Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/233

Rh who sometimes betrays them. The better and more noble-minded men of the State are unable to compete with these schemers, and therefore do not offer themselves; hence it most frequently happens that they are not the best men who govern the State. Bold and ambitious fortune-hunters most easily get into office, and once in office they endeavour to maintain their place by every kind of scheme and trick, as well as by flattering the masses of the people to preserve their popularity. The ignorant people of Europe, who believe that kings and great lords are the cause of all the evils in the world, vote for that man who speaks loudest against the powerful, and who declares himself to be a friend of the people.

I also heard it lamented that the Scandinavian immigrants not unfrequently come hither with the belief that the State-church and religion are one and the same thing and when they have left behind them the former, they will have nothing to do with the latter. Long compulsion of mind has destroyed, to that degree, their powers of mind; and they come into the West very frequently in the first instance, as rejectors of all church communion and every higher law. And this is natural enough for people not accustomed to think greatly; but is a moment of transition which cannot last very long in any sound mind, and in a hemisphere where the glance is so clear and alive to everything which contributes to the higher life of man or of society.

Illinois is a youthful State, with a million inhabitants, but is able, with her rich soil, to support at least ten millions. The climate, however, is not favourable to immigrants from Europe, who, during the first few years suffer from fever and other climatic diseases.

In the morning I leave Chicago and cross Lake Michigan to Millewankee in Wisconsin. An agreeable young man came last evening to fetch me there.

I have been merely a few days in Chicago, and yet I