Men come here, not
to plead the cause of a suffering and dying Saviour; not
to give to the people a more pure and self-denying
morality, and a higher civilization; but to get rich. They
have had a dream, and are come to realize that dream. They
have dreamed of one thousand acres of land, bought at one
dollar and a quarter per acre, that by the magic growth of
some Western town becomes worth fifty thousand dollars.
They have dreamed of money invested in mythical towns,
which towns are to rival in their growth Toledo, Chicago
or St. Louis. The dream is to do nothing and get rich.
Land sharks, speculators, usurers and politicians who
aspire to a notoriety they will never win--a station they
will never occupy--swarm over the West thicker than frogs
in Egypt, and more intrusive than were these squatting,
crawling, jumping pests, when evoked from the river's
slime by the rod of Moses.
Some men are too old when they come to the West. They are
like a vine whose tendrils are rudely torn from a branch
around which they have wound themselves, and are so
hardened by time that they can not entwine themselves
around another support.
Pages:
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305