Page 38 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

3 6 WISCONS~N IIISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

I shall always esteem it a special favor t~ be associated with
the literary and progressive minds of the Great West. Indeed,
it is to be hat is now called the Great West, that we begin to
look for whatever is grand, either materially or intellectually.
The men of genius, spirit and enterprise, have departed from
the Atlantic States, to make those of the Great Valley of the
Mississippi, what it very soon must be, in agriculture, in com-
merce, in population, in wealth, and I think in refinement and
intelligence, also, what it already is in extent, the WONDER OR
THE WORLD.
"Europe will continue, with accelerated force, to pour into
your spacious territory a population for labor, which, guided
and stimulated by the active spirits you now have, will soon
make these old Atlantic States dwindle into comparative insig-
nificance. I dare predict, that you, yourself, will see daily
trains of freighted cars from the Pacific coast, arriving at St.
Louis, or some other of your western cities, laden with the rich
products of China, Japan, and all the Indies, and perhaps
weekly auction sales there of thousands of packages of silks,
teas, and other eastern products. What then, will be Now
York and Philadelphia ? Only border cities; whilst yours will
be a revival, on a far grander scale, of the interior cities of
antiquity.
"One thing let me suggest. You must be aware that the
preponderating political power of this great country will soon
rest with the North-Western States. You have gatliered up
and chronicled the many deeds of heroism of the pioneers. It
is time now to stimulate chiefly among all classes the principle
of universal peace and good order. It is theae that will attract
to you the most enterprising and intelligent of Europeans.-
Looking, as they mostly now do, at England as the best sample
of European States, they soon turn away when contrasted with
the Great West in America, with loathing and disgust. They
see, since the war of the revolution in England in 1689, which
lasted nine years, that about sixty years of war have since fol-
lowed, with an estimated expenditure prior to the late Russian