Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1916 — THE BUILDING OF A COUNTRY [ARTICLE]

THE BUILDING OF A COUNTRY

The Natural Pride of Those Who Take Part in It To those who have built railroads through and. across the prairies of Western Canada, connecting that great empire of grain and cattle? horse and sheep with the world’s markets in the east, must be awarded the privilege Of looking upon their work, and its results with pardonable pride. If they reminiscence, and tell of the hardships and the privations, why shouldn’t they? The broad prairies on which the buffalo roamed and fed, are now alive with cities, towns and villages. Farms —large and small —on which mnrhinfirv has chased the bugaboo of laborious work off the farm, and making farm life one of the most pleasant and prosperous of occupations —are being cultivated by men of the highest stamp of manhood. Many of these have inherited from their forebears the physical strength and the high type of manliness that was theirs in the days when they hewed their homes out of the virgin forest, and made them what may be seen today, beautiful farms In the east. On the whole the western prairies breed a high type of manhood, wrest from him faults and diseases which would be his were It not for the upbuilding Influence and character of prairie life. When the builder qf the western Canadian prairie looks upon the result of his work, why shouldn’t his chest expand? It was probably some of this feeling of pride that took possession of Sir Donald Mann, vice president of the Canadian Northern Railway the other day in Winnipeg, when he said: “I am not in the habit of giving advice, but I have no hesitation of advising the young men of Canada, every young man, to get out and get a piece of western Canada’s land that now can be had for the asking and be their own masters.” “It was -36 years ago when L first earn'd to Winnipeg," he said. “At that time there were less than 150,000 people west of Lake Huron in Canada, and the only bit of railway in operation was between St. Boniface and Emerson —about sixty miles. Today there are nearly 20,000 miles of railway In actual operation and the population Is over two and a quarter million, a wonderful achievement in such a short period you will agree, when you have contemplated It a moment.” "At that time all the flour, meat and many other supplies for our contracts were brought from the States. Now consider what the west Is doing today. .-You have a grain production exceeding- a billion bushels and yet only a comparatively small area of the tillable land of the country is occupied. Five years hence you will be more than doubling that.” —Advertisement.