FROM NIAGARA TO THE MISSISSIPPI.
From Niagara we went by the Canada Great Western Railway to Detroit,
the big city of Michigan. It is an American institution that the
States should have a commercial capital, or what I call their big
city, as well as a political capital, which may as a rule be called
the State's central city. The object in choosing the political
capital is average nearness of approach from the various confines
of the State; but commerce submits to no such Procrustean laws in
selecting her capitals, and consequently she has placed Detroit on
the borders of Michigan, on the shore of the neck of water which
joins Lake Huron to Lake Erie through which all the trade must flow
which comes down from Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron, on its way
to the eastern States and to Europe. We had thought of going from
Buffalo across Lake Erie to Detroit; but we found that the better
class of steamers had been taken off the waters for the winter. And
we also found that navigation among these lakes is a mistake whenever
the necessary journey can be taken by railway. Their waters are by
no means smooth; and then there is nothing to be seen. I do not
know whether others may have a feeling, almost instinctive, that
lake navigation must be pleasant,--that lakes must of necessity
be beautiful. I have such a feeling; but not now so strongly as
formerly. Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never
brought over to America with other travelling gear. The lakes in
America are cold, cumbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting--intended by
nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort
of travelling men and women. So we gave up our plan of traversing
the lake, and passing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at
Niagara, we reached the Detroit river at Windsor by the Great Western
line, and passed thence by the ferry into the city of Detroit.
In making this journey at night we introduced ourselves to the
thoroughly American institution of sleeping-cars;--that is, of cars
in which beds are made up for travellers. The traveller may have a
whole bed, or half a bed, or no bed at all as he pleases, paying a
dollar or half a dollar extra should he choose the partial or full
fruition of a couch. I confess I have always taken a delight in
seeing these beds made up, and consider that the operations of
the change are generally as well executed as the manoeuvres of
any pantomime at Drury Lane. The work is usually done by negroes
or coloured men; and the domestic negroes of America are always
light-handed and adroit. The nature of an American car is no
doubt known to all men. It looks as far removed from all bedroom
accommodation, as the baker's barrow does from the steam-engine into
which it is to be converted by Harlequin's wand. But the negro goes
to work much more quietly than the Harlequin, and for every four
seats in the railway car he builds up four beds, almost as quickly
as the hero of the pantomime goes through his performance. The great
glory of the Americans is in their wondrous contrivances,--in their
patent remedies for the usually troublous operations of life. In
their huge hotels all the bell-ropes of each house ring on one bell
only, but a patent indicator discloses a number, and the whereabouts
of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and
cupboard,--and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all
but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble
of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without
motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the
chambers;--though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps
is boiling, and that when once turned on it cannot be turned off
again by any human energy. Everything is done by a new and wonderful
patent contrivance; and of all their wonderful contrivances that
of their railroad beds is by no means the least. For every four
seats the negro builds up four beds,--that is, four half-beds or
accommodation for four persons. Two are supposed to be below on the
level of the ordinary four seats, and two up above on shelves which
are let down from the roof. Mattresses slip out from one nook and
pillows from another. Blankets are added, and the bed is ready. Any
over particular individual--an islander, for instance, who hugs
his chains--will generally prefer to pay the dollar for the double
accommodation. Looking at the bed in the light of a bed,--taking as
it were an abstract view of it,--or comparing it with some other
bed or beds with which the occupant may have acquaintance, I cannot
say that it is in all respects perfect. But distances are long in
America; and he who declines to travel by night will lose very much
time. He who does so travel will find the railway bed a great relief.
I must confess that the feeling of dirt on the following morning is
rather oppressive.
From Windsor on the Canada side we passed over to Detroit in the
State of Michigan by a steam ferry. But ferries in England and
ferries in America are very different. Here on this Detroit ferry,
some hundred of passengers who were going forward from the other side
without delay, at once sat down to breakfast. I may as well explain
the way in which disposition is made of one's luggage as one takes
these long journeys. The traveller when he starts has his baggage
checked. He abandons his trunk--generally a box studded with nails,
as long as a coffin and as high as a linen chest,--and in return for
this he receives an iron ticket with a number on it. As he approaches
the end of his first instalment of travel, and while the engine is
still working its hardest, a man comes up to him, bearing with him
suspended on a circular bar an infinite variety of other checks. The
traveller confides to this man his wishes; and if he be going further
without delay, surrenders his check and receives a counter-check in
return. Then while the train is still in motion, the new destiny
of the trunk is imparted to it. But another man, with another set
of checks, also comes the way, walking leisurely through the train
as he performs his work. This is the minister of the hotel-omnibus
institution. His business is with those who do not travel beyond
the next terminus. To him, if such be your intention, you make your
confidence, giving up your tallies and taking other tallies, by way
of receipt; and your luggage is afterwards found by you in the hall
of your hotel. There is undoubtedly very much of comfort in this; and
the mind of the traveller is lost in amazement as he thinks of the
futile efforts with which he would struggle to regain his luggage
were there no such arrangement. Enormous piles of boxes are disclosed
on the platform at all the larger stations, the numbers of which are
roared forth with quick voice by some two or three railway denizens
at once. A modest English voyager with six or seven small packages,
would stand no chance of getting anything if he were left to his own
devices. As it is I am bound to say that the thing is well done.
I have had my desk with all my money in it lost for a day, and my
black leather bag was on one occasion sent back over the line. They,
however, were recovered; and on the whole I feel grateful to the
check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears
of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or
three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his
teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those
"light fixings" might have been made up into one. And when I came to
understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and
re-entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought
to do without a bonnet-box. The ten, however, went on, and were
always duly protected. I must add, however, that articles requiring
tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the worse from the
hardships of their journey.
I have not much to say of Detroit; not much, that is, beyond what I
have to say of all the North. It is a large well-built half-finished
city, lying on a convenient water way, and spreading itself out
with promises of a wide and still wider prosperity. It has about it
perhaps as little of intrinsic interest as any of those large western
towns which I visited. It is not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so
picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as
Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo. Indeed Detroit is neither pleasant
nor picturesque at all. I will not say that it is uncivilized, but it
has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance. It has some 70,000
inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping. It was doing an
enormous business before the war began, and when these troublous
times are over will no doubt again go ahead. I do not, however,
think it well to recommend any Englishman to make a special visit to
Detroit, who may be wholly uncommercial in his views and travel in
search of that which is either beautiful or interesting.
From Detroit we continued our course westward across the State of
Michigan through a country that was absolutely wild till the railway
pierced it. Very much of it is still absolutely wild. For miles upon
miles the road passes the untouched forest, showing that even in
Michigan the great work of civilization has hardly more than been
commenced. As one thinks of the all but countless population which is
before long to be fed from these regions, of the cities which will
grow here, and of the amount of government which in due time will be
required, one can hardly fail to feel that the division of the United
States into separate nationalities is merely a part of the ordained
work of creation, as arranged for the well-being of mankind. The
States already boast of thirty millions of inhabitants,--not of
unnoticed and unnoticeable beings, requiring little, knowing little,
and doing little, such as are the Eastern hordes which may be counted
by tens of millions; but of men and women who talk loudly and are
ambitious, who eat beef, who read and write, and understand the
dignity of manhood. But these thirty millions are as nothing to the
crowds which will grow sleek and talk loudly, and become aggressive
on these wheat and meat producing levels. The country is as yet but
touched by the pioneering hand of population. In the old countries
agriculture, following on the heels of pastoral patriarchal life,
preceded the birth of cities. But in this young world the cities have
come first. The new Jasons, blessed with the experience of the old
world adventurers, have gone forth in search of their golden fleeces
armed with all that the science and skill of the East had as yet
produced, and in settling up their new Colchis have begun by the
erection of first-class hotels and the fabrication of railroads. Let
the old world bid them God speed in their work. Only it would be well
if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned
all that they know.
Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven on
Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town
in Wisconsin on the opposite or western shore of the lake. Michigan
is sometimes called the Peninsular State from the fact that the
main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and
Huron, by the little Lake St. Clair, and by Lake Erie. It juts out
to the northward from the main land of Indiana and Ohio, and is
circumnavigable on the east, north, and west. These particulars
refer, however, to a part of the State only, for a portion of it lies
on the other side of Lake Michigan, between that and Lake Superior. I
doubt whether any large inland territory in the world is blessed with
such facilities of water carriage.
On arriving at Grand Haven we found that there had been a storm on
the lake, and that the passengers from the trains of the preceding
day were still remaining there, waiting to be carried over to
Milwaukee. The water, however,--or the sea as they all call it,--was
still very high, and the captain declared his intention of remaining
there that night. Whereupon all our fellow-travellers huddled
themselves into the great lake steam-boat, and proceeded to carry on
life there as though they were quite at home. The men took themselves
to the bar-room and smoked cigars and talked about the war with
their feet upon the counter, and the women got themselves into
rocking-chairs in the saloon and sat there listless and silent,
but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big
drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there, precisely
at six o'clock, beefsteaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes,
and light fixings, to all which luxuries an American deems himself
entitled, let him have to seek his meal where he may. And I was soon
informed with considerable energy, that let the boat be kept there
as long as it might by stress of weather, the beefsteaks and apple
jam, light fixings and heavy fixings, must be supplied at the cost of
the owners of the ship. "Your first supper you pay for," my informant
told me, "because you eat that on your own account. What you consume
after that comes of their doing, because they don't start; and if
it's three meals a day for a week, it's their look out." It occurred
to me that under such circumstances a captain would be very apt to
sail either in foul weather or in fair.
It was a bright moonlight night, moonlight such as we rarely have in
England, and I started off by myself for a walk, that I might see
of what nature were the environs of Grand Haven. A more melancholy
place I never beheld. The town of Grand Haven itself is placed on the
opposite side of a creek, and was to be reached by a ferry. On our
side, to which the railway came and from which the boat was to sail,
there was nothing to be seen but sandhills which stretched away for
miles along the shore of the lake. There were great sand mountains,
and sand valleys, on the surface of which were scattered the debris
of dead trees, scattered logs white with age, and boughs half buried
beneath the sand. Grand Haven itself is but a poor place, not having
succeeded in catching much of the commerce which comes across the
lake from Wisconsin, and which takes itself on eastwards by the
railway. Altogether it is a dreary place, such as might break a man's
heart, should he find that inexorable fate required him there to
pitch his tent.
On my return I went down into the bar-room of the steamer, put my
feet upon the counter, lit my cigar, and struck into the debate then
proceeding on the subject of the war. I was getting West, and General
Fremont was the hero of the hour. "He's a frontier man, and that's
what we want. I guess he'll about go through. Yes, sir." "As for
relieving General Fre-mont,"--with the accent always strongly on
the "mont,"--"I guess you may as well talk of relieving the whole
West. They won't meddle with Fre-mont. They are beginning to know in
Washington what stuff he's made of." "Why, sir, there are 50,000 men
in these States who will follow Fre-mont, who would not stir a foot
after any other man." From which, and the like of it in many other
places, I began to understand how difficult was the task which the
statesmen in Washington had in hand.
I received no pecuniary advantage whatever from that law as to the
steam-boat meals which my new friend had revealed to me. For my one
supper of course I paid, looking forward to any amount of subsequent
gratuitous provisions. But in the course of the night the ship
sailed, and we found ourselves at Milwaukee in time for breakfast on
the following morning.
Milwaukee is a pleasant town, a very pleasant town, containing 45,000
inhabitants. How many of my readers can boast that they know anything
of Milwaukee, or even have heard of it? To me its name was unknown
until I saw it on huge railway placards stuck up in the smoking-rooms
and lounging halls of all American hotels. It is the big town of
Wisconsin, whereas Madison is the capital. It stands immediately on
the western shore of Lake Michigan, and is very pleasant. Why it
should be so, and why Detroit should be the contrary, I can hardly
tell; only I think that the same verdict would be given by any
English tourist. It must be always borne in mind that 10,000 or
40,000 inhabitants in an American town, and especially in any new
western town, is a number which means much more than would be implied
by any similar number as to an old town in Europe. Such a population
in America consumes double the amount of beef which it would in
England, wears double the amount of clothes, and demands double as
much of the comforts of life. If a census could be taken of the
watches it would be found, I take it, that the American population
possessed among them nearly double as many as would the English; and
I fear also that it would be found that many more of the Americans
were readers and writers by habit. In any large town in England it is
probable that a higher excellence of education would be found than
in Milwaukee, and also a style of life into which more of refinement
and more of luxury had found its way. But the general level of these
things, of material and intellectual well being--of beef, that is,
and book learning--is no doubt infinitely higher in a new American
than in an old European town. Such an animal as a beggar is as
much unknown as a mastodon. Men out of work and in want are almost
unknown. I do not say that there are none of the hardships of
life--and to them I will come by-and-by; but want is not known as
a hardship in these towns, nor is that dense ignorance in which so
large a proportion of our town populations is still steeped. And then
the town of 40,000 inhabitants is spread over a surface which would
suffice in England for a city of four times the size. Our towns in
England,--and the towns, indeed, of Europe generally,--have been
built as they have been wanted. No aspiring ambition as to hundreds
of thousands of people warmed the bosoms of their first founders. Two
or three dozen men required habitations in the same locality, and
clustered them together closely. Many such have failed and died out
of the world's notice. Others have thriven, and houses have been
packed on to houses till London and Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow
have been produced. Poor men have built, or have had built for them,
wretched lanes; and rich men have erected grand palaces. From the
nature of their beginnings such has, of necessity, been the manner
of their creation. But in America, and especially in Western America,
there has been no such necessity and there is no such result. The
founders of cities have had the experience of the world before them.
They have known of sanitary laws as they began. That sewerage, and
water, and gas, and good air would be needed for a thriving community
has been to them as much a matter of fact as are the well understood
combinations between timber and nails, and bricks and mortar. They
have known that water carriage is almost a necessity for commercial
success, and have chosen their sites accordingly. Broad streets
cost as little, while land by the foot is not as yet of value to be
regarded, as those which are narrow; and therefore the sites of towns
have been prepared with noble avenues, and imposing streets. A city
at its commencement is laid out with an intention that it shall be
populous. The houses are not all built at once, but there are the
places allocated for them. The streets are not made, but there are
the spaces. Many an abortive attempt at municipal greatness has so
been made and then all but abandoned. There are wretched villages
with huge straggling parallel ways which will never grow into
towns. They are the failures,--failures in which the pioneers of
civilization, frontier men as they call themselves, have lost their
tens of thousands of dollars. But when the success comes; when the
happy hit has been made, and the ways of commerce have been truly
foreseen with a cunning eye, then a great and prosperous city springs
up, ready made, as it were, from the earth. Such a town is Milwaukee,
now containing 45,000 inhabitants, but with room apparently for
double that number; with room for four times that number, were men
packed as closely there as they are with us.
In the principal business streets of all these towns one sees
vast buildings. They are usually called blocks, and are often so
denominated in large letters on their front, as Portland Block,
Devereux Block, Buel's Block. Such a block may face to two, three, or
even four streets, and, as I presume, has generally been a matter of
one special speculation. It may be divided into separate houses, or
kept for a single purpose, such as that of an hotel, or grouped into
shops below, and into various sets of chambers above. I have had
occasion in various towns to mount the stairs within these blocks,
and have generally found some portion of them vacant;--have sometimes
found the greater portion of them vacant. Men build on an enormous
scale, three times, ten times as much as is wanted. The only measure
of size is an increase on what men have built before. Monroe P.
Jones, the speculator, is very probably ruined, and then begins the
world again, nothing daunted. But Jones's block remains, and gives to
the city in its aggregate a certain amount of wealth. Or the block
becomes at once of service and finds tenants. In which case Jones
probably sells it and immediately builds two others twice as
big. That Monroe P. Jones will encounter ruin is almost a matter
of course; but then he is none the worse for being ruined. It
hardly makes him unhappy. He is greedy of dollars with a terrible
covetousness; but he is greedy in order that he may speculate more
widely. He would sooner have built Jones' tenth block, with a
prospect of completing a twentieth, than settle himself down at
rest for life as the owner of a Chatsworth or a Woburn. As for his
children he has no desire of leaving them money. Let the girls marry.
And for the boys,--for them it will be good to begin as he begun. If
they cannot build blocks for themselves, let them earn their bread
in the blocks of other men. So Monroe P. Jones, with his million of
dollars accomplished, advances on to a new frontier, goes to work
again on a new city, and loses it all. As an individual I differ very
much from Monroe P. Jones. The first block accomplished, with an
adequate rent accruing to me as the builder, I fancy that I should
never try a second. But Jones is undoubtedly the man for the West.
It is that love of money to come, joined to a strong disregard for
money made, which constitutes the vigorous frontier mind, the true
pioneering organization. Monroe P. Jones would be a great man to all
posterity, if only he had a poet to sing of his valour.
It may be imagined how large in proportion to its inhabitants will
be a town which spreads itself in this way. There are great houses
left untenanted, and great gaps left unfilled. But if the place be
successful,--if it promise success, it will be seen at once that
there is life all through it. Omnibuses, or street cars working on
rails run hither and thither. The shops that have been opened are
well filled. The great hotels are thronged. The quays are crowded
with vessels, and a general feeling of progress pervades the place.
It is easy to perceive whether or no an American town is going ahead.
The days of my visit to Milwaukee were days of civil war and national
trouble, but in spite of civil war and national trouble Milwaukee
looked healthy.
I have said that there was but little poverty,--little to be seen
of real want in these thriving towns, but that they who laboured in
them had nevertheless their own hardships. This is so. I would not
have any man believe that he can take himself to the Western States
of America,--to those States of which I am now speaking,--Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, or Illinois, and there by industry escape
the ills to which flesh is heir. The labouring Irish in these towns
eat meat seven days a week, but I have met many a labouring Irishman
among them who has wished himself back in his old cabin. Industry is
a good thing, and there is no bread so sweet as that which is eaten
in the sweat of a man's brow; but labour carried to excess wearies
the mind as well as body, and the sweat that is ever running makes
the bread bitter. There is, I think, no task-master over free labour
so exacting as an American. He knows nothing of hours, and seems to
have that idea of a man which a lady always has of a horse. He thinks
that he will go for ever. I wish those masons in London who strike
for nine hours' work with ten hours' pay could be driven to the
labour market of Western America for a spell. And moreover, which
astonished me, I have seen men driven and hurried,--as it were forced
forward at their work, in a manner which to an English workman would
be intolerable. This surprised me much, as it was at variance with
our,--or perhaps I should say with my,--preconceived ideas as to
American freedom. I had fancied that an American citizen would not
submit to be driven;--that the spirit of the country if not the
spirit of the individual would have made it impossible. I thought
that the shoe would have pinched quite on the other foot. But I found
that such driving did exist; and American masters in the West with
whom I had an opportunity of discussing the subject all admitted it.
"Those men 'll never half move unless they're driven," a foreman said
to me once as we stood together over some twenty men who were at
their work. "They kinder look for it, and don't well know how to get
along when they miss it." It was not his business at this moment to
drive;--nor was he driving. He was standing at some little distance
from the scene with me, and speculating on the sight before him. I
thought the men were working at their best; but their movements did
not satisfy his practised eye, and he saw at a glance that there was
no one immediately over them.
But there is worse even than this. Wages in these regions are what we
should call high. An agricultural labourer will earn perhaps fifteen
dollars a month and his board; and a town labourer will earn a dollar
a day. A dollar may be taken as representing four shillings, though
it is in fact more. Food in these parts is much cheaper than in
England, and therefore the wages must be considered as very good.
In making, however, a just calculation it must be borne in mind
that clothing is dearer than in England and that much more of it
is necessary. The wages nevertheless are high, and will enable the
labourer to save money,--if only he can get them paid. The complaint
that wages are held back and not even ultimately paid is very common.
There is no fixed rule for satisfying all such claims once a week;
and thus debts to labourers are contracted and when contracted are
ignored. With us there is a feeling that it is pitiful, mean almost
beyond expression, to wrong a labourer of his hire. We have men
who go in debt to tradesmen perhaps without a thought of paying
them;--but when we speak of such a one who has descended into
the lowest mire of insolvency, we say that he has not paid his
washerwoman. Out there in the West the washerwoman is as fair game
as the tailor, the domestic servant as the wine merchant. If a man
be honest he will not willingly take either goods or labour without
payment; and it may be hard to prove that he who takes the latter is
more dishonest than he who takes the former; but with us there is a
prejudice in favour of one's washerwoman by which the western mind
is not weakened. "They certainly have to be smart to get it," a
gentleman said to me whom I taxed on the subject. "You see on the
frontier a man is bound to be smart. If he ain't smart he'd better
go back East;--perhaps as far as Europe. He'll do there." I had got
my answer, and my friend had turned the question. But the fact was
admitted by him as it had been by many others.
Why this should be so, is a question, to answer which thoroughly
would require a volume in itself. As to the driving, why should men
submit to it, seeing that labour is abundant, and that in all newly
settled countries the labourer is the true hero of the age? In answer
to this is to be alleged the fact that hired labour is chiefly done
by fresh comers, by Irish and Germans, who have not as yet among them
any combination sufficient to protect them from such usage. The men
over them are new as masters,--masters who are rough themselves, who
themselves have been roughly driven, and who have not learned to be
gracious to those below them. It is a part of their contract that
very hard work shall be exacted; and the driving resolves itself into
this,--that the master looking after his own interest is constantly
accusing his labourer of a breach of his part of the contract. The
men no doubt do become used to it, and slacken probably in their
endeavours when the tongue of the master or foreman is not heard. But
as to that matter of non-payment of wages, the men must live; and
here as elsewhere the master who omits to pay once, will hardly find
labourers in future. The matter would remedy itself elsewhere, and
does it not do so here? This of course is so, and it is not to be
understood that labour as a rule is defrauded of its hire. But the
relation of the master and the man admits of such fraud here much
more frequently than in England. In England the labourer who did not
get his wages on the Saturday could not go on for the next week. To
him under such circumstances the world would be coming to an end. But
in the Western States, the labourer does not live so completely from
hand to mouth. He is rarely paid by the week, is accustomed to give
some credit, and till hard pressed by bad circumstances generally has
something by him. They do save money, and are thus fattened up to a
state which admits of victimization. I cannot owe money to the little
village cobbler who mends my shoes, because he demands and receives
his payment when his job is done. But to my friend in Regent Street I
extend my custom on a different system; and when I make my start for
continental life, I have with him a matter of unsettled business to a
considerable extent. The American labourer is in the condition of the
Regent Street boot-maker;--excepting in this respect, that he gives
his credit under compulsion. "But does not the law set him right?
Is there no law against debtors?" The laws against debtors are
plain enough as they are written down, but seem to be anything but
plain when called into action. They are perfectly understood, and
operations are carried on with the express purpose of evading them.
If you proceed against a man, you find that his property is in the
hands of some one else. You work in fact for Jones who lives in the
next street to you; but when you quarrel with Jones about your wages,
you find that according to law you have been working for Smith in
another State. In all countries such dodges are probably practicable.
But men will or will not have recourse to such dodges according to
the light in which they are regarded by the community. In the Western
States such dodges do not appear to be regarded as disgraceful. "It
behoves a frontier man to be smart, sir."
Honesty is the best policy. That is a doctrine which has been widely
preached, and which has recommended itself to many minds as being
one of absolute truth. It is not very ennobling in its sentiment,
seeing that it advocates a special virtue, not on the ground that
that virtue is in itself a thing beautiful, but on account of the
immediate reward which will be its consequence. Smith is enjoined not
to cheat Jones, because he will, in the long run, make more money by
dealing with Jones on the square. This is not teaching of the highest
order; but it is teaching well adapted to human circumstances, and
has obtained for itself a wide credit. One is driven, however, to
doubt whether even this teaching is not too high for the frontier
man. Is it possible that a frontier man should be scrupulous and at
the same time successful? Hitherto those who have allowed scruples to
stand in their way have not succeeded; and they who have succeeded
and made for themselves great names,--who have been the pioneers of
civilization,--have not allowed ideas of exact honesty to stand in
their way. From General Jason down to General Fremont there have
been men of great aspirations but of slight scruples. They have been
ambitious of power and desirous of progress, but somewhat regardless
how power and progress shall be attained. Clive and Warren Hastings
were great frontier men, but we cannot imagine that they had ever
realized the doctrine that honesty is the best policy. Cortez, and
even Columbus, the prince of frontier men, are in the same category.
The names of such heroes is legion. But with none of them has
absolute honesty been a favourite virtue. "It behoves a frontier man
to be smart, sir." Such, in that or other language, has been the
prevailing idea. Such is the prevailing idea. And one feels driven to
ask oneself whether such must not be the prevailing idea with those
who leave the world and its rules behind them, and go forth with the
resolve that the world and its rules shall follow them.
Of filibustering, annexation, and polishing savages off the face of
creation there has been a great deal, and who can deny that humanity
has been the gainer? It seems to those who look widely back over
history, that all such works have been carried on in obedience to
God's laws. When Jacob by Rebecca's aid cheated his elder brother he
was very smart; but we cannot but suppose that a better race was by
this smartness put in possession of the patriarchal sceptre. Esau was
polished off, and readers of Scripture wonder why heaven with its
thunder did not open over the heads of Rebecca and her son. But Jacob
with all his fraud was the chosen one. Perhaps the day may come when
scrupulous honesty may be the best policy even on the frontier. I can
only say that hitherto that day seems to be as distant as ever. I do
not pretend to solve the problem, but simply record my opinion that
under circumstances as they still exist I should not willingly select
a frontier life for my children.
I have said that all great frontier men have been unscrupulous. There
is, however, an exception in history which may perhaps serve to prove
the rule. The Puritans who colonized New England were frontier men,
and were, I think, in general scrupulously honest. They had their
faults. They were stern, austere men, tyrannical at the backbone when
power came in their way,--as are all pioneers;--hard upon vices for
which they who made the laws had themselves no minds; but they were
not dishonest.
At Milwaukee I went up to see the Wisconsin volunteers, who were
then encamped on open ground in the close vicinity of the town.
Of Wisconsin I had heard before,--and have heard the same opinion
repeated since,--that it was more backward in its volunteering than
its neighbour States in the West. Wisconsin has 760,000 inhabitants,
and its tenth thousand of volunteers was not then made up; whereas
Indiana with less than double its number had already sent out
thirty-six thousand. Iowa, with a hundred thousand less of
inhabitants, had then made up fifteen thousand. But nevertheless to
me it seemed that Wisconsin was quite alive to its presumed duty
in that respect. Wisconsin with its three quarters of a million
of people is as large as England. Every acre of it may be made
productive, but as yet it is not half cleared. Of such a country its
young men are its heart's blood. Ten thousand men fit to bear arms
carried away from such a land to the horrors of civil war is a sight
as full of sadness as any on which the eye can rest. Ah me, when will
they return, and with what altered hopes! It is, I fear, easier to
turn the sickle into the sword, than to recast the sword back again
into the sickle!
We found a completed regiment at Wisconsin consisting entirely of
Germans. A thousand Germans had been collected in that State and
brought together in one regiment, and I was informed by an officer
on the ground that there are many Germans in sundry other of the
Wisconsin regiments. It may be well to mention here that the number
of Germans through all these western States is very great. Their
number and well-being were to me astonishing. That they form a great
portion of the population of New York, making the German quarter of
that city the third largest German town in the world, I have long
known; but I had no previous idea of their expansion westward. In
Detroit nearly every third shop bore a German name, and the same
remark was to be made at Milwaukee;--and on all hands I heard praises
of their morals, of their thrift, and of their new patriotism. I was
continually told how far they exceeded the Irish settlers. To me in
all parts of the world an Irishman is dear. When handled tenderly he
becomes a creature most loveable. But with all my judgment in the
Irishman's favour, and with my prejudices leaning the same way, I
feel myself bound to state what I heard and what I saw as to the
Germans.
But this regiment of Germans, and another not completed regiment,
called from the State generally, were as yet without arms,
accoutrements, or clothing. There was the raw material of the
regiment, but there was nothing else. Winter was coming on,--winter
in which the mercury is commonly 20 degrees below zero,--and the men
were in tents with no provision against the cold. These tents held
each two men, and were just large enough for two to lie. The canvas
of which they were made seemed to me to be thin, but was I think
always double. At this camp there was a house in which the men took
their meals, but I visited other camps in which there was no such
accommodation. I saw the German regiment called to its supper by tuck
of drum, and the men marched in gallantly, armed each with a knife
and spoon. I managed to make my way in at the door after them, and
can testify to the excellence of the provisions of which their
supper consisted. A poor diet never enters into any combination
of circumstances contemplated by an American. Let him be where he
will, animal food is, with him, the first necessary of life, and he
is always provided accordingly. As to those Wisconsin men whom I
saw, it was probable that they might be marched off, down south to
Washington, or to the doubtful glories of the western campaign under
Fremont before the winter commenced. The same might have been said
of any special regiment. But taking the whole mass of men who were
collected under canvas at the end of the autumn of 1861, and who
were so collected without arms or military clothing, and without
protection from the weather, it did seem that the task taken in
hand by the Commissariat of the Northern army was one not devoid of
difficulty.
The view from Milwaukee over Lake Michigan is very pleasing. One
looks upon a vast expanse of water to which the eye finds no bounds,
and therefore there are none of the common attributes of lake beauty;
but the colour of the lake is bright, and within a walk of the city
the traveller comes to the bluffs or low round-topped hills from
which he can look down upon the shores. These bluffs form the beauty
of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and relieve the eye after the flat level
of Michigan. Round Detroit there is no rising ground, and therefore,
perhaps, it is that Detroit is uninteresting.
I have said that those who are called on to labour in these States
have their own hardships, and I have endeavoured to explain what
are the sufferings to which the town labourer is subject. To escape
from this is the labourer's great ambition, and his mode of doing
so consists almost universally in the purchase of land. He saves up
money in order that he may buy a section of an allotment, and thus
become his own master. All his savings are made with a view to this
independence. Seated on his own land he will have to work probably
harder than ever, but he will work for himself. No taskmaster can
then stand over him and wound his pride with harsh words. He will be
his own master; will eat the food which he himself has grown, and
live in the cabin which his own hands have built. This is the object
of his life; and to secure this position he is content to work late
and early and to undergo the indignities of previous servitude. The
Government price for land is about five shillings an acre--one dollar
and a quarter--and the settler may get it for this price if he be
contented to take it not only untouched as regards clearing, but also
far removed from any completed road. The traffic in these lands has
been the great speculating business of western men. Five or six years
ago, when the rage for such purchases was at its height, land was
becoming a scarce article in the market! Individuals or companies
bought it up with the object of reselling it at a profit; and many
no doubt did make money. Railway companies were, in fact, companies
combined for the purchase of land. They purchased land, looking to
increase the value of it five-fold by the opening of a railroad. It
may easily be understood that a railway, which could not be in itself
remunerative, might in this way become a lucrative speculation. No
settler could dare to place himself absolutely at a distance from
any thoroughfare. At first the margins of nature's highways, the
navigable rivers and lakes, were cleared. But as the railway system
grew and expanded itself, it became manifest that lands might be
rendered quickly available which were not so circumstanced by nature,
A company which had purchased an enormous territory from the United
States Government at five shillings an acre might well repay itself
all the cost of a railway through that territory, even though the
receipts of the railway should do no more than maintain the current
expenses. It is in this way that the thousands of miles of American
railroads have been opened; and here again must be seen the immense
advantages which the States as a new country have enjoyed. With us
the purchase of valuable land for railways, together with the legal
expenses which those compulsory purchases entailed, have been so
great that with all our traffic railways are not remunerative. But
in the States the railways have created the value of the land. The
States have been able to begin at the right end, and to arrange
that the districts which are benefited shall themselves pay for the
benefit they receive.
The Government price of land is 125 cents, or about five shillings an
acre; and even this need not be paid at once if the settler purchase
directly from the Government. He must begin by making certain
improvements on the selected land,--clearing and cultivating some
small portion, building a hut, and probably sinking a well. When this
has been done,--when he has thus given a pledge of his intentions
by depositing on the land the value of a certain amount of labour,
he cannot be removed. He cannot be removed for a term of years, and
then if he pays the price of the land it becomes his own with an
indefeasible title. Many such settlements are made on the purchase
of warrants for land. Soldiers returning from the Mexican wars
were donated with warrants for land,--the amount being 160 acres,
or the quarter of a section. The localities of such lands were
not specified, but the privilege granted was that of occupying
any quarter-section not hitherto tenanted. It will of course be
understood that lands favourably situated would be tenanted. Those
contiguous to railways were of course so occupied, seeing that
the lines were not made till the lands were in the hands of the
companies. It may therefore be understood of what nature would be
the traffic in these warrants. The owner of a single warrant might
find it of no value to him. To go back utterly into the woods, away
from river or road, and there to commence with 160 acres of forest,
or even of prairie, would be a hopeless task even to an American
settler. Some mode of transport for his produce must be found before
his produce would be of value,--before indeed he could find the means
of living. But a company buying up a large aggregate of such warrants
would possess the means of making such allotments valuable and of
reselling them at greatly increased prices.
The primary settler, therefore,--who, however, will not usually have
been the primary owner,--goes to work upon his land amidst all the
wildness of nature. He levels and burns the first trees, and raises
his first crop of corn amidst stumps still standing four or five feet
above the soil; but he does not do so till some mode of conveyance
has been found for him. So much I have said hoping to explain the
mode in which the frontier speculator paves the way for the frontier
agriculturist. But the permanent farmer very generally comes on the
land as the third owner. The first settler is a rough fellow, and
seems to be so wedded to his rough life that he leaves his land after
his first wild work is done, and goes again further off to some
untouched allotment. He finds that he can sell his improvements at a
profitable rate and takes the price. He is a preparer of farms rather
than a farmer. He has no love for the soil which his hand has first
turned. He regards it merely as an investment; and when things about
him are beginning to wear an aspect of comfort,--when his property
has become valuable, he sells it, packs up his wife and little ones,
and goes again into the woods. The western American has no love for
his own soil, or his own house. The matter with him is simply one of
dollars. To keep a farm which he could sell at an advantage from any
feeling of affection,--from what we should call an association of
ideas,--would be to him as ridiculous as the keeping of a family pig
would be in an English farmer's establishment. The pig is a part of
the farmer's stock in trade, and must go the way of all pigs. And
so is it with house and land in the life of the frontier man in the
western States.
But yet this man has his romance, his high poetic feeling, and above
all his manly dignity. Visit him, and you will find him without coat
or waistcoat, unshorn, in ragged blue trousers and old flannel shirt,
too often bearing on his lantern jaws the signs of ague and sickness;
but he will stand upright before you and speak to you with all the
ease of a lettered gentleman in his own library. All the odious
incivility of the republican servant has been banished. He is his own
master, standing on his own threshold, and finds no need to assert
his equality by rudeness. He is delighted to see you, and bids you
sit down on his battered bench without dreaming of any such apology
as an English cottier offers to a Lady Bountiful when she calls. He
has worked out his independence, and shows it in every easy movement
of his body. He tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his
voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book,
some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the
old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy
you not to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has
sprung in England or in Ireland. To me I confess that the manliness
of such a man is very charming. He is dirty and perhaps squalid. His
children are sick and he is without comforts. His wife is pale, and
you think you see shortness of life written in the faces of all the
family. But over and above it all there is an independence which sits
gracefully on their shoulders, and teaches you at the first glance
that the man has a right to assume himself to be your equal. It is
for this position that the labourer works, bearing hard words and
the indignity of tyranny,--suffering also too often the dishonest
ill-usage which his superior power enables the master to inflict.
"I have lived very rough," I heard a poor woman say, whose husband
had ill-used and deserted her. "I have known what it is to be hungry
and cold, and to work hard till my bones have ached. I only wish that
I might have the same chance again. If I could have ten acres cleared
two miles away from any living being, I could be happy with my
children. I find a kind of comfort when I am at work from daybreak to
sundown, and know that it is all my own." I believe that life in the
backwoods has an allurement to those who have been used to it, that
dwellers in cities can hardly comprehend.
From Milwaukee we went across Wisconsin and reached the Mississippi
at La Crosse. From hence, according to agreement, we were to start
by steamer at once up the river. But we were delayed again, as had
happened to us before on Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.