and their fellows—the men whose fleets of peaceful commerce far outnumber destructive and protective squadrons; the men whose wealth is greater, whose intelligence is keener and is better instructed, and whose wisdom in these affairs is larger than the wisdom which government has manifested in the management of its own?
Very little of what the Far West has grown to be is due to Congress, or to Presidents, or to the various departments of government which are charged with the administration of public business peculiarly interesting to that big and reaching part of the land. The government has, indeed, accomplished something through its scientific men of the Geological Survey; it has, however, wasted its public lands, although some of them have gone cheaply to worthy citizens whose enterprise has stirred the pulses of life in seemingly dead lands, and who have thereby added to the country's wealth. The government has been preyed upon by the seekers of fortunes, and much of its land has been stolen. It has set a bad example to those pioneers who should be thrifty but who hope only to be lucky. It has not conducted its affairs in a businesslike manner, but has invited people to cozen it. Politics has been mixed up with the land business and with the cattle business. This, however, is to say as slightly as possible the word which must be said by one writing of the Far West. Bad men and women always go in the early trains to a new country; but when the country is worth while, the men of character and of achievement go after them and send the others to their holes. This is what is happening in the West. The good and conservative citizen who acts with wisdom as well as with energy is on the plains and in the mountains and forests. He has developed the riches of the empire and he has improved its character; but it should always be borne in mind that the empire looks watchfully to Washington as to its parent. The nation built these States, while in the East the States built the nation; therefore much of the paternalistic sentiment entertained by men who have nevertheless worked wonders without aid, and who will work all the greater wonders in the future if they are left to their own wisdom and their own courage. Besides, paternal aid is invariably accompanied by paternal restraint.
This great West has its difficulties, as have other sections. Cities grow so rapidly that they are compelled, for their grown-up necessities, to run in debt so largely that their interest charges consume their income, and streets must go for more years than they ought un watered and unpaved. Moreover, the good men are so busy attending to the great affairs which increase the wealth of the nation and of the community, as well as reward the adventurous with fortunes, that they have no time for public improvements or for local politics. Therefore we have the dusty streets and the rude sidewalks; therefore we have the distinguished and eccentric criminals. Still, these small evils adjust themselves in the end. The troubles are what one sees on the surface of life, but when one rubs the dust of the unpaved streets out of one's eyes, and looks about him at the dwellings in which men and women live, and when one enters there, the virtue and force of the individual's effort and of his character are evident once more, as they have been in the work which he has accomplished in the material world. Collectively, the people of Seattle, for example, may leave their streets unpaved and unwatered, but individually they build beautiful houses, fill them with domestic and social delights, force green lawns with abundant water, and plant along the borders of the street the planes, the elms, the maples, and the red-berried mountain-ash. These leaders of great hosts of activity in business, in industry, in mining, in transportation, in the thousand walks out-of-doors, may not yet have had time to study and to act upon municipal and police problems, but they have had time not only carefully and surely to work out the gigantic problems of their imaginations, but to make a within-doors most attractive and most stimulating. In time this American individual who has built the empire and has made himself a home will be comprehended in his just proportions.
There is no wool in the Western mind, and there is no decadence in the Western conscience.
