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 valor.
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 labored 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 laboring
Irish in these towns eat meat seven days a week, but I have met
many a laboring 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
labor 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 labor 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
forever.
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