Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-04
BY WILLIAM R. LIGHTON

the troubles Now all that is changed. nv
Assurance has followed dismay.
The stranger. looking from the
outside and seeing this difference,
would be most likely to try easy
explanation: Crops have been good of
late years; crop prices have been excellent moneys
plentiful; in all the prairie country there is hardly
to be found one human creature that hungers
There is enough of everything for everybody. No
wonder then if the people are untroubled.
Well. that is all quite true. But to stop there is
to stop far short of full accounting for this new
lucky full fed day. reckless of the chance of bare
cupboard tomorrow: it is clear eyed and sane
content The people know that they will have no
A recent incident will go farther than any argu
ment to show how real is this new mood
Not long ago passionate young panic was turned led
analysis Maybe it was in reality nothing more
than an artistic bit of taking but in its brief day
stirred up not little excitement Grave and rever-
end masters of finance and rulers of paper empire
treated the episode very seriously; it made the
text for many solemn discourses concerning the dis
aer that hung heavy the head OF and
ularly the western prairie region, was supposed to
quake and tremble at these grim portents of the
Street
The people of the prairies merely laughed. There
appointed days of fasting and prayer. The
heart of the prairie did not skip SO much as one
beat his hand did not rest from its task for much
as moment. New York might have panic, and
welcome; but spring blowing was about to begin
the prairies, and the Westerner was too busy to
do more than laugh lghty, IN whimsical lar OH
enjoyment of the spectacle.
And that was curious too. Even SO lately as 1895
such happening would have affected western life to
its very center. To-day it breeds effect whatever.
What Is the Cause
X/HAT does this mean? How has the change come
w about in SO brief span of time? Is the present
condition honest reality? These questions are
not to be answered offhand. The causes of the
order wondrously complex.
Keep these chief facts in mind: The prairie folk
have found themselves and their work. 1t is great
work. of the utmost value to the whole world, and
neither moping disheartenment frenzied hub
bub has now any part in the scheme Present con-
ditons the praires offer almost vexing social
problems. Starvation overcrowded squalor, the
workhouse and the prison,-these dread things are
hardly known in the prairie community save by
hearsay The cities of course have their troubles
with crime; but in the rural towns and villages it
has dwndled almost to the vanishing point and the
jails have crumbled to decay kept in repair
merely out of misdirected of civic pride.
Further. the wealth of the praires is not massed in
the hands of the few but is we'll distributed that
prosperity there is honest truth. And with all
this. mind you. the life of this people is not the
bow level of stolid. ambtionless satisfaction with
bare animal comforts; it is tense and tingng with
intelligent. well directed activity which is making
full provision for every wholesome need of the
present and the future.
Yet in 1894 the people of the farther prairies,