Catholic Colonization in Minnesota Part 2

In our Catholic colonies in Minnesota a parent has no such dread. He knows where his boys are on week days; they are helping him on the farm.

He knows where they are on Sundays; they are with him at church. When they are amusing themselves, he knows that they are with the young people of his neighbors, their companions and co-religionists.

Here, too, the anxious heart of the loving mother is at rest; for she sees her daughters a.s.sociating with the good and innocent of their own age, and growing up pure and virtuous.

"G.o.d made the country and man made the town," is an old saying. The immigration of those of our people adapted to agricultural life from the city to the land will be a benefit, not alone to themselves, but to those they leave behind. By this healthful drain the latter will be left more room, and have more opportunities to better their condition.

From any side we view it, it is a great and good work to encourage and labor for Catholic immigration to the land, where INDEPENDENCE shall reward labor, and Catholic zeal shall spread our holy faith over the fertile prairies of the West.

We would be very sorry to see, even if it was practicable, our people leaving the cities _en ma.s.se_. Many of them, well adapted for city life, rise to prosperity and social position in the city. Some to high professional or business standing, others to moderate respectable independence; others, in humbler walks of life, to decent homes of their own, and the city affords to the well brought up children of such homes, many solid advantages. We want full representation for our people in the city, and full representation on the land. By encouraging those of our people adapted, and best adapted for agricultural pursuits, to seek the land, we benefit them and benefit those who remain behind as well, for we give the latter healthy room and more opportunities: in a word, we improve the condition of our people, both in the city and in the country.

A STATEMENT IN REGARD TO THE RELATIONS WE HOLD TOWARDS IMMIGRANTS. WHAT THEY MAY EXPECT.

THE CLa.s.s WE INVITE.--THE PROPER TIMBER MUST BE IN THE MAN HIMSELF.

The great drawback to organized colonization is, that people expect too much; therefore we will be explicit, and state exactly what is proposed to be done for those coming to the Catholic colonies of Minnesota. In the first place, they will get in this pamphlet truthful and full statistics of the State, so far as those statistics are of interest to them; they will also get full details in regard to our colonies, and all the directions and information necessary.

When they arrive here (in St. Paul,) by calling at the office of the Catholic Colonization Bureau they will be directed to whichever colony they may wish to go. Arrived at the colony, they will be shown over its lands. Then when the immigrant has made his selection and taken possession, he must depend from thenceforth, on himself, and the more he does so the more he will feel himself a man.

The Catholic immigrant coming now to Minnesota will not be subject to the severe trials and hards.h.i.+ps the early settlers encountered, while he will be altogether exempt from the religious and social privations they had to bear through many lonely years.

The immigrant is now conveyed to the Catholic Colony he may select, by railroad train, and finds before him church and priest, market and settlers; nevertheless he should be a man possessing that n.o.ble quality which western life so well develops--

SELF-RELIANCE.

Under G.o.d, it is on himself he must depend for future success.

And here is the proper place to speak of the cla.s.s of persons whom we can confidently invite to our Catholic colonies--

FARMERS ALONE.

Not necessarily those who have heretofore been engaged altogether in agricultural pursuits, but persons who come to settle on farms, and who are able and willing to hold the plow. The poor man to succeed on a farm in Minnesota, must hold his own plow, and do his own ch.o.r.es; and, above all, have courage and strength to depend upon himself.

If he has a good, healthy, cheerful, wife, who prefers the prattle of her children to the gossip of the street, why, all the better--let him come along, and we will put him on the road to

PROSPERITY.

He has made more than half the journey already, when he has secured a good wife.

MINNESOTA.

ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION--SIZE--OPINIONS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN--FERTILITY, BEAUTY AND HEALTHFULNESS OF THE STATE.

The State contains 83,153 square miles or 53,459,840 acres, and is, therefore, one of the largest in the Union. It occupies the exact centre of the continent of North America. It lies midway between the Arctic and Tropic circles--midway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans--and midway between Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It embraces the sources of three vast water systems which reach their ocean termini, northward through Hudson's Bay, eastward through the chain of great lakes, and southward via the Mississippi River. It extends from 43-1/2 to 49 of north lat.i.tude, and from 89 29' to 97 5' of west longitude; and is bounded on the north by the Winnipeg district of British America, on the west by the Territory of Dakota, on the south by the State of Iowa, and on the east by Lake Superior and the State of Wisconsin.

In official reports before us, we find many interesting extracts from the writings of well-known public men, agriculturists, geologists, professors in various branches of science, engineers, surveyors and government officials, who have visited Minnesota at various times on business or pleasure, and who have borne enthusiastic testimony of her resources, the fertility of her soil, the healthfulness of her climate and the beauty of her scenery.

A few sentences from all these writings will suffice for us in this place.

In the official report of General Pope, who was commissioned by the government to make a topographical survey of portions of the State, we find the following sentence, which embraces almost all that can be said in praise. He says:

"I KNOW _of_ NO COUNTRY _on_ EARTH _where so_ MANY _advantages are presented to the_ FARMER AND MANUFACTURER."

The adaptability of our rich soil for all the staple crops, as proven by experience, the large yield per acre in wheat, oats, potatoes, &c., &c., the immense quant.i.ty of good land in large bodies, the truly magnificent water power within the State, and so beneficently located in its different sections; all these advantages, seen beneath a sky always bright, and in a climate at all seasons healthy, may well account for the enthusiasm which inspired the above eulogy on Minnesota.

The accredited correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, who visited this State some three years ago, is equally enthusiastic in his published letters to his paper. We give two extracts from those letters.

"No wonder the people here wear such smiling countenances. They are full of hope. I have yet to see the first despairing or gloomy face. Melancholy belongs to the overcrowded cities, and there is plenty of it in Chicago.

"Is it not astonis.h.i.+ng that so many able-bodied men should hang about our large cities doing nothing, because they can find nothing to do, and nearly starving to death, when these broad and fertile prairies are calling upon them to come and release the treasures which lie within the soil.

"The resources or this State are immense. It has every variety of wealth, and every facility for profitable exchange. There is no more productive soil in the world. Then the State has an abundance of pine timber. It has a vast amount of available water power, and offers every facility and encouragement to manufacturing industry.

It has mineral wealth on Lake Superior of iron and copper, in inexhaustible abundance. There is no region in this country, or any country, that I am aware of, that is so well watered. And the water is everywhere clear and pure. It is a land of great rivers, pellucid lakes, and sparkling streams.

"All this may sound enthusiastic, but every word is calmly written and justified by the facts; and it is strictly within the facts. If the advantages of this region were only adequately made known, there would surely be a great flow of labor from the cities and places where it is not wanted, into a region like this, where every variety of labor is needed and where it is certain to meet with a rich reward."

In the second extract we give, this correspondent expresses himself in language very similar to that made use of by General Pope. He says, still speaking of Minnesota:

"I know of no other portion of the earth's surface where so many advantages are concentrated, and where the man of industry and small means may so quickly and with so much certainty render himself independent. Here you have a climate of exceeding purity, a soil of amazing productiveness, abundance of the clearest water, with groves, and lakes, and rivers and streams wherever they are wanted. Then the great railway lines are beginning to intersect this country in all directions, and thus furnish the farmer with a cheap and immediate outlet for his produce."

We will close these brief extracts--taken from the writings of persons well qualified to form a sound judgment on the subject they were discussing, and totally unconnected personally with the interests of Minnesota--with two extracts from a speech of the distinguished statesman, Hon. Wm. H. Seward, delivered in St. Paul, the capital of our State, so far back as 1860.

Mr. Seward said, and America has not produced so far-seeing a statesman:

"Here is the place--the central place--where the agriculture of the richest region of North America must pour out its tributes to the whole world. On the east, all along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior, and west, stretching in one broad plain in a belt quite across the continent, is a country where State after State is yet to rise, and where the productions for the support of human society in the old crowded States must be brought forth.

I now believe that the ultimate last seat of government on this great continent will be found, somewhere within a circle or radius not very far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of navigation on the Mississippi river."

GENERAL STATE STATISTICS.

LAKES, RIVERS, TIMBER, CLIMATE, SOIL, STOCK RAISING.