THE GREAT NORTHWEST.
It was one of the great disappointments of Carleton's life that, on
returning from his journey around the world, he was not made, as he
had with good reason fully expected to be made, chief editor of the
_Boston Journal_. We need not go into details of the matter, but
suffice it to say, that Carleton was not one to waste time in idle
regrets. Indeed, his was a character that could be tested by
disappointments, which, in his life, were not a few. Instead of
bitterness, came the ripened fruit of patience and mellowness of
character.
His renewed acquaintance with the region west of the Mississippi,
which he had made during his recent trip across the continent, only
whetted his appetite for more seeing and knowing of the future seat of
America empire. He accepted with pleasure a commission to explore the
promising regions of Minnesota and Dakota, and to give an account
especially of the Red River Valley.
Already, in 1858, he had written and published, at his own expense, a
pamphlet of twenty-three pages, entitled "The Great Commercial Prize,"
Boston, A. Williams & Co. It cost him fifty dollars, then a large sum
for him, from which the advantage accrued to the nation at large. It
was addressed to every American who values the prosperity of his
country. It was "An inquiry into the present and prospective
commercial position of the United States, and a plea for the immediate
construction of a railroad from Missouri River to Puget Sound." It
opens with a review of the great events in the world which have had a
direct and all-important bearing upon the United States. Hitherto,
since the modern mastery of the ocean through the mariner's compass
and the science of navigation, the Atlantic had been the domain of sea
power. The Pacific was in future to be the scene of greater
opportunities and grander commercial developments. With China and
Japan entering the brotherhood of nations, and Russia extending its
power towards the Pacific, "five hundred millions of human beings were
henceforth to be reached by the hand of civilization." The countries
and continents bordering the greatest of oceans were animated with new
ideas of progress. On our own western shores, California, Oregon, and
Washington were awaiting the touch of industry to yield their riches.
As a reader of the signs of the times, Carleton pointed out the great
changes which were to take place in the thoroughfares of trade and
travel. Instead of civilization depending for its communication with
India, China, and Japan, by passages around the southern capes of the
two continents, the paths of water and land traffic were to be
directly from China, Russia, and Japan to northern America. Noticing
that England had made herself the world's banking-house, he saw that
the time had come when the United States (which he believed to be
potentially, at least, a larger and a nobler England) must stretch out
her left hand, as well as her right, for the grasping of the world's
prizes. He pointed out the wonderful openings along the shore,
providing harbors at the mouths of the two great river systems on the
Pacific Coast, those of the Sacramento and the Columbia.
Carleton urged that "A railroad to Puget Sound, constructed
immediately, alone will take the key of the Northwest from the hands
of the nations which stand with us in the front rank of power."
Important as the railway to San Francisco was, it would not yield the
prize. To his vision it was even then perfectly clear, as to all the
world it has been since the Chino-Japanese war of 1894-95, that the
chief American staple which China and Japan needs is cotton, though
machinery, petroleum, and flour are in demand. After giving facts,
statistics, and well-wrought arguments, he wrote: "Again we say it is
easy for America to lay its hand upon the greatest prize of all times,
to make herself the world's workshop,--the world's banker. Shall
England or the United States control the northwestern section of the
continent and the trade of the Pacific?"
Over a decade later on, in 1869, Carleton revelled in the opportunity
of being once more the herald and informer concerning regions ready to
welcome the plough, the machine-shop, the home, the church, the
school, and the glories of civilization. He spent several months
mostly in the open air and chiefly on horseback, though often on foot
and in vehicles of various descriptions, camping out under the stars,
or accepting such rough accommodation as was then afforded in regions
where palace cars, elegant hotels, and comfortable homes are now
commonplaces. His letters to the _Journal_ were breezy and sparkling.
They diffused the aroma of the Western forests and prairies, while
marked with that same wealth of graphic detail, spice of anecdote,
lambent humor, and garnish of a conversation which delighted the
readers of his correspondence from the army and from the older seats
of empire in Asia and in Europe. Carleton's literary photographs were
the means of moving many a young and adventurous couple from their
homes in the East to the frontier, and of firing the ambition of many
a lad and lass to seek their fortune west of the Mississippi. Since
California was settled and the Pacific Coast occupied even at
scattered points, our frontiers, strange as it may seem, have not been
at the eastern or western ends, but on the middle of the country.
After this campaign of correspondence, Carleton returned home and
wrote that little book which has been so widely read, both in the East
and in the West, entitled "The Seat of Empire." It was published in
1870 by Fields & Co., of Boston. It had eight pages of introduction,
with a map of the territory yet to be settled. It was a volume of 232
pages, 16mo, and was illustrated. For many years afterwards, amid the
hundreds of letters received from grateful readers of his books, none
seemed to give Carleton more pleasure than those from readers who had
become settlers. This little book had indeed come to many as a
revelation of the promised land. The contagion reached even to Mrs.
Coffin's brothers, one of whom, with a nephew of Carleton, became a
pioneer farmer in the Red River Valley in Dakota.
Another pathfinder, a literary as well as military pioneer in opening
this noble region to civilization, was the warm friend of Carleton and
of the writer, General Henry B. Carrington, of the United States
regular army, and author of that standard authority, "Battles of the
American Revolution." During the Civil War, General Carrington had
been stationed in Indiana, where he was the potent agent in spoiling
the treasonable schemes of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and in
nobly seconding Governor Morton in holding the State true to the
Union. The war over, he served on the Western plains until 1868, and
then wrote "Absaraka, the Home of the Crows," which was a score of
years afterwards republished under the title of "Absaraka, the Land of
Massacre." General Carrington was afterwards one of the active members
of Shawmut Church. With his fine scholarly and literary tastes, he
made a delightful companion.
Any well-told narrative of the exploration, conquest, and civilization
of a country, with a history which has helped to make the pageant and
procession of human achievement so rich, is, when fully known, of
thrilling interest. How grand is the story of the Aryans in India, of
the first historic invaders of Japan, of the Roman advance into
northern Europe, of the making of Africa and of western America in our
own times! Even the culture-epoch of the North American Indians, as
written by Longfellow, in his "Song of Hiawatha," is as fascinating
as a fairy tale.
Carleton, believing himself and his country to be "in the foremost
files of time" and "the heirs of all the ages," came, saw, and wrote
of our empire in the Northwest, with an intoxication of delight.
Furthermore, he believed that those who came after him would see
vastly more of this part of the earth replenished and subdued. Yet the
conquest for which he longed was not to be with blood. His hope and
his purpose were intensely ethical and spiritual. His vision was of
the triumph of peace, law, order, religion. He urged emigrants looking
beyond the Mississippi, or the Rockies, to go in groups, and take with
them "the moral atmosphere of their old homes." He advocated the
opening of a school the first week and a Sunday school the first
Sunday following the arrival of such a colony at its destination. Even
a bare, new home, cramped and poor, he suggested, might be to them the
type of a better one in more prosperous years, and of the Home beyond,
so that, from the beginning, "on Sabbath morning, swelling upward on
the air, sweeter than the lay of the lark among the flowers, will
ascend the songs of the Sunday school established in their new home.
Looking forward with ardent hope of the earthly prosperous years, they
would look still beyond to the heavenly, and sing:
'My heavenly home is bright and fair;
Nor pain nor death can enter there.'"
In Japan's long and brilliant roll of benefactors and civilizers, no
names shine more gloriously than those of the Openers of Mountain
paths,--of men, priests or laymen, who, by showing the way,
surmounting the dangers and difficulties, revealed and made accessible
great spaces of land for home and harvest field. The Hebrew prophet
speaks eloquently of those who "raise up the foundation of many
generations," and of those called "the restorer of the paths to dwell
in." In this glorious company of the world's benefactors, Carleton's
name is written indelibly. Even "far-sighted" men deemed the project
of a railway to Puget Sound "visionary," when Carleton's pamphlet was
published. He lived to see it a reality.