: The old settlers there said that the
e country was no good, that they hae
v lived there Tor twenty years and knew
It was no good, that it was outside ti1e
corn belt and you could not raise wheat
e That it was too cold for corn and woulc
! have to be drained before it would b.
good tor anything and would cost NOR,
/ to drain than the land was worth. The,
: said that when you got it drained i
: would cost You more than it could pos
\ sibly return to you. AT that time I coule
: have got that land then for a great dea
! less money than I can buy land in Bur
+ leigh county today, but l was told
{ was no good. But ] lived there Ion,
! enough to see that country drained AM
MI settled up and until there was farm
: house on every quarter section and til,
country. filled with well-to-do settlers
! lived there until that land sold for a
! high as sixty-fve and seventy-fiye dol
! lars an acre. ls5 4 ss$
!. From there / looked into southern
! Minnesota. 4 can remember the time
) young as ! now am, when yon coul.
go into southern Minnesota and bu,
i those farms there for some times les
{ than the value Of the improvements
Il The old settlers Of the country said tina
\, they were outside Of the corn BELT An,