San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-03

of the west from the Mississippi valley
70 III. Pacific coast teens with fasteners
who have gone west.
Now comes Ralph D. HctzcI, president
OF the New Hampshire college and adj
dressing the New England Milk Pro-
ducers' Association tells them that the
famous advice of Horace Greeley no long
cr holds good. that the agricultural posi-
biIitics OF ths East surpaSs those OF the
West due to the fact that abandoned
farm lands arc cheaper and markets III
the large cities much nearer and more
accessible. There is great truth iii Prot
HctzelS statements,
At the time Greeley spoke, the west
was largely all that bountiful land west
OF the Alleghanies. The valley OF the
Ohio was West" then, more or less. The
Mississippi and its fertile valley, the
Missouri the Platte. the Arkansas and
their valleys were West" The vast
coastal ,.l~i~e - Teas. then were scarce
" thought OF TT 'lturally much less for
settlement c,,.lt in isolated instances.
New Mexico and Arizona and West lex
as and Southern California were the
Great American Desert while Colorado
and the wonderful irrigated valleys be-
tween her Snow-topped mountains, WASH
ington. Oregon. the wheat fields OF the
Dakotas were unfamiliar regions more or
less famed for mining prospectorS, bad
men" and Adventures than for farming
and agricultural settlement.
Yet it was a virgin empire of mighty
scope and immense promise to which
Greeley with prophetic wisdom directed
the attention of the young men. And
by the same token. the young men OF
those times too, were fitting. successors
to that generation OF pioneers that wrought
the republic out OF a wilderness and
brought a handful OF struggling colonies
into cohesion as nation. The young
men of Greeley's time were outstanding,
horny-handed sons OF toll, men among
men, capable OF wrestling livelihood from
nature, ready to use an axe or rifle,
a pick or a shovel as occasion might de-
mand, fearless, hardy, enterprising and
self-confident. With oN-carts, mules and
prairie schooners, on horseback and on
foot, alone and in groups, some with
Young wives and others with small chill
dren, they took Greeley's advice and
turning their backs upon the comforts
OF eastern towns, they spread out across
the fertile plains, crossed mighty rivers,
frequented out-of-the-way trails, built
cabins, reared families and made OF the
West, a rich and productive region.
And so today, descendants of such an
cestors are being invited to return to the
Eastern states, rehabilitatc the wasted
acres, re-occupy the deserted homesteads
to pillow, harvest and market foodstuffs
for the throngs that fill the crowded cities
There is almost as great future in the
farming regions OF the East as there was
in the West half century ago. But
it is not the same sort OF pioneering
Then it was ability to withstand hard,
ships. Today it is ability to meet scien'
tific farming conditions, to restore lost
fertility to robbed acreage, to organize
marketing associations, to run tractors, tc
upbuild dairy herds by scientific breed
ing, to improve egg strains in poultry
and in a word to use brains as prolifically
as the pioneers used their Drawn II
a word, the eastern farming regions neeC
not only new blood but new soil, new
hope and new methods Hence the CRY
goes up this time, for the young men o
the West to go East and build up tht
country. 1t is the land of golden oppor
tunity that Greeley saw, gone to seed.