THE LAND OF THE DACOTAHS
A skilled physician when he visits a sick room always diagnoses the case of the patient before he administers a remedy. In order to comprehend thoroughly the tremendous significance the Land of the Dacotahs bears in its relation to the solution of the problem of country life in America, one must know something about the commonwealth and its people.
North Dakota is a prairie state. Its land area comprises seventy-one thousand square miles of a rich black soil equal in its fertility to the deposits at the delta of the River Nile in Egypt. There are over forty million acres of tillable land. The state has one of the largest undeveloped lignite coal areas in the world.
Its climate is invigorating. The air is dry and wholesome. The summer months are delightful.The fields of golden grain are inviting. The winters, on the other hand, are long and dreary, and naturally lonely. People are prone to judge the climate of the state by its blizzards. Those who do, forget this fact—a vigorous climate always develops a healthy and vigorous people. No geographical barriers break the monotony of the lonesome prairie existence. A deadly dullness hovers over each community.
The population of the state is distinctly rural. Over seventy per cent of the people live in un-incorporated territory. Seven out of every eight persons are classed as rural. The vocation of the masses is agriculture. Everybody, everywhere, every day in the state talks agriculture. At the present time there are about two hundred towns with less than five hundred inhabitants.
One of the most interesting characteristics of this prairie commonwealth is its population. They are a sturdy people, strong in heart and broad in mental vision. The romance of the Indian and the cowboy, the fur-trader and the trapper, has been the theme of many an interestingtale. The first white settler, who took a knife and on bended knee cut squares of sod and built a shanty and faced long hard winters on this northern prairie, is a character the whole world loves and honors. Several years ago an old schoolmaster, whose home is not so very far from Minnehaha Falls, delivered a “Message to the Northwest” which typifies the spirit of these people. He said in part:
“I am an old man now, and have seen many things in the world. I have seen this great country that we speak of as the Northwest, come, in my lifetime, to be populous and rich. The forest has fallen before the pioneer, the field has blossomed, and the cities have risen to greatness. If there is anything that an old man eighty years of age could say to a people among whom he has spent the happiest days of his life, it is this: We live in the most blessed country in the world. The things we have accomplished are only the beginning. As the years go on, and always we increase our strength, our power, and our wealth, we must not depart from the simple teachings of our youth. For the moral fundamentals are the same and unchangeable. Here in the Northwest we shall make a race of men that shall inherit the earth. Here in the distant years, when I and others who have labored with meshall long have been forgotten, there will be a power in material accomplishment, in spiritual attainment, in wealth, strength, and moral influence, the like of which the world has not yet seen. This I firmly believe. And the people of the Northwest, moving ever forward to greater things, will accomplish all this as they adhere always to the moral fundamentals, and not otherwise.”
“I am an old man now, and have seen many things in the world. I have seen this great country that we speak of as the Northwest, come, in my lifetime, to be populous and rich. The forest has fallen before the pioneer, the field has blossomed, and the cities have risen to greatness. If there is anything that an old man eighty years of age could say to a people among whom he has spent the happiest days of his life, it is this: We live in the most blessed country in the world. The things we have accomplished are only the beginning. As the years go on, and always we increase our strength, our power, and our wealth, we must not depart from the simple teachings of our youth. For the moral fundamentals are the same and unchangeable. Here in the Northwest we shall make a race of men that shall inherit the earth. Here in the distant years, when I and others who have labored with meshall long have been forgotten, there will be a power in material accomplishment, in spiritual attainment, in wealth, strength, and moral influence, the like of which the world has not yet seen. This I firmly believe. And the people of the Northwest, moving ever forward to greater things, will accomplish all this as they adhere always to the moral fundamentals, and not otherwise.”
The twenty-odd nationalities who live in the Dacotahs came from lands where folklore was a part of their everyday life. Many a Norseman—and there are nearly two hundred thousand people of Scandinavian origin, Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, and Icelanders, in the state—knows the story of Ole Bull, the famous violinist, who when a lad used to take his instrument, go out in the country near the waterfalls, listen attentively to the water as it rushed over the abyss, then take his violin, place it under his chin, and draw the bow across the strings, to see whether he could imitate the mysterious sounds. Most of these Norse people live in the northern and eastern section of the state. The hundred thousand citizens whose ancestors came from the British Isles—the English, the Welsh, the Scotch, the Irish,and the Canadians—know something of Shakespeare and Synge and Bobbie Burns. Ten years ago there were sixty thousand people of Russian descent and forty-five thousand of Teutonic origin in the state. They were acquainted with Tolstoy and Wagner. Greeks, Italians, and Turks, besides many other nationalities, live in scattered sections of the state. In fact, seventy-two per cent of the citizens of the state are either foreign born or of foreign descent. All these people came originally from countries whose civilizations are much older than our own. All have inherited a poetry, a drama, an art, a life in their previous national existence, which, if brought to light through the medium of some great American ideal and force, would give to the state and the country a rural civilization such as has never been heard of in the history of the world. All these people are firm believers in American ideals.
One excellent feature in connection with the life of the people who live in Hiawatha’s Land of the Dacotahs is their attitude toward education. They believe that knowledge is power. Out on these prairies they have erected schoolhousesfor the training of their youth. To-day there are nearly five hundred consolidated schools in the state. One hundred and fifty of these are in the open country, dozens of which are many miles from any railroad. Twenty-three per cent of the state area is served by this class of schools. Much of the social life of a community is centered around the school, the church, the village or town hall, and the home. The greater the number of activities these institutions indulge in for the social and civic betterment of the whole community, the more quickly the people find themselves and become contented with their surroundings.
In most respects, however, North Dakota is not unlike other states. People there are actually hungry for social recreation. The prairies are lonely in the winter. Thousands of young men and women whose homes are in rural communities, when asked what they wanted out in the country most, have responded, “More Life.” The heart hunger of folks for other folks is just the same there as everywhere.