All These Are Open To Steamers, And All Of Them Traverse
Regions Rich In Corn, In Coal, In Metals, Or In Timber.
These
ready-made highways of the world center, as it were, at St. Louis,
and make it the depot of the carrying trade of all that vast
country.
Minnesota is 1500 miles above New Orleans, but the wheat
of Minnesota can be brought down the whole distance without change
of the vessel in which it is first deposited. It would seem to be
impossible that a country so blessed should not become rich. It
must be remembered that these rivers flow through lands that have
never yet been surpassed in natural fertility. Of all countries in
the world one would say that the States of America should have been
the last to curse themselves with a war; but now the curse has
fallen upon them with a double vengeance, it would seem that they
could never be great in war: their very institutions forbid it;
their enormous distances forbid it; the price of labor forbids it;
and it is forbidden also by the career of industry and expansion
which has been given to them. But the curse of fighting has come
upon them, and they are showing themselves to be as eager in the
works of war as they have shown themselves capable in the works of
peace. Men and angels must weep as they behold the things that are
being done, as they watch the ruin that has come and is still
coming, as they look on commerce killed and agriculture suspended.
No sight so sad has come upon the earth in our days. They were a
great people; feeding the world, adding daily to the mechanical
appliances of mankind, increasing in population beyond all measures
of such increase hitherto known, and extending education as fast as
they extended their numbers. Poverty had as yet found no place
among them, and hunger was an evil of which they had read but were
themselves ignorant. Each man among their crowds had a right to be
proud of his manhood. To read and write - I am speaking here of the
North - was as common as to eat and drink. To work was no disgrace,
and the wages of work were plentiful. To live without work was the
lot of none. What blessing above these blessings was needed to make
a people great and happy? And now a stranger visiting them would
declare that they are wallowing in a very slough of despond. The
only trade open is the trade of war. The axe of the woodsman is at
rest; the plow is idle; the artificer has closed his shop. The roar
of the foundery is still heard because cannon are needed, and the
river of molten iron comes out as an implement of death. The stone-
cutter's hammer and the mason's trowel are never heard. The gold of
the country is hiding itself as though it had returned to its mother
earth, and the infancy of a paper currency has been commenced. Sick
soldiers, who have never seen a battle-field, are dying by hundreds
in the squalid dirt of their unaccustomed camps. Men and women talk
of war, and of war only. Newspapers full of the war are alone read.
A contract for war stores - too often a dishonest contract - is the
one path open for commercial enterprise. The young man must go to
the war or he is disgraced. The war swallows everything, and as yet
has failed to produce even such bitter fruits as victory or glory.
Must it not be said that a curse has fallen upon the land?
And yet I still hope that it may ultimately be for good. Through
water and fire must a nation be cleansed of its faults. It has been
so with all nations, though the phases of their trials have been
different. It did not seem to be well with us in Cromwell's early
days; nor was it well with us afterward in those disgraceful years
of the later Stuarts. We know how France was bathed in blood in her
effort to rid herself of her painted sepulcher of an ancient throne;
how Germany was made desolate, in order that Prussia might become a
nation. Ireland was poor and wretched till her famine came. Men
said it was a curse, but that curse has been her greatest blessing.
And so will it be here in the West. I could not but weep in spirit
as I saw the wretchedness around me - the squalid misery of the
soldiers, the inefficiency of their officers, the bickerings of
their rulers, the noise and threats, the dirt and ruin, the terrible
dishonesty of those who were trusted! These are things which made a
man wish that he were anywhere but there. But I do believe that God
is still over all, and that everything is working for good. These
things are the fire and water through which this nation must pass.
The course of this people had been too straight, and their way had
been too pleasant. That which to others had been ever difficult had
been made easy for them. Bread and meat had come to them as things
of course, and they hardly remembered to be thankful. "We,
ourselves, have done it," they declared aloud. "We are not as other
men. We are gods upon the earth. Whose arm shall be long enough to
stay us, or whose bolt shall be strong enough to strike us?"
Now they are stricken sore, and the bolt is from their own bow.
Their own hands have raised the barrier that has stayed them. They
have stumbled in their running, and are lying hurt upon the ground;
while they who have heard their boastings turn upon them with
ridicule, and laugh at them in their discomforture. They are
rolling in the mire, and cannot take the hand of any man to help
them. Though the hand of the by-stander may be stretched to them,
his face is scornful and his voice full of reproaches.
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