that of Minneapolis. It is also the head of practical navigation on the
Mississippi and the railway centre of the Northwest, although all trains
reach both cities. The Minneapolis and St. Louis and the "Soo" are the only
railways with headquarters in Minneapolis, while St. Paul is the
headquarters of the Chicago and Great Western and of the great
transcontinental lines, the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern.
The electric street-railway system in both cities is owned by one company,
but the business is conducted in each city under a local management.
There are 150 miles of track in Minneapolis, and 123 in St. Paul. Two busy
interurban lines connect the centres of the two cities. The public-school
systems are of the same general character and stand well the comparison
with those of other cities. St. Paul has many children in the parochial
schools. Her park system is extensive and beautiful and comprises about
1100 acres. The most extensive is Como Park, which lies in the interurban
district and is a popular resort for thousands of people during the summer
months. St. Paul has a large number of successful denominational
educational institutions, such as Macallister College and Hamline
University. The most conspicuous building in the city is the new white
marble capitol now being erected by the State at an expense of over
$3,000,000. The St. Paul Public Library is not equal to that of
Minneapolis, but her citizens have the advantage of the use of the library
of the Minnesota Historical Society, which is the miscellaneous State
library.
[Illustration THE CAPITOL, ST. PAUL.]
A great deal of nonsense has been written about the characteristics of the
people of these two cities. To render the situation more interesting and
romantic all manner of inherent racial and sociological differences have
been invented. Their struggle for supremacy has been described as exceeding
in bitterness the ancient rivalry of Hooks and Kabbeljaws. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The municipal and commercial rivalry was natural
and beneficial, and was ordinarily kept within reasonable bounds. Both
cities bounded upward under the impulse thus given to energy and
enterprise. Each without the other would itself be less. The people are of
the same type,--restless, ambitious empire builders. They have striven
mightily and manfully in business and politics, but mingled amicably in
social intercourse. What differences in character do exist are largely due
to the different race elements which compose the population. If God sifted
three kingdoms to obtain the seeds with which to plant New England, he
resifted New England and the kingdoms for the planting of the Northwest.
The present population is diverse, but the predominant element is the old
Saxon blood.
For purposes of comparison, Ramsey County is St. Paul, and Hennepin County
is Minneapolis. By the State census of 1895, Ramsey County had 147,537
inhabitants, of which 140,292 were in St. Paul; Hennepin County had 217,798
inhabitants, of which 192,833 were in Minneapolis. Bearing this proportion
in mind, the following table, which gives the nativity of the population of
the counties, is of interest:
Ramsey. Hennepin.
Native born 96,486 146,848
England and Canada 7,036 9,646
Ireland 5,468 4,339
Germany 16,593 11,337
France 281 264
Sweden 10,665 22,480
Norway 3,087 12,762
Bohemia 1,245 815
Poland 1,541 1,093
This does not show the number of the descendants of such foreign born
residents now in the counties who are included under the head of native
born. It appears that the percentage of native born is much larger in
Minneapolis than in St. Paul. Thus, Ramsey County with 70,261 less
population, had 1129 more Irish and 5256 more Germans than Hennepin County.
In Hennepin, the Norwegians and Swedes form a large element. St. Paul with
its German and Irish born citizens, is Democratic in politics and strongly
Roman Catholic in religion, while in Minneapolis the Scandinavians and
Republicans predominate. The sons of Maine, Vermont, New York, and Ohio
maintain flourishing societies, but are completely eclipsed by the sons of
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They are everywhere, in all positions and all
kinds of business, from the highest to the lowest. Coming of the old
Germanic stock, they take to self-government and officeholding as deftly as
the sons of the town meeting. At present it is not a homogeneous people but
an aggregation of all the elements,--a seething cauldron of the races, the
residuum of which we believe will be a type of genuine American
citizenship, broadened and liberalized by the ancestral outlook upon the
world.
[Illustration A CALM EVENING.]
It is fashionable at present to speak lightly of Buckle's theory of the
influence of climate upon the character of a people, but it is certain that
we cannot understand the development of a people unless we know something
of the climatic conditions under which they live. The northwestern climate
is much better than the reputation it succeeded in establishing in the
early days before the blizzard centre moved eastward. While not strictly
like that described in the old hymn,
"December as pleasant as May,"
there are few pleasanter localities in which to spend the entire year. It
is a climate for thinking and doing. Spring and autumn are delightful
beyond the power of description, and the heat of midsummer is tempered by
the myriad lakes which dot the surrounding country. In midwinter the
thermometer takes an occasional downward plunge which sadly disarranges the
record of averages, but for four days out of every five between December
and March the sun shines gloriously through an atmosphere of mountain
brilliancy. Then there is in the air a hidden food of life, upon which has
fed the strenuous race of men which within the short space of one life has
builded two great cities where none were before.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] The prediction was fulfilled the following year, when it became
necessary to construct elaborate works to save the waterpower.
[Illustration]
DES MOINES
IOWA'S CAPITAL CITY
BY FRANK I. HERRIOTT
The beginnings of the city of Des Moines are not shrouded in romance or
shadowy tradition. Thrilling episode and epoch-making events do not abound
in her history. Cannon have never thundered against the gates of the city,
nor hostile armies marched and counter-marched within her environs. Not
even the blood-curdling war-whoop of the Indian ever struck terror into the
hearts of her pioneers. Yet the story of the capital city of Iowa is
neither prosaic nor uninteresting. Her origin and early history typify the
beginnings of civilized life throughout almost the entire State of Iowa;
and since the seat of government was transferred to the city in 1857, her
history is in epitome the history of the great commonwealth of which she is
the capital.
The origin of the city's name is a moot question among antiquarians.
Popular etymology has derived _Des Moines_ from the early associations of
Trappist monks at or near the mouth of the river,--_la rivière des
Moines_: but Dr. Elliot Coues regarded this as spurious etymology. Some
local historians have contended that the name arose from the fact that the
valley of the Des Moines River was inhabited by the Mound Builders:
numerous mounds were found in what is now the heart of the city; hence, the
"river of the mounds." The French explorer Nicollet ascribes its origin to
the Algonquin name _Moingoinan_, and the earliest map showing the journeys
and discoveries of La Salle, Joliet, and Marquette designate the river by
the Algonquin name. In later times the French _voyageurs_ and traders
clipped the word, for we find _Des Moins_, _De Moin_, _De Moyen_, _Demoin_,
_Demoir_ and sometimes _Demon_. The French settlers probably had in mind
the great "middle region" between the Mississippi and the Missouri when
they referred to the _De Moyen_ or _Des Moines_.
[Illustration FORT DES MOINES IN 1844.]
The city of Des Moines was originally a frontier fort. Unlike the majority
of such in the West in early days, this outpost at the "forks of the
Raccoon" was not established to protect the whites from the Indians. On the
contrary, Fort Des Moines was founded to guard the Sac and Fox Indians, to
secure them in the peaceful possession of their hunting-grounds and to
protect them against rapacious land agents, the encroachments of the whites
and the bloody Sioux. And the event was typical of the relations of the
national Government with the Indian tribes of Iowa.
When Iowa became known to the people of the East the tide of emigration
soon began to run high and strong toward the Mississippi. It is not
extravagant to say that never have more beautiful lands been opened for
human settlement than lay beyond the "Father of Waters" in the
hunting-grounds of the Sacs and Foxes. "_Une ravissante contrée_" exclaimed
in 1842 King Louis Philippe's son, Prince de Joinville, as he gazed upon
the gorgeous green of the river bluffs, forests, and valleys, and meadows
and prairies of Iowa. The wonderful stories related of the marvellous
fertility of the soil and the attractiveness of nature in this Western
Mesopotamia gave a tremendous impetus to emigration. But the national
Government firmly held back the tide. The Mississippi was patrolled by
troops to prevent the settlers invading the lands. Colonel Zachary Taylor
and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, both later to achieve great fame, were
among those who guarded the rights of the Iowa Indians and ejected
overzealous frontiersmen and "squatters." But the pressure of population
westward was irresistible; and small pretexts were sufficient to break down
the barriers. The war with the Sacs and Foxes under their great leader,
Black Hawk, came on and by the treaty of 1832, known as the "Black Hawk
Purchase," negotiated by General Winfield Scott, a tract along the
Mississippi fifty miles wide was opened for settlement. This strip was
rapidly populated and in 1836 the Keokuk reserve was ceded to the United
States. In 1837 a large tract adjacent on the west, aggregating 1,250,000
acres, was purchased from the Indians. In a short time the settlers began
to clamor for the opening of the beautiful lands in the Des Moines Valley
and beyond, and to petition Congress; and on October 11, 1842, Governor
John Chambers, the second Territorial governor of Iowa, negotiated a treaty
at Agency City which obtained title to the rest of Iowa. By its terms the
Sacs and Foxes were permitted to remain three years in their beloved
hunting-grounds before their departure for Kansas. It was the latter
provision that led to the establishment of Fort Des Moines.
In May, 1834, a military camp styled Fort Des Moines was established at the
mouth of the river near where Keokuk now is, but abandoned in 1837. As
early as 1835 Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen W. Kearny had been ordered by the
War Department at Washington to "proceed up the river Des Moines to the
Raccoon fork" and reconnoitre with a view to the selection of a military
post. He reported adversely, however, believing that a fort should be
established farther north near the Minnesota line; and nothing was done
until the treaty of 1842 was ratified. Then General Scott, in order to
protect the Indians from molestation by the whites, directed that troops be
stationed near the Agency buildings then located a few miles south and east
of the present city. Captain James Allen of the First Dragoons selected the
"forks of the Raccoon," and in May, 1843, a steamboat came up the Des
Moines River and landed soldiers and supplies. The soldiers set about
building the fort, which, when completed, consisted simply of the officers'
and men's quarters, one-story log huts with puncheon floors, a storehouse,
hospital, and stables, all so arranged as to form a right angle, the sides
of which ran parallel to the banks of the converging rivers, and came to a
point at their junction. There was no stockade, embankment, or outlying
moat on the exposed view or any other protective feature.
[Illustration KEOKUK AT THE AGE OF 67. FROM A DAGUERROTYPE TAKEN IN 1847.]
During the time the fort was garrisoned there were a few whites permitted
to occupy lands near by,--a representative of the American Fur Company,
traders, a tailor, a blacksmith, and gardeners, persons who served the fort
in some way,--but the population never exceeded two hundred, soldiers and
all. Captain Allen and his dragoons had to give all their time to
restraining restless bands of Indians and crowding back the eager settlers
who were on the eastern boundaries of the purchase awaiting the departure
of the Indians. The latter, although they manifested a disinclination to
leave their old haunts, and trouble was anticipated when the order came for
them to move, nevertheless peacefully withdrew under their great chief
Keokuk.
Even before the Indians' title to the lands had expired many whites had
slipped over the borders, dodged the dragoons, spied out the most desirable
places for settlement and determined to claim them as soon as they could be
entered. Many a story is told of men roosting high in trees for days to
keep out of the sight of the troops. On the night of October 10, 1845, men
were stationed in all directions from the fort ready to measure off their
claims. Precisely at twelve o'clock, midnight, a signal gun was fired at
the Agency house. Answering guns rang out sharply in quick succession from
hilltop and valley for miles around. The moon was shining dimly and its
beams ill supplemented the fitful gleams of the settlers' torches as they
hastily made their rough surveys, marked by blazing trees or by setting
stones or stakes. Men helped each other. Two friends would run in two
directions and each fire a gun when the terminus was reached. When the sun
came up a new empire had come into being and the order and industry of the
white man had displaced the listless, unprogressive life of the savage.
The rush of the settlers into the region about Des Moines ahead of the
surveyor's chain led to the development of an institution of peculiar
interest in Western history. Not only was it unique, it was also a striking
instance of the spontaneous growth of an institution of government. It was
almost if not quite the realization under almost ideal conditions of the
theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Government arises from and rests on a
Social Compact. It was known as a Land Club or League or Claim Association,
and it played a large part in the organization of government in Iowa. It
overrode the law of the land, or rather it blocked the natural course of
the law; yet at the same time it maintained order and secured under strict
regulations equity for the early settlers when the enforcement of the law
would have worked harsh injustice, and possibly have produced serious
outbreaks against national authority.
When Iowa was first opened for settlement the pioneers could not preempt
lands or secure title to them until they were surveyed; and then only at
public sale. But the surveyor lagged far behind the pioneer, who considered
not the law, but, anxious for a home, hurried into the new tracts and
settled on his claim. The "squatter" had no legal title to his claim, nor
could he obtain it by priority of occupancy; and he knew that any stranger
or speculator with a longer purse string could purchase his land and oust
him and his family the moment the Government should offer it for sale. It
was the likelihood of this dire contingency that led to the formation of
Claim Clubs or Associations in nearly every locality in Iowa. These clubs
were composed of all the settlers in a township or county. They adopted a
constitution, elected officers and conducted their affairs by definite
procedure. They governed all matters relating to the amount and character
of claims, their occupancy, improvement, abandonment, transfers, and
disputes. The decisions of the club were rigidly enforced. Claims were
recorded and the members were under solemn agreement not only to guard each
other from interference but to prevent lands claimed from being sold to
strangers at the public sales. Unhappy was the fate of a man who had the
temerity to "jump" a claim or to outbid a claimant. Tar and feathers or
unceremonious banishment or even harsher treatment was not unlikely. At the
sale the club selected a member who would bid in the members' claims. He
was accompanied by a posse whose presence always prevented outsiders from
bidding as the law contemplated. If the Government officials were not
always in sympathy with the settlers, at least they were always discreet
enough to manifest no disapproval of the proceedings.
These Claim Clubs of Iowa aroused fierce opposition in the East. Calhoun
and Clay denounced them as "conspiracies of lawless men" who so terrorized
would-be purchasers that bona fide sales were impossible, and they urged
that vigorous measures be taken to abate them. Webster came to the
settlers' defence. He pleaded for what he called their "reasonable rights"
under the circumstances. The Government had delayed the surveys; yet the
settlers had been encouraged to go into the new lands and make their homes;
to dispossess them would work severe hardship; the clubs, although outside
the pale of the law, had enforced order and maintained to a marked degree
all the forms of law and government, and violence was extremely rare. To
Webster's eloquence was due the passage of the early preemption laws. They
were not liberal enough, however, and in 1848 a strong Claim Club was
formed at Des Moines.
Although the treaty of 1842 opened the lands in 1845 they were not surveyed
until 1847 and title could not be obtained until late in 1848. Meantime
claims in large numbers had been entered. In 1848 speculators and
"landsharks" came in and roamed about regarding the settlers' claims with
envious and designing eyes. Fear of them was a leading motive in the
formation of the Claim Club of 1848. Strangers were closely watched. Any
suspicious action led to the suspect being warned that discretion was the
better part of valor. There were some disturbances but none were serious.
The most notable arose within the club itself. One Perkins jumped his
neighbor Flemmings's claim. The latter appealed to his club members. A
"war" ensued in which Perkins narrowly escaped hanging. When the sale took
place at Iowa City, 125 miles east of Des Moines, the club's agent bid in
at $1.25 all of the claims and soon thereafter the club ceased to play any
part in the life of the community.
The first local government to which the inhabitants of Des Moines were
subject was the county government of Polk County provided for by the
Territorial Legislature in January, 1846. The town government was not
organized until 1851. By this time Fort Des Moines had become a thriving
place. It was an important way station on one of the main stage routes to
the West. In 1852, the establishment of a Government land office brought to
the town for the entry of lands the multitudes of speculators and settlers
then rushing into Western Iowa. In the days of the gold fever and during
the border wars in Kansas and Nebraska her ferries and hostelries did a
bustling trade.
In those early days life was free, easy, simple, and buoyant. The
population of Fort Des Moines was made up of people from both Southern and
Northern States. They lived in log huts or simple frame buildings. Pork and
"corn-dodgers," coffee, sometimes made of parched corn, and tea, often made
from native plants, constituted in the main their diet. They had to go many
miles to get their flour ground. Oxen were generally used in drawing wagons
and ploughs. Stage coaches were the common carriers until the railroads
entered the city in 1866. Prior to 1858 the State constitution prohibited
the establishment of banks of note issue and the money of the citizens was
chiefly "wildcat" and "red dog" currency. In 1857-58 the City Council so
far trenched on the powers of Congress as to issue "City Scrip," with the
twofold object of paying the city's debt and affording the citizens a
circulating medium. As the scrip did not become popular, in a short time
the city called in its paper and redeemed it. Like most frontier towns a
certain reckless disregard of the sober customs of the Eastern cities
characterized the social life. Sunday was a sort of gala day, when horse
and foot races between whites and Indians, accompanied by more or less
gambling and carousal, were not infrequent. But the garish and reckless
life soon gave place to the staid habits of well-ordered communities, and
since the Civil War Des Moines has justly sustained the reputation of a
"conservative" Western city.
[Illustration IOWA SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT.]
The navigation of the Des Moines River was a great factor in the first
years of the city's growth. Steamboats came up the river from Keokuk in the
spring and summer months and brought most of the city's supplies. The
people living along its course soon perceived that the river could be made
a great waterway for commerce. Those were the days of "internal
improvements." Congress was induced in 1846 to give to the new State every
alternate section of unsold land in a strip five miles wide on either bank
of the river to be used for the improvement of the channel. A River
Improvement Company was formed. River traffic increased rapidly and the
people went wild over the project. As usual the matter soon drifted into
politics and decided the fate of political parties. Demagogism ran riot. A
story is told of two candidates for Congress in 1850, campaigning together,
who rushed across a field to greet a farmer. The first one to reach him,
extending his hand, cried:
"Hurrah for river improvement!"
The farmer so eagerly sought proved to be a scarecrow.
The net result of all the excitement and speculation attending the various
efforts to improve the river was failure and collapse. The State after
expending immense sums abandoned the task in 1862. Worse still,
complications arose over the extent of the grant from the Government, and
left the people above the city a sorry heritage of costly litigation that
continued till 1892 over the titles to their homes. The entire experiment
was an instructive illustration of the futility of most of the attempts at
"internal improvements" fostered by congressional land grants.
In the summer of 1894 the river achieved notoriety in connection with the
epidemic of "Commonweal Armies" that disturbed the public that year. One
division, mobilized at San Francisco under a "General" Kelley, when it
reached Council Bluffs was refused transportation by the Iowa railroads.
The horde then marched overland, levying on communities for provisions,
reaching Des Moines Sunday evening, April 29th. The citizens, in much
trepidation, lodged the tramps in an abandoned stove factory. The people
were frantic to pass them along, for their sojourn threatened plague,
pilfering, and multitudinous evils. But the tramps refused to walk farther.
The citizens were in despair. Finally some genius suggested that the army
be floated down the river. The "General" agreed to evacuate the stove works
when the fleet of flatboats was ready to launch. On May 9th, amid general
rejoicing, Kelley and his army floated away. The _voyageurs_ reached the
Mississippi only to suffer ignominious discomfiture.