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diff --git a/old/56012-0.txt b/old/56012-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 30110cc..0000000 --- a/old/56012-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4516 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin, by Joseph Schafer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin - -Author: Joseph Schafer - -Release Date: November 20, 2017 [EBook #56012] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON *** - - - - -Produced by MFR, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON - IN WISCONSIN - - BY - JOSEPH SCHAFER - - [Illustration] - - Reprinted from the _Wisconsin Magazine of History_ - Volume VI, No. 2, December, 1922 - - - - -THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - -I. CHARACTERISTIC ATTITUDES TOWARD THE LAND - - -Wisconsin in its racial character is popularly known to the country at -large as a Teutonic state. That means the state has a German element, -original and derivative, which numerically overshadows the American, -English, Irish, Scandinavian, and other stocks also represented in -the Badger blend. It is not necessary to quarrel with this widely -accepted theorem, though some of the corollaries drawn from it can be -shown to be unhistorical; and one can demonstrate statistically that -if Wisconsin now is, or at any census period was, a Teutonic state -she began her statehood career in 1848 as a Yankee state and thus -continued for many years with consequences social, economic, political, -religious, and moral which no mere racial substitutions have had power -to obliterate. My purpose in the present paper is to present, from -local sources, some discussion of the relations of Yankee and Teuton -to the land--a theme which ought to throw light on the process of -substitution mentioned, revealing how the Teuton came into possession -of vast agricultural areas once firmly held by the Yankee. - -The agricultural occupation of southern Wisconsin, which brought the -first tide of immigration from New England, western New York, northern -Pennsylvania, and Ohio--the Yankee element--may be said roughly to -have been accomplished within the years 1835 and 1850. The settlements -which existed prior to 1835 were in the lead region of the southwest, -at Green Bay, and at Prairie du Chien. The population of the lead mines -was predominantly of southern and southwestern origin; that of the -two other localities--the ancient seats of the Indian trade and more -recent centers of military defense--was mainly French-Canadian. When, -in 1836, a territorial census was taken, it was found that the three -areas named had an aggregate population of nearly 9000, of which more -than 5000 was in the lead region included in the then county of Iowa. -The Green Bay region (Brown County) was next, and the Prairie du Chien -settlement (Crawford County) smallest. - -The census, however, recognized a new county, Milwaukee, whose -territory had been severed from the earlier Brown County. It was -bounded east by Lake Michigan, south by Illinois, west by a line drawn -due north from the Illinois line to Wisconsin River at the Portage, and -north by a line drawn due east from the Portage to the lake. In terms -of present-day divisions, the Milwaukee County of 1836 embraced all of -Kenosha, Racine, Walworth, Rock, Jefferson, Waukesha, and Milwaukee -counties, nearly all of Ozaukee, Washington, and Dodge, a strip of -eastern Green County, and most of Dane and Columbia. In that imperial -domain the census takers found a grand total of 2900 persons, or almost -exactly one-fourth of the population of the entire territory. - -Two significant facts distinguish the Milwaukee County census list -from the lists of Brown, Crawford, and Iowa counties--the recency -of the settlement and the distinctive local origin of the settlers. -These people had only just arrived, most of them in the early months -of 1836. One could almost count on his ten fingers the individuals -who were there prior to the summer of 1835. In reality they were not -yet “settled,” for most of the rude claim huts--mere shelters of the -pre-log house stage--were haunted at night and shadowed at noonday -by men only, resident families being still rare, though many were on -the lakes, at the ports of Milwaukee and Chicago, or on the overland -trail which was to end at the cabin door. It was the prophecy of new -communities, not the actuality, that the census taker chronicled when -he recorded the names of claim takers with the number of persons, -of each sex, comprising their households. We have reason to believe -that the numbers were inscribed almost as cheerfully when the persons -represented by them were still biding in the old home or were en route -west, as when they were physically present in the settler’s cabin or in -the dooryard, eager to be counted. - -[Illustration: - - WISCONSIN TERRITORY - 1836 - - Drawn by Mary Stuart Foster.] - -Unlike the other populations of Wisconsin at that time, the vast -majority of Milwaukee County settlers were Northeasterners. Such -evidence as we have indicates that New York supplied more than half, -the New England states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan nearly all of -the balance.[1] New York’s title to primacy in peopling Wisconsin is -exhibited, most impressively, in the statistics of the 1850 census. At -that time native Americans constituted 63 per cent of the total and -New Yorkers had 36 per cent of the native majority. Native Americans -predominated in all but three of the twenty-six counties, and in all -but five those who were natives of New York, added to the natives of -Wisconsin, were a majority of the American born. The exceptions were -the four lead mining counties of Grant, Iowa, Lafayette, and Green, -together with Richland, which, however, had so few inhabitants that its -case is divested of any significance. - -The three counties which, in 1850, showed a majority of foreign born -inhabitants were Manitowoc, Milwaukee, and Washington (the last named -including the present Ozaukee County); and in each case Germans -constituted more than half of that majority. Together those three -counties had over 20,000, which was considerably more than one-half -of all the Germans (38,054) domiciled in Wisconsin at that time. The -other lake shore counties, together with Calumet, Fond du Lac, Dodge, -Jefferson, and Waukesha, accounted for 15,000 of the balance, leaving -about 3000 scattered over the rest of the state. Thus the area embraced -by Lake Michigan, Lake Winnebago and lower Fox River, the upper reaches -of Rock River, and the south boundary of Jefferson, Waukesha, and -Milwaukee counties was all strongly and in the main distinctively -German. - -Investigating the causes which may have operated to concentrate the -German population within such clearly defined geographic limits, our -first inquiry concerns the land on which settlement was taking place. -And here we find that the distinguishing fact marking off the region -in which Germans abounded from most of the other settled or partially -settled areas of the state was its originally thickly wooded character. -In a way almost startling, and superficially conclusive, the German -settlements coincided with the great maple forest of southeastern -Wisconsin, spreading also through the included pine forest on Lake -Michigan south of Green Bay. - -Returning now to the Yankee element, we find that although it was -strong in all of the settled districts save the five counties named, -it was more completely dominant in some districts than in others. For -example, in Walworth County the northeastern states furnished 96.5 per -cent of the American population, while 3.5 per cent was furnished by -sixteen other states. The foreign born constituted less than 16 per -cent of the total.[2] Walworth County was a section of the new “Yankee -Land,” which included in its boundaries also the counties of Racine -and Kenosha, Rock, and at that time parts of Waukesha and Jefferson. -Nowhere in that region were foreigners very numerous, and in many -localities non-English speaking foreigners were almost scarce. - -Physically, this new Yankee Land comprised those portions of the -prairies and openings of southern Wisconsin which lay not more than -from sixty to seventy-five miles from the lake ports at Milwaukee, -Racine, and Kenosha. The region was just as characteristically “open -country” as that occupied so extensively by Germans was forested. One -land type, the glacial marsh or swale--good for hay and pasture--was -common to the two districts of country. But for the rest, the Yankee’s -land was all ready for the plow if it was prairie, and if oak openings -the labor of felling the scattered trees and dragging them away before -the breaking team was comparatively light. - -The German, on the other hand, in order to subdue his land to the -requirements of successful tillage, must attack with ax, mattock, -and firebrand each successive acre, patiently slashing and burning, -hewing and delving, till by dint of unremitting toil extended over an -indefinite number of years his farm became “cleared.” - -Shall we therefore repeat, as the sober verdict of history, the -statement often heard, that in settling this new country the Yankee -showed a preference for open land, the German for woodland? On the -face of the census returns that seems to be the case, and if our -evidence were limited to the census such a conclusion would be well -nigh inescapable. Fortunately, he who deals with culture history -problems of the American West has this advantage over the Greenes and -the Lamprechts of Europe, that on such matters his evidence is minutely -particular, while theirs is general to the point of vagueness. No one -will doubt that the Yankee staked his claim in the open lands because -he preferred those lands on account of the ease with which a farm could -be made. The question is, whether the German’s presence in the woods -rather than in the openings or on the prairies was with him a matter of -preference so far as land selection in itself was concerned. - -Timber for shelter, fuel, building, and fencing was an important -consideration to all settlers, including the Yankees. In another -connection I have shown, from the records of land entries, that the -Yankee settlers in a prevailingly prairie township of Racine County -took up first every acre of forested land, together with the prairie -lands and marsh lands adjoining the woods, while they shunned for -some years the big, open, unsheltered prairie where farms would be -out of immediate touch with woods.[3] Rather than take treeless lands -near the lake shore, these settlers preferred to go farther inland -where inviting combinations of groves, meadows, and dry prairie -lands, or openings, could still be found in the public domain. Only -gradually did American settlers overcome their natural repugnance to -a shelterless, timberless farm home--a repugnance justified by common -sense, but springing from the habit of generations. When, for economic -reasons, they began to settle on the open prairies, the planting of -quick-growing trees about the farmsteads was always esteemed a work of -fundamental utility. - -Yankee agricultural settlers found special inducements for going inland -in search of ideal farm locations, in the glowing advertisements of -Yankee speculators who early pioneered the open country far and wide. -These speculators concerned themselves primarily with water powers for -sawmill and gristmill sites and town sites. Yet power and town sites -both depended for their development on the agricultural occupation -of the surrounding country, and this made the speculators careful to -locate their claims in areas of desirable lands which would soon be -wanted. It also made them doubly active in proclaiming to immigrants -the agricultural advantages of their chosen localities. - -One may take up at random the land office records of townships in the -older Wisconsin, and in practically every case find proof that the -speculator was abroad in the land before the arrival of the farmer. -Along the banks of navigable rivers he took up, early, such tracts -as seemed to afford good steamboat landings, which might mean towns -or villages also. Along smaller streams he engrossed potential water -powers. In the prairie regions he seized the timbered tracts which -commonly lay along the streams. And wherever nature seemed to have -sketched the physical basis for a future town, there he drove his -stakes and entered an area large enough at least for a municipal center. - -In some portions, particularly of the earliest surveys, the speculator -also absorbed a goodly share of the best farm land, which he held -for an advance when the immigration of farmers became heavy. Other -Americans, aside from Yankees, participated in these speculations, -but the records show that the Yankee’s reputation for alertness and -sagacity in that line is not unmerited. For illustration, the plats of -Dane County townships disclose among the original entrymen who bought -their lands early, the names of well known speculators like James D. -Doty, Lucius Lyon, the Bronsons, Cyrus Woodman, Hazen Cheney, and -C. C. Washburn--all Yankees. In addition, we have distinguished New -Englanders who probably never came west but invested through the agency -of their Yankee correspondents. Among them are Daniel Webster, Edward -Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Caleb Cushing. - -To a considerable extent these speculators, in paying for government -lands, employed military land warrants, usually purchased at a heavy -discount. “Scripping” by this means became more common after the -Mexican War. A German immigration leader wrote at the close of 1848: -“There is a man living in Sheboygan who has already placed 344 of these -warrants [each good for 160 acres] on government lands and intends next -spring to place 200 more on tracts lying north of Fox River.”[4] He -did not say the man was a Yankee; possibly he deemed that information -unnecessary. For, although the German sometimes bought warrants of -the brokers in order to save the difference between the price of such -warrants and the land office price of government land, he did not in -the early years of the immigration speculate in farm lands. - -Therein was one of the outstanding differences between him and the -Yankee. The German could not be tolled into the interior by golden -promises of unearned increments from the sale of city lots, of mill -sites, or of choice farm lands which were going rapidly. His caution -and his phlegm were a protection. He was not particularly responsive -to the optimistic prophecies of the development of this region or -that region in which this company or that prominent individual had -interests. For these reasons, the German’s motives as a land seeker -were more legitimately economic and social than were those of the -Yankee, and on the basis of such motives we can explain his settlement -in the woods. - -In his homeland the German villager loved the forest for its shelter, -its recreational hospitality, and the benefits it conferred in -necessary fuel, timber, bedding, and forage. A large proportion of the -early German immigrants came from south German provinces dominated by -such famous old forests as the Schwartzwald and the Odenwald. From -considerations both of habit and of economy it was natural that in the -New World they should make sure of an abundance of timber on the lands -they sought for future homes. Yet, there is no reason to assume that -the German, any more than the Yankee, courted the grilling labor of -clearing heavily forested land--a labor to him the more formidable for -the want of the Yankee’s training in axmanship and his almost unbroken -tradition of winning fields from forests. Some German pioneers who were -self-helpful struck for the openings and the prairies, and like the -Yankee chose for their farms the ideal combination of wood, marsh, and -open land whenever such a combination could be found within easy reach -of the market.[5] - -But Germans were less venturesome than Yankees, or more prudent, -depending on the point of view. In the old home they were accustomed -to haul their farm produce many miles in going to the markets and -fairs. But there the roads were passable at all seasons. In the New -World, where all was in the making, the roads were often impassable and -always--except in winter--so rough and troublesome as to daunt those -who were not to the manner born.[6] Hence the German settler’s idea -of what constituted a safe distance from the lake ports within which -to open a farm differed from the Yankee’s idea. There is one striking -illustration of that difference. Along the Illinois boundary from Lake -Michigan westward was the strip of prairie and openings twenty-four -miles wide and seventy-eight long which was divided into Racine and -Kenosha counties (on the lake), Walworth, and Rock. We have already -called that region the new Yankee Land and have seen the Yankee farmers -spread over it with seeming disregard to distance from the lake ports, -each being intent rather on finding an ideal combination of desirable -kinds of land. The three divisions of the strip contained almost equal -numbers of Yankees--these people evidently believing that canals, -roads, plank roads, and railways would come to them when needed, while -a good farm location once lost was gone forever; and being willing -also, until such improvements should come, to haul their crops sixty or -seventy-five miles to market. Not so the few Germans who entered this -Yankee Land prior to 1850. More than four-fifths of them were in the -section nearest the lake (Racine and Kenosha counties), and less than -one-thirtieth in Rock County, the farthest west of the strip. - -The movement into the prairies and openings of the southeast had been -going on for about four years before the Germans began coming to -Wisconsin, and so many selections of first choice, second choice, and -even third choice land had been made that newcomers were already at a -disadvantage in that region, especially if a number of them desired -to settle near together in a body, which was the case of Old Lutheran -congregations who made up the earliest German immigrations. Moreover, -most of the Yankees were business-like farmers who generally planned -for fairly large farms, in order to make money by raising wheat. They -were mainly men who had sold small farms in the East in order to secure -larger, or sons of large farmers. Most of them had money or credit to -enable them to acquire land, construct buildings and fences, buy stock, -and begin farming operations. Having found good land by canvassing the -whole region, they were not to be dislodged until, with the failure of -wheat crops at a later time, the spirit of emigration sent numbers of -them to fresh wheat lands farther west, thus making opportunity for -well-to-do Germans to buy their improved farms, which they did to a -great extent. - -Meantime, the forested lands pivoting on Milwaukee, the most promising -of the lake ports, were open to entry at the land office or to -purchase at private sale on easy terms. The Yankee had not altogether -shunned those lands. There, as elsewhere, he had been looking for -good investments, and the project for the Milwaukee and Rock River -Canal, which was to traverse a portion of the forested area through -the present Milwaukee, Waukesha, and Jefferson counties, favored -speculation in farm lands as well as in mill sites and town sites. -Besides, there is evidence that some of the poorer Yankee immigrants -who felt unable at once to maintain themselves on open land farms, -often settled first in the woods, where they began making improvements -with ax and fire, only to sell out promptly at an advance and go to -the prairie or openings to establish permanent farms. But most of the -forested land was still “Congress land” when the Germans began coming -to Wisconsin. - -The German “Pilgrims,” as the first colony was called, arrived at -Milwaukee early in October, 1839, their leader being Henry von Rohr. -Within a month they had decided on a location, in the western part of -township 9, range 21 east (the town of Mequon, Ozaukee County), and -had made numerous purchases of government land. They selected a tract -of high, rolling land, heavily timbered, well watered, and with an -extensive marsh near by in the public domain which would furnish free -hay and pasture.[7] The situation was similar to that which was chosen, -near Watertown (in the town of Lebanon), a few years later by a German -colony from the same region. They also took a tract of heavily timbered -upland neighbored by an extensive marsh. “Here,” said their leader, “we -have both wood and hay” (“_Holz und Heu_”).[8] - -Many of the colonists in these two congregations were very poor. Those -who had means lent to the indigent to enable them to emigrate. For them -it would have been madness to go to the prairies, where such absolute -necessities as fuel, building material, and fencing might cost ready -money and at best would be difficult to procure. In the woods trees -cut on the spot were used to build cabin and log house, stable, garden -and field enclosure. Some of the German families were months without -draft ox or even cow. All work was performed by hand, including the -carrying of logs from the spot where the trees were felled to the -place where they were to be rolled up to make the cabin wall. To such -settlers, bringing timber from a distance would have been among the -impossibilities. Their place was in the forest, where labor alone was -required for making the beginnings of a self-sustaining home. - -In thousands of later instances, Germans who came to Wisconsin on their -own slender means were in a similar case to these early seekers of -religious freedom. An immigrant of 1848, J. F. Diederichs, has left a -diary and letters from which the process of home making in the woods -can be reconstructed.[9] Diederichs, after considerable search, found -eighty acres of good government land nine miles from Manitowoc, where -early in winter he settled down to work alongside of several other -Germans who were as poor as himself. The location was favorable, being -near a port. “What good is there,” he writes, “to possess the finest -land and be 6, 8 or 10 days journey from market.”[10] The first step -was to build a cabin, the next to bring his family from Milwaukee and -with a few dollars borrowed for the purpose to lay in supplies for -them. Then he erected a comfortable log house and continued clearing -till, by the middle of May, he had two acres ready partly for garden -and partly for potatoes, corn, and beans to provide the family with -food. Diederichs realized that “to begin such work at the age of 44 is -some job,” and recognized that not he and his wife but the children -would be the chief beneficiaries. Nevertheless, the joy of creation was -not wholly denied him. He had, he said, the “prettiest” location; house -set on a commanding knoll, with a pure limpid stream flowing within -a few yards of it, along whose course was some open land, making a -“layout for the finest pastures.” And there was timber enough on his -eighty to be worth $30,000 in the home town of Elberfelt. Of this, he -would gladly make his friends in Germany a present of about $20,000 -worth! - -The question of nearness to market was a determinant also in the cases -of Germans who were well enough off to take open lands. William Dames -found, for himself and associates, a favorable tract near Ripon. It -contained 160 acres prairie, 320 acres openings, and 160 acres of -low prairie or meadow land. The advantages of that neighborhood, he -wrote, were these: first, the prospectively near market, by way of -the Fox River Canal to be completed the following spring; second, the -excellence of the soil; third, the ease with which the land could be -made into productive farms. There one need not subject himself to the -murderous toil incident to farm making in the woods. And, fourth, the -healthfulness of the climate and the superb drinking water. - -One bit of information which Dames conveyed to his fellow Germans who -were contemplating immigration to Wisconsin, was that the Yankees (by -which term he described all native Americans) and the Scotch settlers -of that neighborhood were becoming eager to sell their partly improved -farms, preparatory to moving into the newer region north of Fox River. -He advised Germans able to do so to buy such farms, which were to -be had in plenty not only in Fond du Lac County but near Watertown, -near Delafield, and even near Milwaukee--prices varying with the -improvements, nearness to the city, etc. He seemed to think the Germans -but ill adapted to pioneering. Let the German immigrant, he said, buy a -partly cleared farm; then he could follow his calling in ways to which -he was accustomed. Moreover, since such farms produced fairly well even -under the indifferent treatment accorded them by the Yankee farmers, -the German farmer need have no fear of failure. - -The advice to purchase farms already begun was widely followed by the -financially competent German immigrants. Ownership records of one -Milwaukee County township show that the lands were originally taken -mainly by Irish and Americans, yet in 1850 nearly one-half of the -settlers were Germans; and there is no reason to regard that case -as singular. Probably the Germans who bought improved farms were as -numerous as those who bought Congress land. Many poor men worked as -farm hands for some years and then bought small improved farms in -preference to buying Congress land. - -The experience of an 1849 immigrant, Johannes Kerler, illustrates -the less common case of Germans who arrived with considerable means. -Kerler brought with him to Milwaukee a sum, derived from the sale of -a profitable business, which would have enabled him to buy scores of -mill sites and town sites in the public domain. Instead, he limited his -investment to a 200-acre farm seven miles from the city, paying for the -land, including all crops and livestock, $17 per acre. The buildings -consisted of a log house and a cabin. One-half the farm was divided -between plow land and meadow; the balance--100 acres--supported a dense -forest growth. Kerler at once erected a barn for his cattle, and a -good two-story frame house for the family. Then he went to farming and -quickly transformed the earlier crude homestead into a fruitful and -beautiful farm, the show place of the neighborhood.[11] - -Social forces are among the imponderables, and yet their influence -in controlling the distribution of immigration must have been -considerable. The fact that nearly all incoming Germans landed in -Milwaukee, where were acquaintances and often friends, tended in -a hundred subtle ways to attach the newcomers to that community. -Before 1850 Milwaukee had come to be looked upon as a German city. -“There,” said one immigrant, “more German than English is spoken.” It -had its German churches, schools, clubs, societies, and recreational -features, all of which constituted powerful attractions. It was the -most important industrial center of the state, with a relatively large -demand for the labor which with farm work was the poorer immigrant’s -sole means of getting a financial start. In addition, it was the -commercial metropolis, and that the German was firmly tethered to his -market has already become clear. - -The construction of the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad, begun in -1849 and completed to Prairie du Chien in 1857, partially freed the -German immigrant from his dread of being marooned in the interior. -Desirable government lands accessible to the proposed railroad were -generally taken up several years before the completion of the road, -and among the entrymen in certain districts were many newly arrived -Germans. This was true to some extent in Dane County, but more -noticeably so farther west. In Iowa County and in Grant were sheltered -pleasant and fertile valleys, opening toward the Wisconsin, which would -be served by the railroad when completed, and which had long been in -touch with the world by means of steamers plying on the Wisconsin. -In those valleys, and on the wider ridges between them, the Germans -competed with others for the choicest locations on government and state -lands. Land entry records for two townships in Blue River valley show, -by 1860, out of an aggregate of 122 foreign born families 59 of German -origin, while the American families numbered 93. A similar proportion -doubtless obtained in other towns south of the river. - -Directly opposite these townships, in the same survey range but lying -on the north side of Wisconsin River, was the town of Eagle, whose -settlement was almost exactly contemporaneous with that of the Blue -River valley. But Eagle, in 1860, had 20 foreign born families to 108 -American, and of the 20 only 13 were German. - -Inasmuch as the people on the two banks of the river had a common -market--Muscoda, which was a station on the railroad--and the lands of -Eagle were more fertile and quite as well watered, the question why the -Germans avoided that town and made homes south of the river is surely -interesting, and possibly significant. - -There were two important differences between the two districts. In -Blue River the valley land, to use the surveyor’s phrase, was “thinly -timbered with oak,” while in the valley of Mill Creek, or Eagle Creek, -opposite was a dense forest dominated by the sugar maple but containing -big timber of several varieties, and dense undergrowth. In a word, it -was a heavily timbered area. Now the Germans near Lake Michigan had -given ample proof of gallantry in attacking forest covered farms, yet -when the choice was before them of taking such land in Richland County -or easily cleared land of poorer quality in Grant, almost with one -accord they selected the latter. - -We cannot be certain that the difference in the timbered character of -the land was the sole motive determining the choice, though doubtless -it was the most important. The railroad ran on the south side of the -river and the principal trading center was on that side. Settlers -in Blue River valley could therefore reach the market by a direct, -unbroken haul with teams over public roads. Those in Eagle at first -were obliged to use the ferry in crossing the river, and later they had -to cross on a toll bridge except in midwinter, if the river was frozen -to a safe depth, when they crossed on the ice. These transportation -conditions might have deterred some Germans from settling north of the -river, even if the lands there had been as lightly timbered as those -on the south side. Taken together, the two causes virtually served to -blockade that district against settlers of their type. - -But if the Germans declined the rôle of foresters, by refusing to -settle in a partially isolated town like Eagle, the Yankees did -the same. New Yorkers and New Englanders were scarcer there than -Prussians or Hanoverians. The town was occupied mainly by families -from Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana--with a few from Virginia and -North Carolina; in short, by men who had enjoyed or endured a recent -experience as frontiersmen in heavily wooded regions. So many belonged -to the class described by Eggleston in _The Circuit Rider_, _The -Hoosier Schoolmaster_, and _The Graysons_, that the name “Hoosier -Hollow,” applied to one of the coulees, seems perfectly normal. - -To the Yankee, we may be sure, the heavy woods in the town of Eagle -were a sufficient deterrent to settlement there. The Germans shunned it -either because they disliked heavy clearing when it could be avoided -and when no compensating advantages offered, as was the case near -the lake shore; or because they disliked the risk and the expense of -crossing the river to market; or for both of these reasons combined. -Probably either reason, singly, would have sufficed. - -By way of summary, we may say that as a land seeker the Yankee’s range -exceeded that of the German. Both clung to the lake ports as their -market base. But the Yankee’s optimism painted for him a roseate future -based on an experimental knowledge of material development for which -the German’s imagination was largely unprepared. The New Yorker had -witnessed, in his home state, the almost miraculous transformation -of rural conditions through the construction of a system of canals; -and canal building affected Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio only less -profoundly than the Empire State. To the Yankee, therefore, who cast -his lot in the favored lands of Wisconsin it seemed that nothing could -halt the march of improvement. The chief point was to obtain prompt -possession of the right kind of farm. Having this, he could count on -doing a big agricultural business as a wheat grower, which promised -generous financial rewards. But if for any reason he failed to get the -right kind of farm, if improvements were unexpectedly dilatory, or if -the land ceased to respond to his demand for wheat and more wheat, he -“sold out” with slight compunction and went elsewhere, confident of -success on a new frontier, especially the great wheat plains. To him -land was a desirable commodity, but by no means a sacred trust. - -The German, on the other hand, came from a land of very gradual change. -Although agricultural conditions there were actually considerably -modified in the first half of the nineteenth century, he still, for -the most part, looked upon his dwindling patrimony as the basis, not -of a money making business, but of a livelihood. If, by the combined -labor of all members of the household, the family could be fed, -clothed, and sheltered, the heavy obligations to church and state -redeemed, and a few _gulden_ sequestered for times of emergency, the -peasant was content. His land was his home. It had been his father’s, -grandfather’s, great-grandfather’s. The original estate was parted into -ever more and smaller divisions, as generation succeeded generation, -until the tracts of many holders were at last too small to support the -families. These had no choice but to sell and go to the city, or go to -America. This condition was one of the most general economic causes -of the large German immigration to this and other states. When the -German farmer, or other German, came to Wisconsin and bought a piece of -land, one purpose dominated his mind--to make a farm for a home, and -establish a family estate. In the beginning it did not occur to him -to speculate in land, although in this as in other things he proved -an apt pupil. Accustomed to a very limited acreage, he was not like -the Yankee ambitious to secure a large domain. Habituated to intensive -tillage, a partly made farm having ten or twelve acres of cleared land -was to him an ample equipment for making a living in agriculture. -Enlarging fields meant a surplus and mounting prosperity. If he took -raw land, he could count on clearing enough in a couple of winters with -his own hands to raise food crops, and he looked upon the prospect of -spending ten, twenty, or twenty-five years in fully subduing his 80- -or 100-acre farm with no unreasoning dread or carking impatience. The -remark of Diederichs characterized the German preëmptor: “If I once -have land enough under cultivation to raise our food supplies, I will -win through.” Whereas the Yankee wanted to break 40, 60, 80, or 100 -acres of prairie or openings the first year, the German contemplated -the possession of a similar acreage of tillable land in ten, fifteen, -or twenty years. - -But once in possession of a tract of land, the German tended to hold -on, through good years and bad years, as if his farm were the one -piece of land in the world for him and his. The Yankee, already given -to change in the East, tended in the West, under the stimulus of -machine-aided wheat culture, to regard land lightly, and to abandon one -tract for another on the principle that the supply was inexhaustible -and that one social environment was apt to be as satisfactory as -another. He had before him the great wheat plains, the Pacific coast, -the inland empire and the parks of the Rocky Mountains. Latterly -his range has widened to include the plains of the Assiniboin, the -Saskatchewan, and Peace River. For more than half a century he was -free to roam, to pick and choose land even as he picked and chose in -southern Wisconsin--the slower, more cautious, or more timid German -buying his farm when he was ready to sell. - -It was peaceful penetration, involving no sabre rattling but much -canny bargaining, sober casting up of accounts, and cheerful jingling -of specie. The Yankees, more speculative to the last, more imaginative -and space-free, pressed ever toward the borders of the primitive, drawn -by the same lure of wealth quickly and easily acquired which brought -so many of them to the prairies of Wisconsin in the earlier days. The -Germans, fearing distance more than debt, confident in their ability -to make grain crops grow and farm stock fatten if only they had a sure -market for cattle and for crops, remained behind to till the abandoned -fields and occupy the deserted homes. Thus, so far as Wisconsin’s -farming areas are concerned, the shadow of the Yankee has grown less in -the land, while the tribe of the Teuton has increased. - -What tendencies may have been induced by the passing of the frontier -and the resurgence of a population deprived of its former temptation -to expand into new regions; what social changes were implied in the -agricultural revolution which compels the daily application of science -to the business of farming; what readjustments in relationships were -involved in the modification of the Teutonic type with the coming upon -the stage of the second and third generations of Germans; how the -Germans in turn have reacted to the competition of groups having their -origin in other foreign countries, like the Scandinavians, Bohemians, -and Poles--all these are questions the answers to which would aid us -to determine “where we are and whither we are tending.” But their -discussion will have to be postponed to later issues of this magazine. - - - - -THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - -II. DISTINCTIVE TRAITS AS FARMERS - - -The agricultural traits and peculiarities of the nineteenth century -Yankees were the resultant of partly contradictory forces, some of -them evolutionary, others devolutionary. In England the period of -the Puritan migration to America and the half-century antecedent -thereto was a time of vigorous agricultural change marked by many -improvements in cultivation and in land management. The agrarian -revolution introduced by the transfer of church properties to -laymen was accompanied by enclosures and a widespread tendency to -shift from an uneconomical crop economy to an agriculture governed -by business principles. In this new system the production of farm -animals--especially sheep--the fertilization of the soil, rotation -of crops, and livestock improvement were main factors. Forces and -interests were set in motion at this time which, a century or so later, -made farming the concern of many of England’s leading minds, whose wise -and persistent experimentation benefited the whole civilized world. - -The few thousand immigrants to the New England colonies, founders of -America’s Yankeedom, were not all farmers. Some were fishermen, some -were small tradesmen, others craftsmen; a few were professional men -and soldiers. But a goodly proportion were land owners and peasants, -and all had a more or less direct knowledge of the principles and -processes which governed English agriculture. The influence of habit, -always a determining factor in the transfer of civilization from an old -land to a new, caused the occasional reproduction in New England of -some features of English farming, especially under village conditions. -The common field system in Old Salem reflected a disappearing element -in English farm life, while the commons of hay, commons of pasture, -commons of wood, and commons of mast, with their administrative “hay -reeve,” “hog reeve,” “wood reeve,” herdsmen, and shepherds, mark a -natural imitating of the ways of parish life at home. - -But there were differences in the conditions “at home” and in America -as wide as those symbolized by the terms “insular,” and “continental,” -applied to the geography of the two countries. Chief among these -differences were the generally forested character of the new-world -land, the necessity of adapting tillage to an unfamiliar climate, in -part to new food cereals, especially Indian corn, and the absolute -dependence upon markets which could be created or opened by the -colonists themselves. It was in fact the problem of a market which so -long subordinated farming proper in New England to a species of country -living in which small patches of arable supplied most of the family’s -food, while forest and stream were the objects of exploitation for -marketable furs, for medicinal plants, and for timber products. Yankee -ingenuity, which justly became proverbial, had an assignable cause. It -was not an inherited quality, or one which was imported and conserved; -it was a distinctively American product, explained by the situation of -the average New England farmer--who was, by force of circumstances, -more of a mechanic and woods worker than a cultivator of the soil. His -house, especially in winter, was a busy workshop where clapboards, -staves, hoops, heading, ax handles, and a variety of other articles of -utility and salability were always in course of manufacture. All the -farm “tinkering” was additional thereto. - -In his contest with the forest for a livelihood, the Yankee farmer was -gradually changed from the eastern New England village type to that -of the American “pioneer.” His axmanship was unrivaled, his skill in -woodscraft, his resourcefulness in the face of untried situations -were equal to the best. When the time came for taking agricultural -possession of broad spaces in the northern and western interior, the -Yankee was the instrument, shaped by four generations of American -history, to achieve that object.[12] - -This general “handiness” was gained not without a partial loss of -such acquired knowledge and skill in agriculture proper as the -first immigrants brought from England. Close, careful cultivation -was impossible among the stumps and girdled trees of new clearings; -the amplitude of natural meadows and the superabundance of “browse” -relieved settlers from the sharp necessity of providing artificially -for the winter feeding of cattle; the mast of oak trees and the -wealth of nuts, supplementing summer “greens,” roots, grass, and wild -apples, supplied most of the requisites for finishing off pork. Under -these conditions farming even at best was an entirely different thing -from what it had been at home. At its worst, it was a crude process, -affording a vegetative kind of existence, but nothing more. In fact, -farming in the New England states hardly attained the status of a -business until the nineteenth century, though in some portions it -gave the farmer and his family a generous living and afforded a few -luxuries. It made thousands of persons independent proprietors who -could not have reached that station at home; it gave the farmers as a -class a commanding influence in politics and society; “embattled,” it -enabled them to wrest their country’s independence from the awkward -hands of a bungling monarchy. In short, it contributed incalculably -to their importance as men in history. The indications are, however, -that as farmers the fourth generation of _Mayflower_ descendants were -decidedly inferior to the original Pilgrims and Puritans. - -The third generation were probably less skillful than the fourth. For, -by the time of the Revolution there were farming areas in southern -New England that were looking up. Timothy Dwight, near the end of the -century, found and recorded some of the evidences of a movement to -improve cultivation, to fertilize the soil, to better the character of -farm livestock--a movement which had been going forward under impulses -communicated from England, where the eighteenth century was peculiarly -fruitful in agricultural development. Dwight was enough of an idealist -to appreciate the limits of the improvement thus far reached. Yet he -did insist, with evident justice, that the farming of the Connecticut -valley and of eastern Massachusetts was at least respectable. Fields -were well cleared and carefully cultivated, clover began to be used -as a feeding and green manure crop, the beginnings had been made -of a system of rotation of crops, livestock was of relatively good -quality--especially in certain Connecticut towns which were already -noted for the weight of the bullocks they furnished to the commissary -department of Washington’s army. By that time, also, leading men -in New England lent their influence toward the building up of the -agricultural interest; agricultural societies were organized and essays -on agriculture came to have considerable vogue. Some importations of -purebred livestock from England took place. The first merino sheep -were brought in from France, then larger numbers from Spain by Consul -William Jarvis. In 1810 Elkanah Watson established his Berkshire County -Agricultural Society, with the county fair which became the model for -subsequent county and state fairs the country over. - -When Tom Paine predicted in 1776 that an independent America would -prosper “as long as eating continues to be the custom of Europe,”[13] -he assumed one point about which some doubt might in future arise: -Would Europe always have the wherewithal to purchase American -foodstuffs at prices which would compensate our people for growing -them and delivering them to the market? During the continuance of the -long revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Europe managed to make good -Paine’s prophecy, and prices at the close of the wars ruled high. There -followed the great expansion era which spread American farmers over the -New West, both south and north, into which Yankees entered to a large -extent. - -The good prices did not hold. Food could be raised cheaply, but markets -were costly to reach, even with the new wizardry of the steamboat, and -something gigantic was called for in the way of internal improvements. -The answer was at first canals, afterwards railroads. At the same -time, something had to be done by the farmer himself if the entire -structure of American agriculture, now becoming conscious of its own -embarrassments, was not to go down. The answer to this was _better -farming_. It was in 1819, the panic year, that John S. Skinner founded -at Baltimore the _American Farmer_, first of the distinctively farm -journals which almost immediately had a small group of successors. -Among them were the _New England Farmer_, the _Albany Cultivator_, the -_Pennsylvania Farmer_, the _Rural New Yorker_, the _Vermont Farmer_, -the _Ohio Farmer_, etc. - -Yankeedom was a good social soil for these journals. The all but -universal literacy of the people, their curiosity, their love of -argument and disputation, their habit of experimentation, all tended -both to give currency to the new ideas presented and to sift the -practical and valuable from the merely theoretic and futile. Thus was -introduced, in a period of prevailing “hard times,” a meliorating -influence destined to reach a very large proportion of the settlers -in those sections, particularly Vermont, western New York, northern -Pennsylvania and Ohio, from which the bulk of the Yankee pioneers of -Wisconsin were drawn a quarter of a century later. The effect of county -and state fairs was to deepen and fructify the influence of the new -agricultural press. - -It will be understood that the actual “shoring up” of agricultural -practice came about with relative slowness. Yet, it soon began here -and there, and by a kind of mild infection spread gradually over -wide areas. Only in crisis periods, with the introduction of new -methods to suit new market conditions, was progress ever very rapid. -To illustrate, as early as 1820 Josiah Quincy was advocating and -practising the summer soiling of cattle, especially milch cows, and -demonstrating the profitableness of the system for the region near -Boston. It was a long time before soiling became common even in that -district, but this experiment engendered better care of livestock. The -same careful, experimental farmer demonstrated the economy of using -good-sized whole potatoes for seed, as against the practice of planting -seed ends and small tubers; other farmers were slow to adopt the idea, -which is not yet universally followed, yet some improvement doubtless -came from the publication of Quincy’s findings. - -What, then, were the general farming habits of the Yankees who form -the background of Wisconsin’s pioneer age? First of all, they lived in -decent houses which were usually of lumber. Dwight contended that not -one New England village in a hundred was disfigured with the presence -of even one log house. He also gives the result of a count made in 1810 -of the log houses along the road from New Haven to Windsor in Vermont, -thence across the Green Mountains to Middlebury, and back by a direct -route to New Haven, a distance of over 460 miles, much of it through -new settlements. It showed only fifteen to Middlebury and thirty-two -on the return route. It seems to have been a matter of pride with -the Yankee to desert his pioneer log house as quickly as possible. -His personal skill with tools, and abundance of saw timber, made the -construction of a frame house a family undertaking calling for labor -indeed, but only a minimum of hired skill; and for little material -involving the outlay of actual money. So the frame houses rose wherever -the Yankees settled. Along the great road from Albany to Buffalo, -in western New York, they began to spring up before the settlements -were ten years old. When, about twenty-five years later, travelers -passed that way they saw many houses of squared, framed timbers, -covered over neatly with boards at the sides and ends, and roofed with -shingles.[14] These common frame houses were sufficiently inartistic, -no doubt. Perhaps, as one traveler remarks, they did look like “huge -packing boxes.” Similar architectural designs can be seen scattered -over the West--and the East, too--at this late date. Still, they were -more commodious than the log houses, and improved the families’ living -conditions. The next stage was likely to mark a very distinct advance. -“In the more cleared and longer settled parts of the country,” says a -none too sympathetic English traveler, “we saw many detached houses, -which might almost be called villas, very neatly got up, with rows of -wooden columns in front, aided by trees and tall shrubs running round -and across the garden which was prettily fenced in, and embellished -with a profusion of flowers.” Yankees had the habit of building by the -roadside, whatever the economic disadvantages of such a situation, -because it enabled them to keep in touch with the world--a reason which -is by no means frivolous, and for them highly characteristic. - -We have no such definite account of the Yankee farmers’ barns as of -those of Pennsylvania Germans. It is true that Dwight, speaking for the -older New England, suggests that the barn was apt to be a much better -structure than the house. The custom, however, noted by travelers in -New York and elsewhere, of letting cattle run at large all winter -without shelter other than trees and brush, and perhaps the straw pile -or rick of marsh hay, argues that stabling was furnished for only a -minimum number of work oxen, horses--if such there were--and perhaps in -some cases cows in milk. It undoubtedly was not the practice to house -stock cattle, or even--except in isolated cases--to feed them in sheds. -The advocates of careful sheltering who wrote for the agricultural -journals recognized that the weight of opinion was against sheltering -stock. They compromised with that opinion by recommending sheds for -young stock and dry cows, and warm barns only for milking cows and work -animals.[15] Yet, some of the leading cattle feeders of the Genesee -valley, as late as the year 1842, were content to scatter loads of hay -over meadows and through brush patches for the hundreds of beef cattle -they were wintering.[16] - -The livestock, except sheep and pigs, was still by 1840 prevailingly of -no breed. Nevertheless, Durhams and Devons were coming into use. The -Patroon stock of shorthorns, introduced in 1824 from England by Stephen -Van Rensellaer, of Albany, gained its first customers apparently among -the English farmers of western New York, but gradually made its way -among the Yankees as well. Other importations were soon made, so that -by 1840 there were several prominent herds of purebreds in that section -of the state. In 1842 it was said of the Genesee County Fair that “with -the exception of some working oxen and one cow not a single animal of -native cattle was in the yard. All were either pure or grade Durhams or -Devons.... Bulls were shown by some six or seven competitors. Among -them were four thoroughbred ones and one of those imported.”[17] It is -clear that by the time emigration to Wisconsin began to take place, -actual progress had been made and the entire body of Yankee farmers -had been indoctrinated with the idea of better livestock. Sheep and -pigs were already largely improved, the former prevailingly through -the cross with the merinos, the latter with Berkshires and other -English breeds. The Morgan horse, a Vermont product, was gaining wide -popularity. - -From what has been said of the care of livestock, it follows that -the possibilities of the farm for the manufacture of fertilizer were -generally neglected. English travelers were apt to insist that this -neglect was universal, but there were, of course, numerous exceptions. -Farming was extensive, not intensive. Lands were cleared by chopping -or “slashing” the timber, burning brush and logs, then harrowing among -the stumps to cover the first-sown wheat seed. In a few years, with the -rotting of the smaller stumps and the roots, the plow could be used, -though always with embarrassment on account of the large stumps which -thickly studded the fields. These disappeared gradually, being allowed -to stand till so fully decayed that a few strokes with ax or mattock -would dislodge them. As late as 1830 many fields in western New York -were stump infested. - -[Illustration: A FARM NEAR ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, IN 1827 - - From Captain Basil Hall’s _Forty Etchings from Sketches Made with the - Camera Lucida_. London, 1829] - -Wheat was the great, almost the sole, market crop, and it was grown -year after year till the soil ceased to respond. From bumper yields -of twenty-five or thirty bushels per acre the returns fell off to -twenty, fifteen, and then twelve, ten, or even eight. The process of -decline was well under way when the immigration to Wisconsin set in, -and already the turn had come toward a more definite livestock economy, -which in large portions of New York soon gave rise to a system of -factory cheese making. A main reason for the removal to the West, on -the part of farmers whose holdings were too small to make successful -stock farms, or who refused to abandon wheat raising as a business, was -that lands in the West could be had already cleared by nature. Many -half-cleared farms, with customary buildings and fences, could in the -forties be purchased in western New York for from four to eight dollars -per acre. Instead of buying these farms, the young men preferred going -to Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, or Wisconsin, those having such farms for -sale doing likewise after selling out to neighbors, usually the larger -farmers, who elected to remain and change their system of farming. In -Vermont we have a similar story, in Ohio the same. The Yankee farmers -who came to Wisconsin were generally at home either small farmers or -the sons of farmers large or small; while a certain proportion of the -larger farmers, by reason of debt or desire to extend their business, -also sold out and came west to buy cheap lands on the prairies or in -the openings. - - * * * * * - -An agriculture which dates from before the time of Tacitus, and -which acquired permanent characteristics from the influence of Roman -merchants, monastics, and feudatories in Roman and medieval times, was -bound to differ widely and even fundamentally from the agriculture of a -far flung American frontier. The Germans who met the Yankee immigrants -in primitive Wisconsin brought an inheritance of habit and training -analogous to that of the English Puritan emigrants to New England, -but with the difference that the Germans’ training had continued -two hundred years longer, on similar lines. They were old-world -cultivators, the Yankees new-world cultivators. - -Tacitus says in one place: “The Germans live scattered and apart, as -a spring, a hill, or a wood entices them.”[18] Nineteenth century -German economists complained that German farmsteads were seated often -most inconveniently with reference to the management of the farm lands -pertaining to them. They had been established, in the days of long ago, -by lakeside, brook, or river under conditions in which access to water -was the most important single consideration. They had never been moved, -although gradually the arable stretched far back from the dwelling, and -the pasture perhaps was located in a wholly detached area.[19] This -description applies to portions of northern Germany where farms were -large and farming had the status of a regular and dignified business. - -Many individuals and families came to Wisconsin from districts -like Mecklenburg, Prussia, Pomerania, though in the emigrations of -the 1840’s and fifties the great majority were from southern and -central German states. It will be one of the interesting inquiries -in connection with our study of local influences in Wisconsin towns -(_Domesday Book Studies_), how far the special regional inheritances of -foreign born settlers manifested themselves in Wisconsin communities. -The presumption, about the north German, would be that his farming -operations would tend to be on a large scale, under a business -system which--in this new land--would slough off such anachronisms -as the dislocated farmstead, and present the features of an ideal -establishment. But it may be that the forest was such a powerful -leveler as to obliterate most of the regional distinctions among -immigrants. Our chief concern, at all events, is with that great -body of German farmers, and intending farmers, who came from the -southwestern states of the recent Empire, especially Alsace, Baden, -Württemberg, Rhine Palatinate, Rhenish Prussia, Hesse, Nassau, -Westphalia--to some extent Bavaria and Saxony. - -The fundamental facts about the home conditions of these people, so -far as they were farmers at home, were the smallness of their holdings, -their intensive cultivation, and the almost universal village type of -life. Travelers of about 1840 describe the typical middle Rhine country -as a highly cultivated plain without division hedges or fences other -than the tree-bordered roads, with no separate farm dwellings and with -no livestock in sight. The crops of several kinds being arranged in -various shaped fields, patches, and strips, the plain looked like the -proverbial “crazy-quilt.” Villages were huddled at the edges of woods, -and occasionally in the midst of the cultivated area. Their houses, -which were not arranged on a regular plan, were usually large stone -structures, the farm yard, with tools, implements, manure and compost -heaps, occupying a kind of court at the rear. - -As a rule, all animals were housed winter and summer. Here was an -important difference to the farming of the north, where large herds -of cattle could be seen pasturing ample meadows, or ruminating in the -shade of buildings or of woods. The soiling system was universally -practiced in summer. Grass land being scarce and precious, feed for the -cows was laboriously gathered along the brookside, in the open spaces -of the forest, along all the roads, in the cemeteries, and the greens -before the houses. The weeds and thinnings from the growing crops went -to the same object. Vegetable tops were a great resource in late summer -and fall, and patches of clover, while insuring green feed, furnished -hay as well. In places the growing of sugar beets for the market was -a leading agricultural enterprise, and the tops of the beets were -carefully cured for winter feed. - -The cultivation was intensive both in that it aimed at the maximum -produce from given areas, and in that the crops raised included some -which called for very special care. Some sections grew tobacco, in -connection with which much hand work was indispensable. This crop also -called for care in seed selection, in germinating, and in preparing the -ground for the reception of the young plants. Beet culture for sugar -making involved perhaps not less care, and doubtless more hand labor. -Of similar but less particularity was the growing of root crops for -stock feed, the orcharding, which was general, and the vine dressing, -incident to the business of special districts. - -There were, of course, many farmers and farms in the region indicated -and in other contributory regions, which were not so widely different -from the average of those in America. Yet, on the whole, it can be -said that the German husbandman, in training and habit, was analogous -to our modern truck farmer or orchardist, rather than to our general -farmer. He was a specialist in soils, in fertilizing and preparing -them for different crops, in planting, stirring, weeding, irrigating; -in defending plants against insect pests, seasonal irregularities, and -soil peculiarities; he throve by hoeing, dragging, trimming, pruning, -sprouting; by curing and conserving plants, roots, grasses, grains, -and fruits. His livestock economy was incidental, yet very important. -It supplied the necessary fertilizer to maintain soil productivity; it -afforded milk, beef, pork, butter, cheese, wool. It gave him his draft -animals, often cows instead of oxen, and economized every bit of grass -and forage which his situation produced. - -Improvement of livestock appears to have affected southwestern Germany -prior to 1850 very little as compared with the pastoral countries of -England, Holland, Friesland, and north Germany. The animals kept by the -village farmers were therefore not remarkable for quality. But they -were usually well housed, and the feed and care they received made up -in considerable measure for the absence of superior blood. - -The various states of Germany, by 1840, were maintaining schools of -agriculture, a species of experiment stations for the dissemination -of such scientific agricultural information as was then available. To -some extent, therefore, farming was beginning to be scientific. But, -prevailingly it was intensely practical, the appropriate art connected -with the growing of every distinct crop being handed on from father to -son, from farmer to laborer. - -One could almost predict how farmers thus trained would react to the -new environment of the Wisconsin wilderness. Taking up a tract of -forested land or buying a farm with a small clearing upon it, their -impulse would be, with the least possible delay, to get a few acres -thoroughly cleared, subdued to the plow, and in a high state of tilth. -Exceptions there were, to be sure, but on the whole the German pioneers -were not content to slash and burn their timber. After the timber was -off, the stumps must come out, forthwith, to make the tract fit for -decent cultivation. Was it the Germans who introduced in land clearing -the custom of “grubbing” instead of “slashing”? This meant felling -the tree by undermining it, chopping off roots underground at a safe -depth, taking out grub and all, instead of cutting it off above ground. -In timber of moderate growth this practice proved fairly expeditious -and highly successful, for once a tract was grubbed, the breaking -plow encountered no serious obstruction. A good “grubber” among later -immigrants could always count on getting jobs from established German -farmers.[20] - -To the American, who was content to plow around his stumps every year -for a decade, to cultivate around them, cradle or reap around them, -it seemed that his German neighbor was using some kind of magic to -exorcise his stumps. The magic was merely human muscle, motivated by a -psychology which inhibited rest so long as a single stump remained in -the field. - -The German not only used the heaps of farm yard fertilizer which, on -buying out the original entryman, he commonly found on the premises, -but he conserved all that his livestock produced, and frequently, -if not too distant from town or village, became a purchaser of the -commodity of which liverymen, stock yard keepers, and private owners of -cow or horse were anxious to be relieved. The manufacture of fertilizer -was a prime reason for stabling his livestock. The other was his fixed -habit of affording animals such care. Not all Germans built barns at -once, but the majority always tried to provide warm sheds, at least, -whereas Yankee and Southwesterner alike were very prone to allow their -animals to huddle, humped and shivering, all winter on the leeward side -of house or granary, or in clumps of sheltering brush or trees.[21] The -German was willing to occupy his log house longer, if necessary, in -order to gain the means for constructing adequate barns and sheds. - -Germans were not one-crop farmers. The lands they occupied, usually -forested, could not be cleared fast enough at best to enable them to -raise wheat on a grand scale, as the Yankees did in the open lands of -the southeast and west. Their arable was extended only a few acres per -year, and while that was being done the German farmers grew a little -of everything--wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley, potatoes, roots. Clover -was to them a favorite forage, hay, and green manure crop. In growing -it, they used gypsum freely. This policy of clover growing, adopted -gradually by all farmers, was one of the means finally relied on by -the wheat farmers to restore the productivity of their abused soils. - -In ways such as the above, German farmers helped to save Wisconsin -agriculture in the period of stress when wheat growing failed and -before coöperative dairying entered. They were not the chief influence -in popularizing improved livestock. Credit for that innovation must -be awarded to the Yankees. They had resumed in the eastern states the -English tradition of breeding, and brought it into Wisconsin where, by -means of state and county fairs and an active agricultural press, it -was ultimately borne in upon the minds of all farmers, Germans among -the rest.[22] - -Neither did the Germans lead in developing the new agriculture, -of which coöperative dairying was the keystone. Yankee leadership -therein, too, was the dominant influence. Yet, it was the Germans, -Scandinavians, and other foreigners--and numerically Germans were -in the majority--who, by virtue of their agricultural morale, their -steadiness in carrying out plans, their patience and perseverance, have -made the dairy business of Wisconsin the great industry it has become. - -Above all, the Germans persisted as farmers. They prospered not -dramatically, like some of the more successful of the Yankee farmers, -but by little and little they saved money, bought more land, better -stock, and built better homes. When Yankee farmers, discouraged or -impoverished by the failure of wheat, offered their farms for sale -preparatory to “going west,” Germans who had managed their smaller -farms more carefully stood ready to buy; when Yankees who were tired -of being “tied to a cow” wanted to go to Montana, Oregon, or Wyoming -to raise steers by wholesale, on the ranching plan, they sold out to -Germans who made the dairy farms pay larger dividends year by year. -When Yankee farmers retired to the city, or went into business, which -in recent decades they have done by thousands, Germans were among -those who were the keenest bidders for their farm properties. In a -word, the German has succeeded agriculturally through the more and -more perfect functioning, in this new land, of qualities imparted by -the training and inheritance which he brought with him from the old -world. On the whole, Germans have kept clear of speculation, preferring -to invest their savings in neighboring lands with which they were -intimately familiar, or to lend to neighboring farmers on farm mortgage -security. In the aggregate, German farmers in Wisconsin have long had -vast sums at interest. The Institute for Research in Land Economics -(University of Wisconsin) has completed investigations which show that -the nation’s area of lowest farm mortgage interest rates (5.2 per cent -or less) coincides very closely with the great maple forest of eastern -Wisconsin, which has been held, from the first, predominantly by German -farmers. - -We have no desire to minimize the factor contributed to Wisconsin’s -agriculture by the Yankees. They were the prophets and the organizers -of the farmers’ movement. Their inherent optimism, their speculative -bent, their genius for organization were indispensable to its success. -“Anything is possible to the American people,” shouted the mid-century -American orator from a thousand Fourth of July rostrums, therein merely -reflecting what the mass of his hearers religiously believed. When -agriculture had to be remade in Wisconsin, the Yankee’s intelligence -told him in what ways it must be improved, and his tact, courage, and -address enabled him to enlist and organize the means for remaking it. -When the Yankee was convinced, by his farm paper or by the exhibitions, -that a purebred animal was a good investment, his speculative spirit -sent him to his banker to borrow a thousand dollars, and to a distant -breeder to make what his more timid German neighbor would call a -“mighty risky investment”--for the animal might die! Finally, when -local organization was required to secure a cheese factory, a creamery, -or a dairy board of trade, the Yankee by virtue of his community -leadership was usually able to effect the desired result. - -Wisconsin’s almost unique success in agriculture is due to no single -or even dual factor. But among the human elements which have been most -potent in producing the result, none is of more significance than the -fortunate blend in her population of the Yankee and the Teuton. - - - - -THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - -III. SOME SOCIAL TRAITS OF YANKEES - - -Harriet Martineau, the English traveler who in 1837 published a book -entitled _Society in America_, was deeply impressed with New England’s -concern for education. “All young people in these villages,” she says, -“are more or less instructed. _Schooling is considered a necessary of -life._[23] I happened to be looking over an old almanac one day, when -I found, among the directions relating to the preparations for winter -on a farm, the following: ‘Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten loose -clapboards and shingles. Secure a good schoolmaster.’” - -We do not know what almanac Miss Martineau consulted. But a glance -at a file of the _Farmer’s Almanack_, begun in 1793 by Robert B. -Thomas and circulated by him for more than half a century all over New -England, shows her quotation to be fully justified in spirit if not -in letter. As early at least as the year 1804, Mr. Thomas included -in his directions for the month of November, the indispensable item -of education in connection with other activities: “Now let the noise -of your flail awake your drowsy neighbors. Bank up your cellars. Now -hire a good schoolmaster and send your children to school as much as -possible.” - -The nation was young in 1804. Parts of it were new and for that reason -had made but meager educational progress; other parts were backward -for different reasons. But in the older states of New England popular -education had flourished for one hundred and fifty years. This point, -stressed by a score of writers, illustrated by legal enactments, -court decrees, town records, and anniversary sermons, cannot be -over-emphasized in a summary of the social contributions which the -Yankees made to the new western societies they helped to build. -Notwithstanding all that has been written to prove the priority, in -this or that feature of American educational progress, of other social -strains or geographical areas, history may confidently assign to the -Yankee priority in the attainment of universal literacy on an extensive -scale. - -Once the Puritan had convinced himself that the temptation to ignorance -came from “ye old deluder Satan,” whose fell purpose was to keep men -from a knowledge of the Scriptures and thus the more readily win them -for his own, he hesitated not to require the maintenance of schools -in all towns and neighborhoods under his jurisdiction. He was also -concerned to recruit an “able and orthodox ministry” to take the places -of the aging pastors who had come from England and to supply the needs -of new settlements. Harvard College could turn out the ministers, if it -had properly prepared young men to work upon. So the larger towns were -required to maintain grammar schools in addition to the common schools. -Thus we have, as early as 1647, provision for schooling from the lowest -rudiments up through the college course. - -The original religious motive for maintaining these schools persisted. -But other motives were added as the Puritans perceived how notably -secular interests, as well as religious, were served by schooling. -For one thing, young persons who could read, write, and cipher had a -distinct advantage in worldly matters over those who could not. Cheats -and “humbugs,” of whom every community had its share, made victims of -the ignorant, while they fled from the instructed even as their master, -Satan, was supposed to flee from them. Many New England stories were -designed to carry the lesson, especially to parents, that the best -legacy children could receive was good schooling, without which wealth -and property would quickly melt away.[24] - -Apart, also, from such negative worldly advantages as we have named, -one who had enjoyed good schooling might thereby hope to share in many -special social privileges from which the unlettered were debarred. New -England life on the religious side centered in the church, on the civic -side in the town. Each of the two institutions required a full set of -elective officers, ranked according to the importance of the offices -filled, and all of these were chosen from the instructed portion of -the community. To be a deacon in the church or a selectman on the -town board might not be financially remunerative, but it imparted a -dignity to the individual and a social status to the family which -caused these offices to be highly prized. The older theory was that -only good churchmen could fill either type of office. Gradually, the -town offices, which paid something in cash and yielded considerable -political power, came to be sought with increasing frequency by men -who might have no interest in the church. “Jethro Bass” was typical, -not unique, in his scheming to be chosen selectman, and the training -offered by the district school was looked upon as a minimum basis for -such preferment. Said the _Farmer’s Almanack_ for November, 1810: “Send -your children to school. Every boy should have a chance to prepare -himself to do common town business.” - -The great majority were satisfied with the elementary training -afforded by the district schools, kept for a few months in winter. -But the presence of learned men in every community and the existence -of secondary schools and colleges tolled a good many on the way to -advanced instruction who had no plans for professional careers. -From farm, factory, and counting-room, even from among those before -the mast, went boys to academy and college, while female seminaries -springing up here and there took care of the educational interests -of selected groups of girls. Such schools were not free, but their -benefits were easy to attain, the principal requisite being pluck -and a willingness to work both at earning money and at the studies. -Girls and boys alike could usually earn their way by teaching in the -common schools. Thus the educational system propagated itself, with -the result that men and women of intelligence, culture, and refinement -became widely dispersed through Yankeedom, and learning was recognized -as an aid to the good life as well as a guarantee of the successful -life. This was a fundamental condition of that literary flowering -which marked the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It insured -the poets, historians, orators, and novelists an audience which waxed -ever larger as province after province in the West was added to New -England’s spiritual empire. - -Let us not, however, picture to ourselves a Yankee society wholly -suffused with intellectual and spiritual light. The Yankees had no such -illusions about themselves. Listen to Timothy Dwight’s description of -a class of New Englanders who could not live “in regular society. They -are too idle, too talkative, too passionate, too prodigal, and too -shiftless to acquire either property or character. They are impatient -of the restraints of law, religion and morality, grumble about the -taxes by which rulers, ministers and schoolmasters are supported--at -the same time they are usually possessed, in their own view, of -uncommon wisdom; understand medical science, politics, and religion -better than those who have studied them through life....” He represents -the type as the pioneering or _forester_ class, who had “already -straggled onward from New England” to far distant settlements, and -whose going he was not disposed to lament. “In mercy,” he says, “to -the sober, industrious, and well disposed inhabitants, Providence has -opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat sufficiently alluring -to draw them from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles -even now, but we should have many more if this body of foresters had -remained at home.”[25] - -The above citation doubtless contains an element of exaggeration, due -to Dwight’s ingrained conservatism. He was outraged by the radical -views no less than by the erratic and ignorant harangues he heard “by -many a kitchen fire, in every blacksmith’s shop, and in every corner -of the streets....” Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that he -here sketches for us some Yankee social traits of rather extended -application which were important in the building of the West. These -people belonged to the outstandingly non-conformist type. They were -sufficiently independent--contemptuous, one might say--of established -customs and institutions to be willing, with what ignorance or -awkwardness soever, to bring about changes, some of which were sadly -needed. Religiously they were apt to be _come-outers_. It was largely -among this class that were recruited the Millerites, Millennialists, -and original Latter Day Saints, together with many other minor sects -and factions. In politics, when all orthodox New England was Whig, -they were mainly Democratic; many, however, backed the program of -Nativism; in the person of John Brown they exemplified the principle -of direct action as applied to slavery. The social innovator, the -medical quack, and the political demagogue found among them welcome and -encouragement, sometimes to the temporary distress of society, often to -its ultimate benefit. Not unlike the original Puritans who represented -“the dissidence of dissent and the protestantism of the protestant -religion,”[26] they constituted a dynamic social element although -wanting in the intellectual and religious training, the political -morale, and perhaps the heroism which distinguished the original -planters of Massachusetts Bay. They had the spirit of the revolutionary -New Englanders, who were described, not inaptly, as “hard, stubborn, -and indomitably intractable.” They were the backbone of Shays’s -rebellion. In many ways they illustrate the qualities which, at various -times in our later history, have served as the fulcrum of revolutionary -change. - -Dwight’s _foresters_ were merely the extreme manifestation, the -caricature, of a much larger class of heady, self sufficient, -opinionated, and troublesome persons who equally with the sober, -church going, instructed, conformist type were the product of New -England conditions. The cords of restraint were drawn so taut in the -parishes and towns, that the person who was determinedly “different” -was compelled to break them and become a kind of social pariah in -order to gain the freedom his soul craved. It was not an accident -that so large a proportion of that class went to the frontier. They -found there a less rigorous church discipline, freedom from taxes for -the support of the established church, and a more flexible state of -society in the midst of which they might hope to function. In western -Massachusetts and Connecticut, in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, -they were numerous at the opening of the National period. Soon large -numbers emigrated to western New York, to northern Pennsylvania, to -Ohio, thence throughout the West. They made up an appreciable part of -the thronging Yankee immigration which seized upon Wisconsin’s prairies -and oak openings between 1835 and 1850, and their presence has left -its impress upon our social history. Still the experiences of older -frontiers, such as western New York, had already modified the type. - -When all necessary deductions have been made, however, the church -remained equally with the school a dominant note in the Yankee’s -social landscape. His “meeting house,” not infrequently in New England -a gem of ecclesiastical architecture, fulfilled his artistic ideal; the -congregation was the “household of faith” which claimed his undeviating -loyalty; the pastor was “guest and philosopher” in his home whenever he -chose to honor it with his presence. To men and women alike, attendance -upon the church services was the principal Sabbath day duty and the -chief physical and mental diversion of the whole week. It was an old -custom to linger after the morning sermon for a social chat either -in the church yard, when the weather permitted, or else at a near-by -tavern; and while the talk was ostensibly about the sermon, gossip, -bits of practical information, and even a shy kind of love making were -often interwoven, tending to make this a genuine community social hour. - -The tradition that the minister must be a man of learning was of -incalculable social importance. His advice was called for under every -conceivable circumstance of individual and community need. He assisted -about the employment of schoolmasters and was the unofficial supervisor -of the school. He enjoined upon negligent parents the duty of sending -their children, and he had an eye for the promising boys--lads -o’pairts, as the Scotch say--whom he encouraged to prepare for -professional life. He fitted boys to enter the academy and sometimes -tutored college students. In the rural parish the minister occupied -the church glebe, which made him a farmer with the rest. He was apt to -read more widely and closely in the agricultural press, or in books -on husbandry, than his neighbors, thereby gaining the right to offer -practical suggestions about many everyday matters. Some ministers were -writers for agricultural journals. Many contributed to local newspapers -items of news or discussions of public questions in which their -parishioners were interested with themselves. - -The home missionary idea was inherent in the New England system -both as respects religion and education. Older, better established -communities always felt some responsibility for the newer. Since -settlement proceeded largely by the method of planting new townships -of which the raw land was purchased by companies from the colonial -and state governments, it was possible for the larger community to -give an impetus to religion and education under the terms of township -grants. This was accomplished by reserving in each grant three -shares of the land--“one for the first settled minister, one for the -ministry forever, and one for the school.” Other grants of raw land -were made for the support of academies. Here we have the origin of -the system of land grants in aid both of the common schools and of -state universities, in the western states. The grants for religion -necessarily were discontinued after the adoption of the national -constitution.[27] - -The religious unity established by the Puritans, and maintained for -a time by the simple method of rigorously excluding those holding -peculiar doctrines, gave way to considerable diversity in the late -eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Episcopalianism made some -progress in the older settlements, and Unitarianism created a great -upheaval, while toward the frontiers the Methodists and Baptists -flourished more and more. These several elements, by 1820, were -powerful enough politically to secure the abolition of the ancient tax -for the support of the established (Congregational or Presbyterian) -church--a tax which had long caused ill feeling between West and East, -and no doubt had contributed to the growth of dissenting churches. -These frontier churches had the characteristics of the frontier -populations. Their ministers were less learned, their morale less -exacting, their religion less formal and ritualistic, their ordinances -less regularly and habitually enforced. But there was an emotionalism -which in a measure compensated for defects of training, for looseness -of habit and negligence in the practice of religion. In a word, the -camp meeting type of Christianity prevailed widely along the frontier, -and that type entered Wisconsin Territory with the numerous Methodist -and Baptist settlers from New York and New England. As early as August, -1838, such a camp meeting was held under Methodist leadership in the -woods near Racine; it was attended by hundreds of pioneer families -drawn from the sparsely settled neighborhoods for many miles around. -Its appointments were of the typical frontier kind, though one would -expect less boisterousness in the manifestations of emotion among -those people than seems to have accompanied similar gatherings in the -Southwest.[28] - -The stated religious services in early Wisconsin, as in every frontier -region, were apt to be less frequent than in older communities. -Ministers were too few in number and neighborhoods too impecunious to -justify each locality in supporting a minister. The circuit riding -custom prevailed generally among all denominations. One preacher -traveled, on foot, six hundred miles, making the round in six weeks. -Each group of churches also had its conferences, which were occasions -for planning missionary effort, for unitedly attacking special -religious or social abuses, and for promoting constructive community -effort. The ablest speakers addressed such gatherings; the membership -of the churches concerned and others attended, in addition to the -delegates; and important religious, social, or moral results sometimes -flowed from them. - -Another peculiar Yankee institution allied at once to the school and -the church, was the lyceum or local coöperative organization for -bringing lecturers to the community. The settlements in southeastern -Wisconsin had their lyceums at an early date, and many distinguished -public men from the East had occasion to visit this new Yankeeland -in the capacity of lecturer. Among them were Horace Greeley, Bayard -Taylor, and James Russell Lowell. - -Reform movements, however, though usually receiving valuable aid -from churches, lyceums, mechanics’ institutes, and other permanent -organizations of men for public discussion, had a way of creating -special organizations to propagate themselves. That was true of the -temperance movement, which by the time of the Yankee immigration into -Wisconsin was under vigorous headway. Beginning, in serious form, about -1820, the intervening years witnessed the creation of hundreds of local -temperance societies in New England and New York, and the federation -of these societies into state societies. These central organizations -stimulated the movement by sending out lecturers, conducting a -newspaper propaganda, and issuing special publications. Some of their -tracts are said to have been scattered “like the leaves of autumn,” all -over New England and New York. - -One of these tracts affected the social history of Wisconsin very -directly. It is known, traditionally, as “The Ox Discourse,” because -it was based on Exodus 21:28-29: “If an ox gore a man or woman, that -they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not -be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were -wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified -to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a -man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be -put to death.” The sermon on this text produced a great sensation and -gained many new adherents to the temperance cause. Among these were two -brothers, Samuel F. and Henry Phoenix, who were storekeepers in a New -York village and sold much whisky. They publicly destroyed all the -liquor they had on hand and became crusaders in the temperance cause. -In the spring of 1836 Colonel Samuel F. Phoenix selected in Wisconsin -a “Temperance Colony claim,” on which he settled that summer. Then he -rode to Belmont and induced the first territorial legislature to set -off from Milwaukee County a county to be known as Walworth, in honor -of the chancellor of the state of New York, who was a noted temperance -leader. He named the village begun by him Delavan, in honor of E. C. -Delavan, pioneer temperance editor and at that time chairman of the -executive committee of the New York State Temperance Society. Colonel -Phoenix lectured on temperance, helped to organize early temperance -societies, rebuked his neighbors--especially the New Yorkers--for -employing whisky at raisings, and, before his death in 1840, had -succeeded in giving a powerful impulse to the movement in southeastern -Wisconsin. - -Another dramatic figure in early temperance annals was Charles M. -Goodsell, who in 1838 settled at Lake Geneva and built the first mill -operated in Walworth County. He was of Connecticut birth, and his -father owned and managed, among other properties, a whisky distillery. -Goodsell, however, when he came west from New York State, was a most -determined opponent of the traffic in intoxicants. Soon after opening -his mill a local company erected in Lake Geneva a distillery for making -corn whisky. Goodsell warned them, he says, not to expect him to grind -their grain and they installed a grinding apparatus of their own. But, -their machinery proving inadequate, they finally sent a grist of corn -to Goodsell’s mill, demanding, as under the law they had a right to -do, that it be “ground in turn.” Goodsell refused, thereby producing -a tense situation, for the pioneer farmers looked to the distillery -as a cash market for their grain. Finally, the distillers brought -suit, won a verdict, and Goodsell appealed. But meantime, he rode to -Madison, where the legislature was sitting, and procured the adoption -of an amendment to the law regulating milling, to the effect: “Nothing -in this section contained shall be construed to compel the owners or -occupiers of mills to grind for distilling, or for sale or merchant -work.” This proviso, adopted in 1841, remained a feature of the statute -for many years.[29] - -It must not be supposed that pioneer Yankee society, even in Walworth -County, was prevailingly of the temperance variety. All testimony, both -of the reformers and of others, tends to show that a large majority -was at first in the opposition. Frontier history would indicate that -excessive indulgence in whisky was apt to be more common during the -primitive phase of settlement than later, due perhaps to the looser -social and religious organization. - -Wisconsin may be said to have been born to the temperance agitation -which, in a few years’ time, produced societies pledged to total -abstinence all over the southeastern part of the state and in many -other localities. In March, 1843, a legislative temperance society -was organized with a list of twenty-four signers. The house of -representatives at the time had twenty-six members, the council -thirteen, or a total of thirty-nine. So a decided majority was aligned -with the movement. Moses M. Strong was chosen president, which was -considered a triumph for the cause, and much interest was aroused by -the adherence of William S. Hamilton, who is reported to have addressed -one of the society’s meetings.[30] - -The temperance agitation everywhere received a notable impetus from -the adoption in 1851 of the prohibition law by the state of Maine. -Immediately other states moved for the same objective, and in Wisconsin -a referendum vote was taken in 1853 which resulted favorably to -prohibition, though no enactment followed.[31] In that election the -southeastern counties were overwhelmingly for the Maine law. Walworth -gave 1906 votes for it and 733 against, Rock 2494-432, Racine 1456-927. -Milwaukee at the same time voted against prohibition by 4381 to 1243. -This shows where was to be found the powerful opposition to legislation -of this nature, which was destined to increase rather than diminish -with the strengthening of the German element already very numerous. - -From the time of the Maine law agitation the communities dominated -by Yankees were generally found arrayed in favor of any proposal for -limiting or suppressing the liquor traffic, although, as we shall see -in later articles, no large proportion of their voters ever joined the -Prohibition party. They did not succeed in abolishing drunkenness, -though it became very unfashionable to indulge heavily in spirituous -liquors and the proportion of total abstainers among the younger -generation steadily increased. Yankees furnished a very small per cent -of those who gained their livelihood through occupations connected -directly with intoxicating liquors, except as such traffic was carried -on incidentally as a feature of the drug business. The disfavor with -which saloon keeping, brewing, and distilling have long been regarded -among that class of the population is explained by the fervor and -thoroughness of the early temperance campaigns. - -Because of their attitude on the liquor question, on Sunday laws, and -other matters pertaining to the regulation of conduct, the Yankees have -always been looked upon by other social strains as straight-laced and -gloomy. In this judgment men have been influenced more than they are -aware by the traditions of Puritanism which it was supposed the Yankees -inherited. They recalled the story of how Bradford stopped Christmas -revelers and sent them to work; they pictured Puritan children as -forbidden to laugh and talk on the Sabbath day; and some may have heard -the story of how Washington, while president, was once stopped by a -Connecticut tithing man who must be informed why His Excellency fared -forth on the Lord’s Day instead of resting at his inn or attending -public worship.[32] - -Two remarks may be made on this point. First, while Puritanism -unquestionably had a somber discipline, there was not lacking even -among Puritans the play instinct which persisted in cropping out -despite all efforts of the authorities at repression. Second, the -nineteenth century Yankees register a wide departure from early -Puritanism in their social proclivities, and the difference was -particularly marked in the West. Even church services were modified to -fit the needs of the less resolute souls. Music became an important -feature and it was adapted more or less to special occasions.[33] -Sunday Blue Laws were gradually relaxed, though never abandoned -in principle. Well-to-do city people allowed themselves vacation -trips, visits to watering places, and to scenic wonders like Niagara -Falls.[34] In town and country alike dancing became an amusement of -almost universal vogue, though protested by some religionists, and -rural neighborhoods found bowling such a fascinating game for men and -boys that the almanac maker thought well to caution his readers against -over-indulgence therein.[35] Ball playing, picnicing, sleighing, -coasting, skating were among the outdoor sports much indulged in -by Yankees, while family and neighborhood visiting, the quilting -bee, donation parties, church socials, and the like furnished indoor -recreation. The circus and the “cattle show” were events in the western -Yankeeland equal in social significance to Artillery Day in Boston. - -Thus, while it is true that Yankees were a sober people, of -prevailingly serious mien and purpose, they were not averse to the -relaxations of play and recreation. The question whether or not the -Yankees were fun loving cannot be answered by yes or no. If we mean by -fun the rollicking joviality characteristic of irresponsible, carefree -folk, the answer is no. Many Yankees found their best fun in work -or business. To the David Harum type, which was fairly numerous, a -horse trade was more fun than a picnic. Some Boston merchants were so -immersed in their business that, though very pious, they nevertheless -spent Sunday afternoon going over their books and writing business -letters.[36] Being serious minded, they tended to make their chief -concern an obsession, and could hardly be happy away from it. But the -majority were quite as ready to amuse themselves out of working hours, -as are the Italians or other social stocks that have a reputation for -fun and frolic. - -The Yankees also found intellectual enjoyment in cultivating quickness -of retort, in giving utterance to clever if homely aphorisms, and in -a kind of whimsical humor. These traits emerge in their vernacular -literature like “Major Jack Downing’s” _Thirty Years out of the -Senate_, and especially Lowell’s _Biglow Papers_. “The squire’ll have -a parson in his barn a preachin’ to his cattle one o’ these days, see -if he don’t,” said one of “Tim Bunker’s” shiftless neighbors by way -of summarizing the squire’s over-niceness in caring for his Jersey -cows. “Ez big ez wat hogs dream on when they’re most too fat to -snore”; “that man is mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog”; -“the coppers ain’t all tails”; “pop’lar as a hen with one chicken”; -“quicker’n greased lightnin’”; “a hen’s time ain’t much”; “handy as a -pocket in a shirt”; “he’s a whole team and the dog under the wagon”; -“so thievish they had to take in their stone walls at night”; “so black -that charcoal made a chalk mark on him”; “painted so like marble that -it sank in water”--the above are all Yankeeisms of approved lineage and -illustrate a characteristic type of Yankee humor. The example below is -of a rarer sort. “Pretty heavy thunder you have here,” said the English -Captain Basil Hall to a lounger in front of a Massachusetts tavern. -“Waal, we do,” came the drawling reply, “considerin’ the number of the -inhabitants.” - -About the time that Yankees began to emigrate to Wisconsin a talented -French writer, Michel Chevalier, gave the world a brilliant and on the -whole favorable characterization of them. “The Yankee,” he says, “is -reserved, cautious, distrustful; he is thoughtful and pensive, but -equable; his manners are without grace, modest but dignified, cold, -and often unprepossessing; he is narrow in his ideas, but practical, -and possessing the idea of the proper, he never rises to the grand. -He has nothing chivalric about him and yet he is adventurous, and he -loves a roving life. His imagination is active and original, producing, -however, not poetry but drollery. The Yankee is the laborious ant; -he is industrious and sober and, on the sterile soil of New England, -niggardly; transplanted to the promised land in the west he continues -moderate in his habits, but less inclined to count the cents. In New -England he has a large share of prudence, but once thrown into the -midst of the treasures of the west he becomes a speculator, a gambler -even, although he has a great horror of cards, dice, and all games of -chance and even of skill except the innocent game of bowls.” Chevalier -also says: “The fusion of the European with the Yankee takes place -but slowly, even on the new soil of the west; for the Yankee is not a -man of promiscuous society; he believes that Adam’s oldest son was a -Yankee.” - -The Yankee was not more boastful than other types of Americans, though -his talent for exaggerative description was marked. Yet he had a -pronounced national obsession and was uncompromising in his patriotism: -“This land o’ourn, I tell ye’s got to be a better country than man ever -see,” was put into a Yankee’s mouth by one of their own spokesmen and -represents the Yankee type of mild jingoism. It is full cousin to that -other sentiment which also this writer assigns to him: - - Resolved, that other nations all, if set longside of us, - For vartoo, larnin, chiverlry, aint noways wuth a cuss.[37] - -These are but cruder expressions of ideas dating from the Revolutionary -War, and of which Timothy Dwight, who was not a poet by predestination, -gave us in verse a noble example: - - Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, - The queen of the world, and child of the skies! - Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold, - While ages on ages thy splendors unfold. - Thy reign is the last, and the noblest of time, - Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime; - Let the crimes of the east ne’er encrimson thy name, - Be freedom, and science, and virtue, thy fame. - -It need not be supposed that all Yankees who came to Wisconsin or -other western states were familiar with these glowing lines. But it is -almost certain that, in the common schools of Yankeedom, most of them -had thrilled to the matchless cadences of Webster’s reply to Hayne. -What more was needed, by way of literary support, to a pride of country -which, if a trifle ungenerous to others, was based on facts all had -experienced. - - - - -THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - -IV. SOME SOCIAL TRAITS OF TEUTONS - - -The year 1832, celebrated in Wisconsin history as the time when the -lead miners and other pioneers destroyed the power of the Rock River -Indians, was remembered by later-coming German immigrants for a very -different reason. It was toward the end of March in that year, the -place Trier (Treves), the ancient capital of the western “Cæsars,” a -city which is still rich in the massive ruins of its Roman foretime. -As the story goes, the boys of one form in the old _Gymnasium_ were -being entertained at the house of a professor, where, boy-like, they -were playing indoor games accompanied with much laughter and general -hilarity. Suddenly one of their younger classmates rushed breathless -into the room, exclaiming: “Goethe is dead!”[38] During the balance -of the evening, the less serious of the youngsters having returned to -their interrupted play, this boy engaged with his instructors in eager -discussion of Goethe’s life and writings. - -The youth in question was Karl Marx, whose later history exhibits a -wide divergence from the exclusively literary career prophesied by -his boyhood scholastic interests. The classmate who is authority for -this incident continued in Marx’s company the _Gymnasium_ studies; he -then performed his one year minimum of military service, and having -secured some business experience sailed away as an immigrant to the -new world, settling on a Wisconsin farm. In the course of a long life -he often reverted to the story of Goethe, whose works, as well as -those of Schiller and Lessing, made a part of his home library. These -great names never failed to kindle his pride in the intellectual -achievements of the German people, whose governments at the time of -his emigration in 1841 seemed to him a compound of despotism and -inefficiency.[39] - -Doubtless there were Germans of the immigration to Wisconsin who -knew not Goethe, or if in a hazy way they did know who he was, had -no intellectual right to judge his merits. But the more intelligent -were sure to possess some knowledge of the writings of their greatest -poet and of lesser men who still were great in the world’s estimation. -Hence it was that Germans who at that period went to the new world, -while acknowledging by their flight the political, economic, and social -obstacles to a successful life in Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Westphalia, -or Luxemburg, were always able to maintain a self-respecting attitude -when confronted with the pretensions of those Americans who were -unsympathetic, jingoistic, or boastful. German immigrants might grant -much to superior cleverness, to the stupendous achievements of a -liberty loving race, domiciled in a peaceful continent and dowered with -free lands and boundless opportunity; but they remembered that _William -Tell_ and _Faust_ and _The Laocoön_ were written by Germans. - -Though many immigrants were far from being literary, they doubtless -possessed, on the average, a knowledge of German masterpieces -fully equivalent to the knowledge which Americans possessed of the -English Classics. For education was looking up, and while most of -the immigrants from German states, like those from other European -countries, were of the peasant class, which was usually the most -backward, still by 1840 nearly all were sure to have enjoyed some -systematic schooling. At an earlier period this might have been -otherwise. The condition of limited serfdom, removed but a generation -earlier, operated powerfully to neutralize such benevolent plans for -universal instruction as kings and ministers proclaimed. For the -peasants were directly subordinate to the local lords, who often felt -“that an ignorant labor supply was less likely to seek to better its -condition by demands upon them....”[40] The great national reform -movement which came to fruition after the close of the Napoleonic wars -swept away many of the disabilities of the common people, and developed -in Prussia and other states a system of universal education as the -surest means of national upbuilding. - -The excellencies of the Prussian school system prior to 1840 became the -theme of flattering reports on the part of educators in many lands. -The celebrated philosopher Victor Cousin made it the basis for his -plan of educational reform in France; the Scotch, English, and Irish -discussed it; Horace Mann proclaimed it to the school authorities of -Massachusetts, and Calvin E. Stowe recommended it to the legislature of -Ohio. That system may not have possessed all of the virtues which the -ordinances quoted by Cousin imply.[41] Yet it had the one excellence to -which educationally all others are subsidiary--a well-trained teaching -force. Indeed, if there is anything which seems miraculous in the swift -and thoroughgoing transformation of school conditions in Prussia during -the first forty years of the nineteenth century, it is explained by -the provision which the state made for normal schools and the supply, -through their agency, of teachers enough to man all the schools. “In -the lowest school in the smallest and obscurest village,” says Horace -Mann, “or for the poorest class in overcrowded cities; in the schools -connected with pauper establishments, with houses of correction or -with prisons--in all these there was a teacher of mature age, of -simple, unaffected and decorous manners.” Mann also made it clear -that every such teacher was possessed of adequate scholarship and -special training for the work of the schoolroom.[42] Such a statement -could not be made at that time about Massachusetts, where popular -education was already two hundred years old, nor could it be made with -equal confidence of other German countries, though several of these -approximated the Prussian standard and most of them were earnestly -promoting education along the same lines and by the use of similar -means. - -We must therefore regard the generation of the German exodus from -which Wisconsin profited so largely in the later 1840’s and the -1850’s, as almost universally literate and usually well grounded in -the rudiments of an education. The intelligent, reading, writing, and -slow but careful figuring German peasant immigrants constituted the -best testimonial to the efficacy of German systems of instruction for -the common people. The _Gymnasia_, the _real Schule_, the universities, -sent forth representatives of the highest German culture to honor -the learned professions, the literary, philosophical, and scientific -circles of America. - -On the basis of formal school instruction alone, the historian of early -Wisconsin would be compelled to assign first place in social fitness to -the immigrants from Germany. Neither the Irish, the English, nor even -the Yankee pioneers on the average had enjoyed as thorough a training -as had Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, or Badeners. Yet, school training -is never all there is of education, and it may constitute but a small -portion of it. No one questions that the social character of Prussian -and other German peasants was far higher in 1840 than it had been in -1800, and this was due to a variety of causes, of which schooling was -only one. In part it was due to the abolition of serfdom, in part to -the reorganization of municipal life; also, largely to the religious -agitation of the period, to the movements for political reform, and -especially to the widespread, momentous, and gripping spirit of -nationalism. - -Nevertheless, despite their superb educational equipment plus other -incentives, the Prussians still seemed to intelligent American -observers in a very retarded social condition. Horace Mann, who wrote -most enthusiastically of their schools and was sympathetic toward the -Germans in every respect, in a passage of almost classic force and -beauty written in 1843, tells us why education in Prussia accomplished -for the people so much less than one might expect. For one thing, -he says, the pupils left school too early--at the age of fourteen, -which was their time for beginning regular and heavy work. Then, too, -books for further self-instruction were lacking. There was in Prussia -nothing analogous to the Massachusetts district school libraries. -“But,” he continues, “the most potent cause of Prussian backwardness -and incompetency is this--when the children come out from the school -they have little use either for the faculties that have been developed, -or for the knowledge that has been acquired. Their resources have not -been brought into demand; their powers are not roused or strengthened -by exercise. Our common phrases, ‘the active duties of life’; ‘the -responsibilities of citizenship’; ‘the stage, the career, of action’; -‘the obligations to posterity’;--would be strange sounding words in -the Prussian ear.... Now, although there is a sleeping ocean in the -bosom of every child that is born into the world, yet if no freshening, -life-giving breeze ever sweeps across its surface, why should it not -repose in dark stagnation forever.” The bill of particulars with which -the great educator clinches his indictment of the Prussian system, -while it aims to describe accurately only the then existing condition -in Prussia, might be equally applicable to almost any other absolutist, -paternalistic state. All responsibility for the people’s welfare was -assumed by the monarch, who in turn was actively aided by a hierarchy -of officials in state and church, in the central government and the -local administrative areas. - -Of this officialdom, particularly in its military and civil aspects, -the nobility was not merely the corner stone but the essential part -of the structure. The church, loyal to its traditions, was much more -democratic, men of every class being found in each of its official -grades. The newly developed educational system gave to the common man -another significant opportunity, since teaching candidates were drawn -in large numbers from the middle and lower classes, and were given -at public expense the training necessary to fit them for permanent -positions in the various types of schools. On the whole, however, life -beyond the school, which among Americans of that day commonly yielded -the major part of education, was in Prussia far less fruitful. For, the -American, whose formal schooling had been limited, was sure to multiply -its efficacy many times through the intensely original character of his -activities. In these he was apt to employ everything he had learned, -and constantly to learn more for the sake of applying the new knowledge -to challenging situations. - -The contrast between the average Prussian’s life and the average -American’s life was sharp and decisive. The boy leaving school at -fourteen in Frederick William’s country was thrust at once into a -routine of severe labor, controlled by others. Either he might be on -a farm, where his duties were fixed by custom and minutely directed -by parent or employer; or he might be apprenticed to a trade which -would give him seven years under an exacting master. Assuming that -he remained in his native region, his career thenceforth would be -determined with the minimum of personal effort. The American boy whose -schooling stopped at an early age might go west and start a new farm -home in a new environment, with every incentive toward employing his -best powers to win unusual success; he might go to the city and engage -in some business; attend school to prepare for a profession; or settle -down on the ancestral acres under social and economic conditions which -called for almost continuous readjustments, and kept his mind on the -stretch to bring these about. - -The governmental arrangements in America were inherently educational; -in Prussia they were the reverse, save when, with revolutionary fury, -the people rose to seek their destruction or reform. In Prussia, says -Horace Mann, “the subject has no officers to choose, no inquiry into -the character or eligibility of candidates to make, no vote to give. -He has no laws to enact or abolish. He has no questions about peace or -war, finance, taxes, tariffs, post office, or internal improvements to -decide or discuss. He is not asked where a road shall be laid, or how a -bridge shall be built, although in the one case he has to perform the -labor and in the other to supply the materials.... The tax gatherer -tells him how much he is to pay, the ecclesiastical authority plans a -church which he must build; and his spiritual guide, who has been set -over him by another, prepares a creed and a confession of faith all -ready for his signature. He is directed alike how he must obey his King -and worship his God.” - -The schools of Prussia inculcated religion and morality as sedulously -as they taught geography, singing, and writing, the methods used -being highly praised by American pedagogical experts. This universal -insistence on the ethical content of life could not fail to produce -results more or less in harmony with the aims of great ethical -philosophers, like Kant of Königsberg, a teacher of the learned whose -“categorical imperative,” popularized in that epoch, has not yet gone -into the philosophical discard. The average German immigrants of the -1840’s knew little of Kant or the Kantian school of ethics. But of -honesty, truthfulness, and fidelity to the plighted word they knew -much, because those were practical virtues with which in school if not -at home all were indoctrinated. Thrift and industry were additional but -fundamental virtues which were widely diffused. It is hard for an empty -sack to stand upright. The reason why in America a German’s note was -more often worth face value than that of some other classes was because -the German usually labored unceasingly and saved what he earned, thus -enabling him to meet his obligation.[43] - -They were not all saints, these Germans, and in the matter of personal -morality the Prussians particularly seem in those days to have deserved -much of the criticism directed against them.[44] However, it is not -necessary to regard even the Prussians as more lax than most other -continentals, and their character is always explainable as a vulgarized -aping of the low if gilded immoralities of court and aristocracy. -Matters of this sort do not lend themselves readily to statistical -inquiry. But it can hardly be doubted that in France, Prussia, Austria, -or any other country of continental Europe the private morals of the -common people were better on the whole than those of the upper classes. -In America, where immigrants from those countries came into contact -with a self-governing people of simple habits and prevailingly high -ideals of personal conduct, though with numerous individual divergences -from the type, sharp attention was bound to be directed to this feature -in the character of foreigners, and the Germans attracted their full -share of suspicion and disfavor from the stricter sort of Americans. - -Such suspicions were heightened by certain social customs of the -Germans to which Americans reacted adversely. Sunday amusements were -all but universal among them. Travelers in Germany dwell upon the -gaiety observed in the villages, or in the city parks and the beer -gardens, the distinctive costumes of different localities lending -color and interest to the scenes. Music was cultivated in every -German community; all Germans could sing and a large proportion could -perform on musical instruments. One was “as certain to see a violin -as a blackboard in every schoolroom.”[45] Wherever Germans gathered -together--and Sunday, since it was the weekly holiday, was their day -for assembling--there was singing and dancing, usually accompanied by -the drinking of beer or wine to stimulate hilarity. This drinking was -not necessarily excessive, because most Germans were moderate in their -appetites for alcohol, some were unable to spend much, and all were -economical (_sparsam_). The dances differed from those favored in this -country, being mainly “round dances,” and the standards of decorum in -the relations of the sexes were different also. No wonder that, when -German families settled in groups near our own people, Yankee fathers -and mothers often shook their heads doubtfully in contemplating the -influence upon their children of these unfamiliar social customs. - -It is probable that the vigor with which among this resilient people -amusements were carried on had a definite relation to the intensity, -monotony, and sordidness of the labor from which they were a recoil. At -all events, with more leisure on week days and an opportunity to do his -work under pleasanter conditions, the German readily adapted himself to -a type of relaxation which was less boisterous and more genteel. His -work and his living being what they were, it is doubtful if anything -better in the form of amusements could have been expected of him. -Travelers from England and America, on their visits to Germany, were -impressed with the wholesomeness of the Sunday picnics, the rambles -through the forests, the frolics on the village greens and in the parks -adjacent to the towns and cities.[46] - -With all his sociability, joviality, and occasional levity, the German -was not devoid of an element of austerity. This was one secret of his -ability to achieve. Whatever the work might be, he settled himself to -its performance with a grim determination expressive of century-long -training. The mechanic, from his apprentice years, was habituated to -long hours of unremitting but improving toil. The farmer (_bauer_) -was a traditional daylight-saver and a night-worker besides, such -excessive labor being compulsory under the system of serfdom, when the -peasant’s time was levied upon to a very large extent by the lord. The -German schools inculcated similar habits of relentless application -to the work in hand, and even the government bureaus, under rigorous -task-masters like old Friedrich Wilhelm and his son Frederick the -Great, enforced compliance with the ideal of a patient, steady “grind” -which not inaptly typified the German in the eyes of other peoples. The -German often performed less work in the time consumed than an alert -Yankee would have performed in a shorter day; his tools and implements -were generally awkward and inefficacious; even in scholarship he not -infrequently took the long way around to reach his goal--but he usually -reached it because he had no notion of turning back or of stopping -at a halfway point on his job. Persistent rather than brilliant, -more industrious than inventive, the German toiled on, content if he -always had something to show for his labor. The contrast, in that -generation, between the German at work and the German at play is the -contrast between a man governed by an intense purpose to accomplish -a given task, whether interesting or not, and the same man intent on -accomplishing nothing with every physical, intellectual, and emotional -evidence of enjoying the process. Some men carry into their play the -morale which governs them in their work; others import into their work -the spirit of their play. In the case of the mid-nineteenth century -German the two aspects of his existence, work and play, differed in -spirit quite as much as in content. - -The Germans had their Puritan sects, like the Moravians and other -pietists, whose attitude was distinctly other-worldly, to whom play -was a sedate if not a solemn activity. Such people disapproved of -dancing and beer drinking Germans quite as heartily as of profane -whiskey drinking and quarrelsome Americans or Irish. Individuals and -colonies of the pietistic classes passed into the emigrations, and -thus Wisconsin’s German population contained most of the elements to -be found at the same time in the German states. This illustrates one -difficulty in generalizing about social characteristics; there are so -many exceptions to be noted that the generalization loses much of its -validity. - -Craftsmanship was a prevalent accomplishment among the Germans of -the early emigration. Every shipload of emigrants of which we have a -social analysis had a large proportion of craftsmen, who were either -established members of the city and village industrial class, or else -belonged to the peasantry and had learned a craft in order to improve -their status. Trades were learned exclusively under the apprenticeship -system, the candidate usually living in the master’s home and giving -service at the master’s will. When he reached the journeyman stage he -was privileged to find work for himself, a quest which though usually -fruitful in educational results often proved disappointing from a -monetary point of view. In those cases the journeyman was peculiarly -open to the temptation to emigrate. Arrived in this country, the -chances of finding employment in the line of his training varied. -Sometimes they were excellent, at other times poor, depending mainly -upon the craft represented. Carpenters were in great demand, as were -also blacksmiths, wheelwrights, millwrights, masons, bricklayers, -plasterers, and in general all representatives of the building trades -and of trades ministering to farmers. Others were in occasional demand. -But, if a dyer, or a slater, or a cabinet maker, or a silversmith, or -a tile maker, or a weaver, or a wood carver happened to find himself -in America without a market for his peculiar skill, he always had the -resource of taking land and commencing as a farmer. Many craftsmen, -indeed, came with the set purpose of doing that immediately upon their -arrival; others contemplated a farming career after a period devoted -to their specialty. In some or all of these ways Germans trained as -craftsmen came to be widely distributed over the farming areas of -Wisconsin as well as among the cities, towns, and villages. - -The possession of special skill in any line, like the possession of -special scientific knowledge, raises a man in social estimation, and -every trained worker properly regards himself with satisfaction as -being not quite “as other men are.” In addition to the social training -which came to him as an incident of his apprenticeship and journeyman’s -experience, the German craftsman often was able to challenge the -respect and admiration of his American neighbors by making articles of -cunning workmanship which to them seemed wonderful because they did -not understand the processes involved. Agriculture being regarded as -an unskilled occupation, the artisan farmer also was very apt to lord -it over the peasant farmer of his own nationality. Craftsmanship, in a -word, established a kind of rank among Germans in this country because -it was a recognized means of personal and social progress at home. - -Statistics are impossible to procure, but the testimony of men and -women familiar with early conditions in Wisconsin proves that the -German population of the state in early days varied quite as widely -in social characteristics as did the American population, though -America had no distinctive peasant class. Accordingly, although in the -beginnings of American contacts with their Prussian or Westphalian -neighbors these were lumped together indiscriminately as “Dutchmen,” -differences soon began to emerge. In the course of a few years a -class of “fine old Germans” was recognized in almost every community -to supplement the well-known type of “fine old Yankee gentlemen.” -These select Germans were very apt to be men who had been trained as -craftsmen, or men who had enjoyed the advanced scientific or literary -instruction afforded in the higher schools and the universities of the -homeland. In the cities, especially Milwaukee, were many Germans who -had been prominent in business lines as well as in the professions. - -The question has sometimes arisen why so many of the second-generation -Germans appear inferior in social character to their immigrant parents. -A hint of the reason is found in what has just been said. Whatever -elements of superiority were shown by the immigrant artisan-farmers or -the highly educated Germans, the social advantages accruing therefrom -were personal, and in a slightly developed western society could not -be handed on to the next generation. In the cities it frequently was -possible for men of high ideals and fine social status to provide -equivalent opportunities for their children. But not so on frontier -farms. There it was a rare case when an education or training like -that received by the father in the old country could be supplied. -Accordingly, the sons of the most intelligent, dignified, and worthy -German farmer, if they became farmers in succession, might perhaps -turn out mere farmers, with none of the graces or exceptional social -virtues of the parents, and little except the memory of a parent’s -high respectability to distinguish them from the farmer sons of the -clumsiest peasant. - -However, this is but half the story. If the superior Germans reared -families incapable of remaining on their own social plane, other types -of Germans, who in their own persons counted for less, frequently -had the happiness to see their children advance to a position -perceptibly higher than their own. Natural gifts, industry, the social -opportunities which yield to the key of economic success availed much. -Sometimes the presence of a good school, a wise and helpful pastor or -some other worthy friend gave the necessary impulse. The process, in -fact, does not differ essentially from that which, throughout American -pioneer history, has enabled the deserving to press forward and -permitted the weak, indolent, or vicious to fall behind in the social -competition. It is impossible to say how many German families made a -step, or several steps, upward, and how many others slipped back. The -delinquents may perhaps exceed the meritorious in number, but probably -not, and the impression that the children of German immigrants shame -their parents is almost certainly an illusion which would be likely to -disappear if the facts were fully known. - -The social institutions of Wisconsin, based on the earlier Yankee and -southwestern immigrations, were profoundly influenced by the German -immigration of the late forties and the fifties of last century. -Milwaukee, the center of German influence (the _Deutsche Athen_), -became a city in which the German language was spoken and read by -many English speaking persons, in order to facilitate communication -and trade with the numerically dominant German element. The Germans -maintained advanced schools for instruction in both English and -German; their parochial schools were conducted mainly in German; the -immigrants themselves felt no compulsion to learn English, and their -children, in many cases, however well educated, spoke the language of -the country with very imperfect accent. - -The universal respect in which the German language was held, and the -extent to which it was affected by others than Germans, provided an -admirable social soil for the development of German music and the -cultivation of German literature. Hardly had the immigrants established -themselves when, in 1847, they founded at Milwaukee their first singing -society, which was followed three years later by the famous and -far-reaching _Musikverein_. A German theater followed promptly, and -became a permanent feature of Milwaukee’s intellectual life.[47] The -_Turnverein_ fostered in America Father Jahn’s conception of athletics, -while restaurants and beer gardens gave an old world, continental -atmosphere to public recreation. Holidays assumed a German aspect. The -_Christ Child_ displaced _St. Nicholas_ not alone in Milwaukee, but -in scores of towns, villages, and hamlets, and innumerable farm homes -scattered over Wisconsin. The joyous German _Weinacht_ made way easily -against the more somber Puritan Christmas, which, however, had already -brightened a good deal in its progress from the seventeenth century to -the nineteenth century. - -In general, Germans did not insist with extreme pertinacity upon the -retention of their own social customs, and wherever people of that -nationality were intermingled with a larger number of Americans, the -process by which they assimilated American habits of living, American -social usages, and even ways of acting, speaking, and thinking was very -rapid. In the schools of a Yankee neighborhood the children of German -settlers, in many cases, could not be distinguished by their manner -of speech from the Yankee children. On the other hand, in communities -made up wholly or mainly of Germans, the grandchildren continue to -have trouble with the _th_ sound in English words, and manifest other -linguistic peculiarities. And this difference is merely symptomatic. To -this day, it is easy to reconstruct, in case of the average person of -German descent, the atmosphere in which he was brought up. If he comes -from Milwaukee, or from some rural “Dutch settlement,” that fact is -usually clear from a hundred trifling intimations. If he was brought -up in a non-German community (so adaptable is the race), a change of -name from the German _Weiss_ to the English _White_, or from _Schwartz_ -to _Black_, would ordinarily suffice to disguise the fact that he is -of German descent at all. Germans thus brought up are apt to have made -their religious affiliations and their intimate social relationships -harmonize with those of the leading American element of the community, -so that these quite as much as their speech would tend to conceal their -racial origin. - -Wisconsin writers have made much of the fact that emigrating German -revolutionists came to this state largely in 1848 and the years -following. That fact, significant as bringing to Wisconsin Carl Schurz, -who became the most noted liberal American statesman and publicist of -German birth, has perhaps been overstressed. At least, it can safely be -said that for every revolutionist disembarked at Milwaukee or Sheboygan -or Manitowoc, probably a full score of plain, everyday, conventional -Germans filtered into the state’s population during the same time. -The important point about the revolutionists is not their relative -numbers, but their character and the leadership they helped to supply -in the affairs of the new commonwealth. Newspaper editors who possessed -exceptional literary and scholastic attainments came from that class; -some found their way into the legislature, and many served the cause -of liberal government on the local plane. - -The name of Schurz was one to conjure with, as American politicians -were quick to discover. He figured prominently in Wisconsin state -politics only a few years, but as a national leader his influence in -attaching the Germans to the causes he advocated was especially strong -in this state, which claimed him as her own. Schurz’s high character -and attainments, coupled with his political successes in this country, -were a source of pride to thousands of Wisconsin Germans who shared -not at all his revolutionary views. Enough that, like Goethe, he was -a great German, and that he had gained the respect and confidence -of large sections of the American people. It ministered to the -self-respect of the average German settler to feel that his people had -contributed something of value to the life of the nation and state. - -Later arrivals from Germany, and especially from Prussia, brought -with them an intense pride of nationalism and enthusiasm for German -achievement in the wars against Austria and against France. The -difference in attitude between immigrants of 1880 and those of forty -years earlier was antipodal. Many of the former had served in the -victorious wars and abounded in military incidents and in stories of -Bismarck, of Kaiser Wilhelm I, and Crown Prince Frederick William -(_Unser Fritz_). These men obviously belonged to a new generation of -Germans, and they have exerted a powerful influence upon our recent -history. But the Germans who deserve special recognition along with -the Yankees, as founders of the commonwealth and its institutions, -are those of the earlier immigrations from a Fatherland which as yet -was united only in culture, while politically its states remained -dissevered. - - - - -THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - -V. SOCIAL HARMONIES AND DISCORDS - - -The “Sons of the Pilgrims” of Milwaukee held in December, 1850, their -customary banquet to celebrate the historic landing on Plymouth Rock. -The occasion was one which stimulated the flow of oratory and the -display of quaint Yankee humor and sparkling wit. Among the toasts, -some of which embodied genuine wisdom, was the following: “Our adopted -state. She has gathered her sons from many lands and given them all a -home amid her bounty and her beauty. May the elements of strength and -greatness peculiar to each be here transplanted and united to form a -perfect commonwealth.”[48] - -The sentiment was notably generous, voiced as it was by one out of -the many and diverse population elements, and we now see that it was -also prophetic. But the attainment of the ideal here advanced was not -to result from an effortless, unconscious process. Much history is -involved in the relations of Yankee and Teuton--to say nothing of other -stocks--which reveals a general tendency to helpful coöperation, but -presents, on the other hand, episodes marked by animosity, jealousy, -and social estrangement. If there were social harmonies, there were -also discords. - -As early as 1850 Milwaukee contained more Germans than Yankees. Out -of an aggregate population of 20,059 the census taker had designated -3880 as natives of the New England states and New York, while 5958 -were born in Germany. The entire American element (aside from natives -of Wisconsin, who were children of the foreign born as well as of the -American born) amounted to 5113, while the number of foreigners was -12,036. Of these, more than 3000 were Irish and about 1300 English. -Thus the German was numerically the dominant social factor in the city. - -Nevertheless, in all but numbers the Yankee element remained, as it -had been from the beginning of the town’s growth, in a position of -acknowledged leadership. There would be no difficulty in proving that -socially, industrially, and commercially the places of power were -occupied by the “down-easters,” while in politics, although their -control was being challenged from one side or another, they were still -far from recognizing a master. - -Yankees were the promoters of those far-reaching improvements, like -the various plank roads, and especially the railroads, which were -destined to unite the extensive new settlements with Milwaukee and -thus guarantee the future greatness of the city. They were largely -engaged in the carrying trade on the Lakes. They controlled the flour -milling business, the leading industry of the city, in which was -concentrated probably more capital than was invested in all other lines -of manufacturing carried on at that time. They were also prominent in -wholesale merchandising and owned the most pretentious retail stores. - -Their general preëminence in the professions was undisputed. They had -most of the lawyers, a large proportion of the physicians, the editors -of English language papers, the Protestant clergymen, the teachers. -Public opinion, with a reservation to be stated presently, was mainly -of their making, both in the city itself and--through the agency of a -widely read newspaper press--in the state at large. On all questions -affecting public education, social morality, health, and recreation, as -well as business or industry, the American portion of the community was -very apt to mass behind Yankee leadership; and the English speaking -section of the foreign population was not averse to doing the same, -at least under ordinary circumstances. Often, indeed, such was the -prestige of the Yankees, their initiative was followed unquestioningly -by American and foreigner alike. - -But the weight of numbers being with the Germans, the bulk of whom did -not speak or read English--though there were numerous exceptions,--it -was natural that there should have developed a community leadership -within their own group, and such leadership would be determinative in -cases of divergence from American ideas. The presence of this great -body of non-English speaking persons, clothed with political power -and wielding also a goodly share of economic power, especially as -manifested in consumption, tended in itself to generate a more amiable -attitude and more moderate policies on the part of the dominant class. - -For the Germans were a coherent, prosperous, and growing element in the -city. They began coming in 1839, and during the succeeding decade the -annual accretions waxed gradually larger. After the revolution of 1848 -the tide of emigration, especially from the countries and provinces -along the Rhine, was swollen to unprecedented proportions, Milwaukee -and the whole state profiting largely therefrom. But, already before -1850 Milwaukee’s streets, business places, and homes were so habituated -to German speech, that most visitors unhesitatingly described it as a -German city. “In the colony of Herman alone,” wrote Carl de Haas in -1848, “among all the United States is the population so preponderantly -German.”[49] This writer also says, as do other chroniclers of -his race, that not alone the speech of his country, but also the -national habits and customs prevailed exceedingly in Milwaukee; -that the Americans made many concessions to the Germanism of the -environment--merchants, for example, learning the language themselves, -or at least keeping clerks in their establishments who could speak it, -in order to attract German trade. - -The emigration which began in 1839 as a religious movement, a -congregation of Old Lutherans fleeing the pressure of the illiberal -policy of Prussia’s king, was continued thereafter mainly from economic -and social motives. An examination of the census schedules of 1850 -for Milwaukee reveals its general character better than volumes of -reminiscent testimony. The census shows that, among the 5958 Germans in -the city, 1165 (if the count is accurate) were craftsmen. There were -house carpenters, ship carpenters, smiths, wheelwrights, millwrights, -cabinet makers, masons, plasterers, painters, brickmakers, tailors, -shoemakers, saddlers, watchmakers, coppersmiths, silversmiths and -goldsmiths, barbers, bakers, brewers, cigar makers, musicians, sailors, -and many more. In contrast to the large number of craftsmen, those -employed at common labor numbered only 461, while the aggregate of -those who may be described as business men was 248. A total of 45 -persons fall in the class of professional men. Many, even of the -laborers, possessed some property, thus showing that they were of a -substantial, home-making type. A good many of the craftsmen owned -homes, some of the business men were possessed of real estate to -an appreciable extent, and there were a very few capitalists whose -properties were valued at from $20,000 to $50,000. - -The significance to the city of having among the population so large -a body of thoroughly trained and skilled artisans cannot readily be -overstated. It toned up all building operations and enabled them to -keep pace with the city’s rapidly growing needs; it facilitated the -establishment and expansion of industries depending upon a full supply -of skilled labor; it gave the city a fine body of industrious, well -paid residents as homemakers and citizens--at a time when American -artisans were very prone to seek land and raise farm produce. American -business and industrial leaders in Milwaukee appreciated the German -craftsmen who contributed largely to the prosperity of the city; and -the same may be said of the common laborers. - -The appearance of Germans with capital which sought investment in lines -of business already pursued by Americans was no doubt less welcome, -and to some it may have seemed like an intrusion. Generally, however, -Germans began their business enterprises on so modest a scale, and -built them up so gradually, that no serious economic dislocations could -have been felt in consequence. In some cases the German business men -merely undertook to meet demands created by the presence of their own -people, which demands were not fully cared for by existing American -enterprise. Perhaps no better illustration of this tendency can be -found than the local tobacco trade. “Groceries,” of course, carried -the “plug tobacco” used so widely in those days by Americans of all -classes, while drug stores handled cigars. But smoking was more nearly -universal among European immigrants than among Americans. Germans -accordingly set up tobacco shops, which usually included a department -for the manufacture of cigars. The investments were all small, ranging -from $50 to $4000, but the payroll was of some consequence to the -city and the output considerable. It is believed that all firms of -tobacconists or cigar manufacturers listed by the census takers in 1850 -were Germans. - -Another industry in which Germans were prominent in 1850 was tanning. -This they did not monopolize, for several non-German tanners were -operating at the same time. But G. Pfister and Company, Tanners, had -an investment of $35,000 and, employing thirty-five men, manufactured -an annual product valued at $45,000, while all other tanneries taken -together had an aggregate investment of less than $7500. - -In boot and shoe manufacturing one American firm was far in the -lead.[50] Yet, on a smaller scale, German firms were participating in -the business actively, while German craftsmen were an important element -in the success of all shoe manufacturers. A similar statement will hold -true in the department of brickmaking. A large number of Germans worked -in the brickyards as experts, and several had small plants of their -own. But the big brickyard of the city was not managed by Germans.[51] -There was one single rope maker, who was a German, and also one glove -and mitten manufacturer, who was also German. Both of these industries -were small. - -There remains the historically important Milwaukee industry of -beer-brewing, popularly supposed to have been introduced by immigrants -from Munich and other centers of beer manufacture in the fatherland. -The census lists a total of ten establishments designated as breweries. -Of these, seven were owned by Germans and three by non-Germans. The -investments by the latter aggregated $27,000, those of the former -$20,900. But the sum of the annual products of the German breweries -was $41,062, while the aggregate product of the others was $32,425. -The non-German brewery which had the largest investment was doing an -annual business valued at less than the investment, while one of the -German breweries having only $3000 invested reported a product valued -at $18,000.[52] - -When we consider mercantile lines as distinguished from the industrial, -Germans were prominent in those which called for moderate investments. -They had many small grocery stores scattered through the city, a number -of meat markets, and of course a goodly proportion of liquor saloons. -There were also several German clothing stores, confectioneries, and -bakeries. That their business men expected to sell almost exclusively -to Germans is indicated by the fact that for the most part they -advertised only in the German language papers--the _Wisconsin Banner_ -and the _Volksfreund_,--not in the English papers. On the other hand, -the American merchants, as we have already seen, catered to the German -trade by providing German salesmen,[53] and they also advertised -extensively in the German papers. - -There were German taverns which did a thriving trade; the restaurants -made the sojourner from Berlin feel at home; and the German beer -gardens were the despair of the pious Yankee mothers of boys. So -indispensable did German musicians become, that when the Sons of the -Pilgrims banqueted, a brass band directed by a German bandmaster -discoursed “martial as well as festive” music. - -One other form of coöperation between Yankee and Teuton deserves to be -mentioned--the employment of German girls in Yankee homes. This custom, -testified to by German writers and indicated unmistakably by the -census, was widespread. Such service was an immediate resource to the -poorer immigrant families, and a boon to the American families as well. -By that means numbers of future German homemakers came promptly into -possession of the manners and customs of the Yankees, acquired their -speech, and gained some insight into their distinctive views of life. - -The least numerous of the special classes into which we have analyzed -the German population of Milwaukee, in 1850, was the professional -class. Yet it is not for that reason least important, for the little -group of forty-five[54] persons contained most of the individuals -whose views swayed public opinion among the 6000 Milwaukee Germans. -Among them were two newspaper editors, each in charge of a German -language paper. There were six lawyers, nine teachers, and eleven -clergymen and preachers. Four of the preachers are described as German -Lutheran, one was Evangelical, and one Methodist.[55] Two, Joseph -Salzman and Franz Fusseden, were Catholic priests. One, F. W. Helfer, -was called a “rationalist preacher.” Two, John Mühlhauser and G. -Klügel, were merely called preachers. - -It is not strange that medicine, among all the professions, should -have had the strongest representation. A physician, wherever trained, -is equipped to practice anywhere, while a lawyer, clergyman, editor, -or teacher is obliged to prepare for service by first fitting himself -into the community he is to serve. German medical education was far -superior to American at that time, and, in the western states at least, -the supply of trained physicians was below the requirements. There were -communities in Wisconsin where not one-fourth of the practitioners -were graduates of medical schools or had honestly earned the title of -“doctor.”[56] This condition made a splendid opportunity for German -physicians, who could hope to win the patronage of Americans as well -as Germans. That the prospect was alluring to them is shown by the -fact that Milwaukee at the census date in 1850 had seventeen German -physicians, some of them already men of note in the community. - -The Yankees and the Germans came into such close and intimate contacts -in Milwaukee, that it is easier to study their normal attitudes -there than in the outlying portions of the state. On the whole those -relations, in the period terminating with the Civil War, appear to -have been marked by mutual respect, if not active friendship. At all -events, if there were differences causing ill will on one side or -the other, these--so far as they were the outgrowth of the social, -economic, or commercial interplay of the two groups--rarely became -serious enough to be reflected in the public press. The prosperity of -the city, providing usually full employment and adequate returns to -all who wanted to work, made the bond between capitalist and employees -satisfactory, and this solved one important aspect of the class -problem. The absence of any decided public interest in the immigrant -problem as affecting the city--other than politically--is a fact which -obtrudes itself upon one who canvasses the Milwaukee papers, English -and German, during the fourteen years which intervened between the -first constitutional convention and the election of Abraham Lincoln to -the presidency. - -Yet, there are not wanting evidences that the two groups were quite -distinct and that the Germans, as a foreign group, were sensitively -class conscious. This is shown, for example, by the race appeals in -their business advertisements. To call attention to one’s nationality -when offering services of a personal nature, like those of the -physician, or the dentist, or even the druggist, is reasonable and -correct. But there is no good ground for assuming that nationality -makes a difference to the purchaser of lime. Why then the advertisement -of a _Deutsche Kalk Haus_ (German lime house), unless there was a -feeling that the German dealer would be favored by German buyers simply -because he was German? This is a typical example which goes to show the -existence of a city within a city, a German Milwaukee which tended to -live its own group life, for which, as already explained, it possessed, -within itself, great facilities. - -Occasionally some relatively minor happening threw this feeling of -separateness into strong relief, as when, in 1850, a German scholar -published in the Milwaukee papers of his language the story of his -relations with the chancellor and board of regents of the University. -He thought they had promised him a chair, but afterwards they made it -plain that no contract had been closed with him. He may or may not -have had cause of complaint. But what he professed to do was to lay -the whole matter before the Germans of Wisconsin, in order that they -might know how the board of regents “flouts the wishes of the German -citizens,” how it keeps its promises “to Germans,” and how little it -regards the rules of ordinary courtesy “in dealing with Germans.”[57] -No doubt the design was to bring political pressure to bear on the -regents, but the device would not have been resorted to had not the -recognized racial unity among the Germans rendered that a hopeful plan. - -In a society like the present Milwaukee, where inter-racial marriages -are a daily occurrence, and one is rarely conscious of race in -cases of that kind, the condition of seventy years ago seems almost -incomprehensible. For, a close scrutiny of the entire census record -for Milwaukee in 1850 reveals that marriages between Germans and -Americans of all derivations at that time were excessively rare. The -aggregate number of such unions was twelve. But of marriages between -Yankees and Germans I can provisionally identify only six, as follows: -Margaret, twenty-six years of age, born in Germany, was the wife of -John H. Butler, a livery-stable keeper, born in New York. Hiram Brooks, -twenty-seven, born in New York, was married to Mary, twenty-three, born -in Hesse Darmstadt. James Ridgeway, thirty, a cooper, native of New -York, was married to Mary, born in Prussia. Abram Davis, twenty-five, -a cooper, born in New York, was married to C--, twenty-three, native -of Bavaria. Joseph Stadter, thirty-three, physician, rated at $2000, -who was born in Bavaria, was married to Sarah Ann, nineteen, born -in New York (but a female who was a member of the family, and may -have been this woman’s mother, bore a German name). Finally, William -Stamm, thirty-two, painter, native of Bremen, was married to Lucy, -twenty-eight, a native of Massachusetts. - -It is not possible to determine how many of the American born persons -represented in the six cases may have belonged to German families, but -doubtless some did. At all events, we can assert that in Milwaukee -at that time, with its nearly 6000 Germans and nearly 4000 Yankees, -not more than six cases can be found of marriages between them. No -commentary is needed to establish the fact of the virtual segregation -of the two great population groups.[58] If Chevalier, the French -philosopher, was right in his conviction that “the Yankee is not a man -of promiscuous society,” it is equally true that the German at that -time was excessively clannish. His clannishness was due, no doubt, to -natural and inevitable causes, but the fact needs to be recognized by -the student of history. - -This disposition on the part of Germans to “hang together” was promptly -discovered by American politicians and exploited for partisan and -personal ends. The outstanding fact of the political history of the -period under review is the attachment of the immigrant Germans to the -Democratic party. That relation was all but absolute and universal -during the 1840’s, though a gradual change took place in the last half -of the next decade. There was nothing mysterious about it. Germans -found the country, on their arrival, living under a Democratic -administration, to which they looked for favors and usually not in -vain. The Democratic party was liberal in the bestowal of lands; it -contended manfully against the principle of monopoly, especially in -banking and other corporate activities; and it emphasized the doctrine -of the equality of all men. The Germans, like the Irish and, in fact, -all immigrants, were strongly attracted by the principles professed -in Democratic platforms. The very word “democracy,” had its winning -appeal. “Democracy,” wrote the editor of the _Banner_ in 1850, “is a -glorious word. There are few other words, in any language, which can -be compared to it. To the poor man it is peculiarly precious since he -is aware that he owes to it his escape from the serfdom in which his -oppressors held him, and can now look up into heaven and thank his -God that he has ceased to be a serf. Democracy knows no distinctions -between man and man. She sets all upon the broad foundation of -equality.”[59] - -The enormous prestige gained by the Democratic party under Jackson’s -leadership easily floated the administrations of Van Buren and Polk. -But, as an influence toward captivating the foreign element in -Wisconsin, no other Democratic principle had quite the efficacy of the -liberal suffrage provision which the party in power adopted at the -beginning of our history as a state. - -In Michigan the makers of the state constitution had granted the -voting privilege to all aliens who were _bona fide_ residents and -who had declared their intention to become citizens. That clause in -her organic law drew the criticism of Whig members of Congress, but -she was admitted to the union in spite of their opposition, and thus -was established the principle that men might be voters without being -citizens. When, in 1846, the territorial legislature of Wisconsin -provided by law for the holding of a constitutional convention, a -similar proviso was made to govern the election of delegates to the -convention. - -In Milwaukee County the Democrats nominated eight candidates for -delegates. Dr. Franz Huebschmann was the sole German named. The -_Wisconsin Banner_, while remarking that Germans constituting one-third -of the population were to have but a single delegate, urged Germans to -vote as one man for him. He was needed, said the editor, especially -to contend for equality in the voting privilege, for which he had -striven manfully during the past three years. In the neighbor county -of Washington, Germans were urged to support two Irish candidates who -favored equality of the voting privilege and whom the Whigs (so it was -asserted) were trying to defeat by the same wiles they employed against -Huebschmann. The moral of the _Banner_ editorials was: “Don’t trust the -Whigs. They have always opposed the rights of the foreign born.”[60] In -preparation for the vote on delegates, Milwaukee Germans who had not -declared their intention were given every direction for completing that -formality, and the indications are that a large number of voters were -newly made for the occasion. - -Dr. Huebschmann, in the first convention, was a powerful advocate of -equality, giving as the chief ground in favor of the principle that -it would tend to bring Americans and foreigners into more harmonious -relations with one another. “The more distinctions you make between -them politically,” he said, “the more you delay this great end -[amalgamation], which is so essential to the future welfare of this -state. And, in fact, I regard only one measure equally important as the -political equality which I ask for, and that is a good common school -system.... Political equality and good schools will make the people of -Wisconsin an enlightened and happy people. They will make them one -people.”[61] - -On the educational question Huebschmann found the Yankee majority -of the convention eager to welcome his coöperation. On the subject -of suffrage their unity was less complete. While party lines were -not strictly drawn, the chief contenders for equality were leading -Democrats and the chief opponents leading Whigs. But both conventions -adopted the principle, the first not quite frankly, and with the -admission of Wisconsin into the union all foreign born persons who had -resided in the state one year prior to any election had the right to -vote, provided they had declared their intention to become citizens of -the United States. - -The adoption of such a liberal suffrage provision in the teeth of the -nativist movement which had affected all parts of the country more or -less, was considered a great triumph of Democratic principles. And -there is no doubt about the gratitude of adoptive citizens to the party -which secured them the boon. To the Germans it seemed thenceforward a -simple question of loyalty to support the Democratic party, through -thick and thin, through good report and evil report. Inasmuch as the -Democratic party also supported the Germans’ views on the subject of -temperance (prohibition), soon to become a burning issue,[62] and in -their contest with the more serious manifestations of Know-Nothingism, -which in this state reached its climax somewhat later, one almost -wonders how any of the Germans were able to detach themselves from -that party, despite its failure to represent them on the slavery and -free-soil issues. - -The temperance movement and nativism were the chief grounds of -political contention between Germans and Yankees during this period. -The first of these broke, in 1853-55, on the rock of German--which -meant Democratic--opposition. For, although a referendum vote had gone -in favor of the enactment of a “Maine Law,” the Democratic legislature -chosen at the same time refused to accept the result as mandatory, -and did not pass the law. And when the first Republican legislature -did pass such a law, in the early months of the year 1855, Barstow, -the Democratic governor, vetoed the bill. Never thereafter did the -temperance issue become as acute as it had been during the seven years -immediately following statehood, but it is not strange that their -record on that question was one of the standing arguments against -Republicanism among the German voters.[63] - -The Know-Nothing issue, which was supposed to be dying out at the -time of the Wisconsin constitutional conventions, 1846-1848, revived -after the Mexican War, figured prominently in the defeat of General -Scott in 1852, and in this state as well as in some other states rose -to dramatic and even tragic interest in 1855. Thereafter it declined, -to pass away for the time being with the election of Lincoln and the -engulfing of the nation in war. - -But the Know-Nothingism of 1855 was regarded by the Democratic party -as sinister because, as that party professed to believe, it had got -itself incorporated as an important if not controlling element in the -new Republican party. This the Republican leaders and organs denied -with vigor, but it is true that the general council of the _American_ -party in this state urged the support of the Republican candidates -and professed to have contributed 20,000 votes toward the election of -Bashford. The Republicans had no objection to Know-Nothing votes, but -they feared that the endorsement of their ticket by the Know-Nothings -would cost them more foreign born votes than it would gain them -nativists. It was tactically wise for the Democrats, and especially the -German Democratic press, to keep the “Republican-Know-Nothing” idea -before their people--and they made the best use of the opportunity. - -“Temperance,” after all, was regarded by the Germans as merely -a manifestation of Puritan fanaticism, which must be opposed in -the interest of personal liberty. Much as they disliked it, their -opposition does not seem to have developed excessive bitterness against -the believers in or practicers of temperance. But nativism, which -demanded that the suffrage be limited to citizens; that naturalization -be made more difficult; that in some departments, as in the army, -natives be favored to the exclusion of the foreign born, this they -felt to be a deliberate and vicious attack upon the rights of the -foreign born as a class. The advocacy of these principles involved -much discussion of the unfitness of foreigners, their ignorance, their -sordidness, their “un-American” habits and customs, in one important -respect their “anti-American” religion. - -All of this inevitably roused a bitter, fighting resentment on the -part of all foreigners, as it did among radical natives also, and it -is well known that many parts of the country suffered in consequence -from riots and other manifestations of a class war. In Wisconsin -there was less overt hostility than in some states where the foreign -elements were not so powerful.[64] The Know-Nothing party as such -functioned seriously only in the one year 1855, and its propaganda was -relatively mild-mannered.[65] Its chief objects of attack were the -foreign born Catholics, which class included a majority of the Irish -but only a fraction of the Germans, most of whom--probably--were either -Lutheran or Reformed, with an appreciable number of non-churchmen -or “free-thinkers.”[66] Nevertheless, nativism, as entangled in the -political psychology of this eventful year, had its full share in -producing a tragedy in this state also. - -It came in the form of a lynching, carried out with hideous barbarism -by a body of the ruder Germans of Washington County, in August, -1855. It seems that a sickly, weak witted boy of nineteen, named -George DeBar--a native of New York State--felt himself aggrieved by -a German farmer and proposed to administer a beating. This he partly -accomplished, at the farmer’s home, but his victim fled into the field, -where he found a hiding place. Meantime, DeBar ran amuck, and meeting -the man’s wife stabbed her severely but not fatally. He next pursued a -fifteen-year-old boy, Paul Winderling, who was living with the farmer, -attacked him with his pocketknife, and killed him. He then burned the -farmer’s cabin. DeBar afterwards solemnly assured his attorneys that -the only part of the transaction he could remember was striking the -farmer himself with a stone knotted in his handkerchief. The belief -was widespread that he became unbalanced mentally at this point, which -theory is really the simplest explanation of his horrible crime, -committed without assignable motive. - -Immediately on DeBar’s arrest a plan was hatched to storm the jail, -take him out, and hang him. The death penalty had been abolished at -the instance, as many felt, of the Yankee sentimentalists, and the -ignorance of some suggested that, since hanging was only justice in -a case like this, and the state refused to execute a criminal, the -people themselves had a right to take the matter into their own -hands. Unfortunately, a similar case had happened two weeks earlier at -Janesville, in which the avenging crowd was made up of Americans.[67] -It was suggested by some that DeBar was himself a Know-Nothing, or -at least trained with the Know-Nothing element, and there were dire -whispers about the trial judge, Charles H. Larrabee. Doubtless these -rumors were altogether wild. The nineteen-year-old DeBar, practically -_non compos mentis_, was of no possible political consequence, while -Judge Larrabee at the time was as sound a Democrat as could be -found.[68] But passions once fully aroused hurl reason from its throne, -and so it was in this case. The rowdies gathered at a drinking place in -West Bend, and decided on a lynching. - -Judge Larrabee convened a special session of court, impaneled a grand -jury, and having summoned two companies of militia--the Union Guards of -Ozaukee County, a German company, and the Washington Guards, another -German company, of Milwaukee--to come up for the protection of the -prisoner, had him conveyed to the courthouse and examined. The grand -jury brought in a true bill, charging murder in the first degree. -To this the prisoner, on the advice of his attorneys, pleaded “not -guilty.” The multitude which had been permitted to press into the -court room, despite the judge’s instruction to the militia to limit -the number to the seating capacity of the room, fairly raged when they -found a trial would be required, and before the prisoner took many -steps in the direction of the jail, they seized him and made way with -him. - -The severest censure was leveled against the militia companies and -their leaders. All the American writers whose statements appear in the -_Sentinel_ charge that these companies fraternized with the lynching -party, and practically assert that they had an understanding by which -the prisoner was to be given up to them. The captain of the Milwaukee -company, who was a veteran of the Mexican War--though a German -immigrant--insisted with vigor that his company did all it could to -prevent the lynching. He did not speak for the Union Guards of Ozaukee. -All witnesses agree that one of the Union Guard officers, Lieutenant -Beger, performed his duty manfully and heroically, but the weight of -the testimony condemns the companies as organizations, and especially -their captains. It would seem that two companies of militia, if well -led, ought to have been able with the butts of their guns to hold off a -rabble of three hundred men, and no witness puts the number higher than -that, while some declare the rush was made by not more than thirty-five -men. - -In the Milwaukee captain’s statement, as in the statements of other -German apologists for the militia, we come at once upon the political -note. They could not expect the “Know-Nothing American writers” to tell -the truth about the tragedy. In other words, they found in the politics -of the time an opportunity to charge prejudice against Americans, and -by that means to dodge the real issue. Two German writers of West Bend, -one of them the undersheriff, bitterly denounced both the militia -companies and the lynchers, and both more than hint that the passions -which led to the lynching were partly religious. Here, undoubtedly, we -come upon one of the signs of division among the Germans themselves. It -is possible that these two Germans were politically opposed to the main -body of their fellow-countrymen, for by this time a light minority had -already been attracted away from the Democratic party. However, we do -not know that this was true, and merely call attention to the several -psychological attitudes which, from the testimony, we know the case -disclosed. - -Of greatest interest is the attitude of English and German language -papers of Democratic and Republican proclivities. The _Sentinel_ -continued to admit contributions on the West Bend tragedy for -approximately two weeks. It also published the results of an -investigation made on the ground by one of its staff, and a petition to -the governor, said to have been signed by 186 residents of Washington -County, who asked for the disbandment of the two accused companies -and the withdrawal of their officers’ commissions. But the _Sentinel_ -does not appear to have tried by means of the incident to influence -the political situation which was about to become superheated. At all -events, what it published would all have been legitimate as news. On -the other hand, the _Banner und Volksfreund_,[69] while condemning the -lynching, made no demand for the punishment of the lynchers. It tried -to exculpate the militia companies (accepting the Milwaukee captain’s -testimony as against all other evidence), and deliberately charged -that the _Sentinel_, in publishing the above-mentioned petition, was -playing for political advantage. This charge was absurd on its face, -for the success of the new Republican movement which the _Sentinel_ had -espoused depended on its ability to detach Germans from the Democratic -party, which assuredly could not be done by playing into the hands of -the Know-Nothings, and the _Sentinel_ did not hesitate to declare the -Know-Nothing support a handicap to the party. - -Both American and German testimony discloses the existence in -Washington County of a strong German party of law and order. They -deplored the lynching and urged the apprehension and trial of the -ringleaders. They realized that the crime would put a stigma upon their -race as well as upon the county and the state. But, as a matter of -fact, although some of the lynchers were identified in the verdict of -the coroner’s jury, it must be recorded that no earnest effort was made -to punish them.[70] Nor was any step of an official character taken (so -far as I have been able to find) to determine the guilt or innocence of -the militia companies and their officers. In fact, the Democratic press -of the state, evidently fearful of sacrificing some German Democratic -votes, which that year were all needed, deliberately tried to darken -council by confounding this case in principle not only with the -Mayberry case, which it resembled, but also with another of an entirely -different nature, to which we must give passing attention. - -In the previous year, 1854, occurred at Milwaukee the famous Glover -rescue. Glover was a runaway slave who had been apprehended by his -self-styled owner, brutally man-handled, and confined in the Milwaukee -County jail for safekeeping. Sherman M. Booth, editor of the _Daily -Free Democrat_, one of the founders of the Republican party, a vigorous -free-soil and antislavery partisan, and the man in the state who was -perhaps most feared and hated by the Democracy, had argued hotly for -the protection of Glover’s rights against the man claiming him under -the “unconstitutional” compromise law of 1850. Booth called a public -meeting at the courthouse for the purpose, as he claimed, of concerting -measures for helping Glover without the use of force. But the upshot -was a rescue party which battered down the door of the jail, took -Glover out, and by various shifts and transfers on the underground -railway, carried him to Canada and freedom. Booth was then made to -suffer for all that had been done; he was tried in the federal court, -convicted, fined, and given a jail sentence. - -We cannot go into the details of the Booth case, a _cause célèbre_ in -ante-Civil War political history. But the Democratic papers, after the -DeBar lynching, ostentatiously bemoaned the fact that due to recent -events “neither national nor state laws” could hereafter be enforced -in Wisconsin. The beginning of the trouble was the setting at naught -of the national law for the rendition of slaves, in which the arch -Republican Booth was ringleader. The Mayberry lynching and the DeBar -lynching followed in natural sequence. These editors did not choose to -analyze the difference between the Glover case and the others--the fact -that the one was a rescue performed at their own risk by philanthropic -men, the others brutal killings committed by men crazed with the lust -of blood vengeance. In other words, the Democratic press, including -those papers printed in the German language, attempted the impossible -feat of arranging in the same straight line the “higher law” and the -lower law. - -Of course, the Republican press retorted handsomely, and probably -with considerable political effect, that if the apologists for mob -law in Kansas were “in favor of the execution of the fugitive slave -act in Wisconsin” they would like their avowal to that effect.[71] It -is well known that during the 1855 campaign, as in the previous year, -a good many Germans were converted from their old-time Democratic -allegiance.[72] But both parties were too intent on their immediate -political objects to risk pressing for an investigation of the West -Bend tragedy, which might have alienated a large section of the German -vote in three German counties. - -It is not impossible that politics was responsible for the severity of -the onslaught upon the militia companies, since the nativist propaganda -for an exclusively American militia would be quick to seize upon such -an opportunity, and it is not to be supposed that the politics of the -case was all on one side. Yet, unless the governor was in possession of -facts which were withheld from the public, the least that could be said -against the companies is that they exhibited criminal inefficiency. -From this distance, it looks as if politics affected the Republican -attitude as well as the Democratic; as if crime was condoned in the -interest of party success, since one party was intent on holding its -former German adherents and the other was determined to take as many of -them as possible into the opposition camp. - -Whether or not the incident leaves the stain of blood on the path -of Wisconsin politics, it marks the nearest approach to a race war -between Germans and Americans which this general period affords. And -by Americans we practically mean Yankees. For it was a truth which the -German press sensed instinctively, that the Republican party--made -up of “shreds and patches,” as was said,--embracing prohibitionists, -abolitionists, free-soilers, nativists, and Whigs, was dominated by -the “Puritan” element.[73] A glance at the history of its origin in -Wisconsin will at least convince the reader of its Yankee paternity.[74] - -However, the Republican party changed radically in character -during the next few years, and as the German population came to be -distributed between it and the Democratic party, a healthier social -tone was the result. The political campaign of 1856, when Frémont was -candidate for the presidency, was conducted with such enthusiasm by -Wisconsin Republicans, as to make serious inroads on the Democratic -German vote. A number of prominent German leaders took the stump -for Frémont, speaking in the German language to German audiences -with telling effect. Thereafter, in successive state campaigns and -in the presidential canvass of 1860, the Germans of Wisconsin were -electrified by the compelling oratory of their greatest campaigner, -Carl Schurz, to whom the success of the Lincoln ticket, both in -Wisconsin and other western states harboring many Germans, was largely -due. Such participation was doing much to justify the prophecy of Dr. -Huebschmann--that political equality would help to make the people of -Wisconsin “one people.” - - -[Illustration: - - _Photo by Edward C. Nelson_ - - WM. STEPHEN HAMILTON, FOUNDER OF MUSCODA] - - - - -MUSCODA, 1763-1856 - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - - -The light which local inquiry can shed upon general history is well -illustrated from a variety of viewpoints in the story of the Wisconsin -village which is the subject of this sketch. - -Muscoda as a present-day railway station is inconspicuously located on -the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul line, Prairie du Chien division, -at the distance of fifty-six miles almost due west from Madison, one -hundred and fifty-two from Milwaukee; it is forty-two miles east from -Prairie du Chien. The village was begun at the river bank on the south -side of Wisconsin River, in section 1, township 8 north, range 1 west -of the fourth principal meridian. It stretches south from the river -toward the flanking hills about three-fourths of a mile, the main -portion now clustering about the depot, whereas the “Old Town” lay -farther north and hugged the river bank. - -The ground on which Muscoda stands is a portion of the sandy plain, -the outwash of the erosion process by which the Wisconsin and its -larger tributaries worked their way through the sandstone stratum. The -upper courses of these tributaries and the smaller streams which feed -them have laid down flood bottoms of rich alluvium. Often, too, the -bench land of their valleys is a fertile limestone soil intermingled -with clayey patches and occasional streaks of sand. These are all -characteristics of the “Driftless Area,” as the geologists have named -this region, because the various primordial movements of glacial -ice, so influential in modifying the topography elsewhere, passed -around instead of over it, leaving no “drift” upon it. The terrain -is just what the eroding waters in the course of countless ages made -it--a system of regular valleys perfectly drained and bounded by -symmetrically sculptured hills or bluffs, which exhibit a level sky -line and decrease in altitude steadily till at the heads of the streams -they merge in the great plateau or “prairie” of southern Wisconsin. The -valleys make natural and not ill-graded highways from the prairie to -the Wisconsin River, while the ranges of bluffs separating them appear -like promontories running out fingerwise from the main plateau and -terminating either where two smaller streams converge or at the edge of -the lower plain laid down by the Wisconsin. - -The principal stream entering the Wisconsin from the south, in the -neighborhood of Muscoda, is Blue River--the “Riviere Bleu” of the -French traders. It has several head streams rising in township 6-1 E, -and a large affluent named the Fennimore rising in 6-1 W, the Six Mile -Creek, rising in 7-1 E and Sandy Branch which heads in 8-1 E. There are -also several small branches entering the Fennimore from 7-2 W. In its -lower course the Blue River swerves to the west, entering the Wisconsin -near Blue River Station, in Township 8-2 W, but its rich upper valleys -and those of its tributaries have always been mainly within the trade -area of Muscoda. North of the Wisconsin the valleys most intimately -associated with Muscoda are Indian Creek, Eagle Creek, and Knapp’s -Creek in Richland County. The “Sand Prairie,” by which name the sandy -plain along the Wisconsin on the south side has long been known, and a -narrow tract of shelving land between the river and the hills on the -north are also within the Muscoda area. - -Since the bluffs are mostly rough land, with only limited areas -on their summits where the soil is deep, free from stones, and -sufficiently even for cultivation, and the sand prairie comparatively -infertile, Muscoda as a trade center suffers from the low average -productivity of her territory. Still, from pioneer days the long -valleys beyond the sand prairie have yielded abundant harvests; -the roads through them from the high prairie to the south opened to -Muscoda’s merchants for some years a great trade in livestock and -grain beyond her legitimate boundaries; while the cross ranges which -run out from the high prairie northward approximately fifteen miles -forced the only rival railway,[75] when it came, back upon the great -ridge, leaving the north trending valleys still as a whole tributary to -Muscoda. - - -THE BACKGROUND - -According to Father Verwyst, a distinguished authority, the name -Muscoda is a corruption of the Chippewa word “Mashkodeng” which means -“prairie.” A similar corruption occurs in the name “Muscatine,” a town -in Iowa, and there was a tribe of Indians on the Upper Fox River called -Mascouten (prairie Indians). - -The earlier name of the place was English Prairie, and while it is -clear that geography suggested “Prairie” (or Savannah), there are -various traditions to explain the association of the word “English” -with it. One is that some English families were settled there as early -as 1812 and that they were massacred by the Indians. Another, that the -place was so named from the fact that Colonel McKay, who descended the -river in 1814 with a regiment of British troops to capture Prairie -du Chien, encamped at this place which thereafter was called English -Prairie. - -A more hopeful clue to the origin of the name occurs in the journal of -Willard Keyes, a young New Englander who passed down the river with a -party in 1817. He writes, under date of August 29, 1817: “pass a place -called ‘English meadow’ from an English trader and his son, said to -have been murdered there by the savages, 20 Leagues to Prairie du -Chien.”[76] Now, the fact of “an English trader and his son” being -murdered at some point on the Wisconsin River between the Portage and -Prairie du Chien is well established. In the journal of Lieut. James -Gorrell, the first English commandant at Green Bay after the ejection -of the French, we read, under date of June 14, 1763: “The traders came -down from the Sack [Sauk] country, and confirmed the news of Landsing -and his son being killed by the French.” When all the Sauk and Foxes -had arrived at Green Bay a few days later they told Gorrell that their -people were all in tears “for the loss of two English traders who were -killed by the French in their lands, and begged leave ... to cut them -[the French] in pieces.”[77] - -In the following summer, 1764, Garrit Roseboom testified, that “about -the latter end of April, 1763, he was going from the Bay [Green Bay] to -the Soaks [Sauk] to look for his Partner Abrah[a]m Lancing who had been -up there, being told that he was killed, that on his way he met some -Indians coming down with some Packs [of furs], which he knew to be his, -and which they said he could have for paying the carriage. That both -the French and Indians told him, Mr. Lancing and his son were killed -by two Frenchmen” who were servants of Mr. Lansing and who afterwards -escaped to the Illinois Indians.[78] - -When we reflect how persistent is the memory of great tragedies and -recall that some of the French traders and voyageurs who were on the -river when the murder took place remained there for many years and -handed down the traditions of the river to their successors, it is not -hard to believe that it was the story of Abraham Lansing and his son, -slightly altered, which Willard Keyes heard from the rivermen as his -boat drifted along the “English meadow” in 1817. The French traders -in whose company he was would not be likely to ascribe the murder to -their own people so long as there were “savages” who might just as -well serve as scapegoats. We may consider it almost certain, then, -that the place came to be called English Prairie from the gruesome -crime of 1763, which had occurred almost three-quarters of a century -before the postoffice of that name was established, and more than half -a century prior to the voyage of Willard Keyes. Jonathan Carver, who -visited a village of the Fox Indians at that place in 1766, does not -use the name; but neither does he mention the story of the murder which -occurred only three years before. - -No definite information about the fur trade at English Prairie, aside -from the record in Lansing’s case, has come down to us. Tradition -has it that Laurent Rolette, brother of the famous Prairie du Chien -trader, Joseph Rolette, traded there for some years, going later to the -Portage. It appears also that some time before the arrival of white -settlers a trader named Armstrong operated in that neighborhood. But -no details have been preserved and we can only infer from the fact -that Indians were still numerous when settlers came that the trade at -English Prairie in earlier times was probably important. - -It was the Black Hawk War and the treaties following it that produced -the revolutionary change in the life of the natives in this region. -From that time forward Indians could live south of the river only on -sufferance, though they were permitted to roam the forests to the -northward for about a quarter of a century longer. During the Black -Hawk War a detachment of Colonel Henry Dodge’s Mounted Volunteers -went to English Prairie, another detachment going at the same time to -Prairie du Chien. Between them these two bodies of troops scoured both -sides of the Wisconsin from the mouth to the Portage, dislodging all -natives. English Prairie was also the camping ground for a military -company composed of friendly Indians recruited at Green Bay and led to -Prairie du Chien by Samuel C. Stambaugh in July, 1832. The route of -march was from Green Bay to the Portage, thence to Sugar Creek (near -Blue Mounds), thence to Fort Dodge (Dodgeville), thence to English -Prairie, thence to Prairie du Chien “with one other camping between.” - - -RELATION TO THE LEAD MINES - -History repeats itself in making the Indian War of 1832 the impulse to -a great new expansion movement among American pioneers. Just as the -Pequod War of 1638 by familiarizing the coast settlers of Massachusetts -with the rich lands of the interior enticed them westward, and as the -Seven Years’ War destroyed the last obstacle to western and northern -expansion in New England, so in a very real sense this war made the -beginnings of the agricultural settlement in Wisconsin. Immediately -after the Black Hawk War the survey of the lands in southern Wisconsin -began. In the four years, 1832 to 1836, the entire region from the -Illinois line north to the Wisconsin, the Fox, and Green Bay, and from -the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, was checked off into townships and -sections. Hardy, resourceful government surveyors, with their crews -(usually two chainmen and one axman) traversed every square mile, -whether prairie, forest, valley, or bluff. In 1834 a land office was -opened at Mineral Point for the sale of lands in the western portion of -Michigan Territory (as it was then). - -The ranges of townships numbered 1 W and 1 E, of which the townships -numbered eight (Muscoda and Pulaski) bounded by the Wisconsin, were -for some years the northernmost, were surveyed by Sylvester Sibley in -1833. The next year those lands were offered for sale and some tracts -along the river were actually sold to private individuals. Among the -purchasers were Thomas Jefferson Parrish and Charles Bracken, who -were well-known lead miners and smelters living farther south. Others -among the early land owners of Township 8-1 W have been identified as -mining men. - -[Illustration: THE LEAD REGION - - After Owens’ Geological Chart, 1839; drawn by Mary Stuart Foster] - -The lead mines, while known and worked by Indians and a few traders -for many years, received the first large body of emigrants in 1828, -when several thousand came scattering out widely over the territory -which now constitutes Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette counties in Wisconsin, -together with adjacent parts of Iowa. These were the lead miners who -under Dodge and Hamilton fought the Black Hawk War. It was these hardy -pioneers who as troopers patrolled the Wisconsin River and who finally -delivered the coup de grace to Black Hawk’s band far to the north on -the banks of the Mississippi. - -Many of the lead miners were shrewd business men always on the lookout -for good financial prospects. With the knowledge of new regions -gained during the war, either from personal observation or from -reliable report, with the sense of a new era opening to settlement and -expansion in the region dependent for transportation facilities on the -Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, it is not strange that some of them -should have been interested in river points lying as far outside the -mineral belt proper as did English Prairie. - - -A RIVER PORT - -For it is clear that it was water and not lead that the pioneers of -Muscoda sought. Surveyors and prospectors had found no hopeful signs of -mineral north of townships 6-1 W and 7-1 E. A few years later (1839) -Dr. David Dale Owen, the geologist, made his famous survey of the lead -region and excluded from it everything north of the heads of Blue River -in townships 6 and 7-1 E. When the lands in township 8-1 W were offered -for sale in November, 1834, it was precisely the river front lots and -subdivisions which were taken first. Parrish entered fractional lots -2 and 3 of section 1; Frederick Bronson the northeast fraction of the -southeast quarter of section 1; Isaac Bronson the south half of the -southeast fractional quarter; Garrit V. Denniston the southeast half -of the fractional southwest quarter; and Denniston and Charles Bracken -fraction No. 4 of fractional section 1. Other water front tracts in -section 2 were bought by Denniston at this time; between 1836 and 1841 -other tracts in the same sections were bought by others. All of these -lands were obviously deemed favorable locations for a prospective town -dependent on river transportation. - -The way in which the village was begun, by the erection of a smelting -furnace, is rather startling, in view of the absence of lead in the -region adjacent. The motives which induced Colonel William S. Hamilton -of Wiota to build a furnace at English Prairie can only be conjectured. - -Colonel Hamilton was the son of the great Alexander Hamilton, -Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury. As a lad of seventeen in 1814 -he entered West Point but resigned in 1817 to accept a commission as -deputy surveyor-general under Col. William Rector, surveyor-general -for Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. From that time young Hamilton -was almost continuously in the West, though he made one trip east, on -horseback, to see his mother. He was in Wisconsin as early as 1825 and -in 1827 began his career as a lead miner and smelter in what is now -Lafayette County at Wiota or Hamilton’s Diggings. He took part in the -Indian troubles of 1827, and also in the Black Hawk War. - -It is not known with certainty when Hamilton established his furnace -at English Prairie. Tradition says it was in the year 1835. If the -furnace was operating then, it is strange that so careful an observer -as Featherstonhaugh, who dropped down the Wisconsin in August, 1835 -and stopped at English Prairie to draw a sketch of its landscape, -should have failed to note that fact.[79] We are probably justified -in asserting that the furnace was not there at that time. But we know -it was there in 1837, for Captain Frederick Marryat, a famous English -writer who descended the river in that year, saw “a small settlement -called the English prairie” where there was a “smelting-house and a -steam saw-mill.”[80] I incline to think the year 1836 was the date -of its beginning. In 1835 Hamilton was a candidate for member of the -Council from the western part of Michigan Territory. His canvass was -conducted in the lead mining region and his advertisement appeared -in the Galena papers. He was elected to and became president of the -so-called “Rump” Council which met at Green Bay January 1, 1836 and -sat for two weeks. During that session the town of Cassville, on the -Mississippi, was designated as the territorial capital, Hamilton making -the principal argument in favor of the movement. Much interest was -manifested in internal improvements designed to develop a through line -of transportation via the Wisconsin and Fox rivers.[81] The territory -of Wisconsin was just being organized by Congressional action and great -expectations were being awakened in consequence. - -The miners and smelters had theretofore sold their lead through the -commission merchants of Galena, by whom it was sent to St. Louis. -But as new mines were opened farther and farther north, the cost of -transportation to Galena--by means of the “sucker teams”[82]--steadily -increased. Moreover, in the year 1836-37 the price of lead declined -so alarmingly that little of it was made and the smelters had nearly -all ceased to operate. Yet, it was felt that prices would rise again -promptly in response to the demand for lead. In the same period, due -no doubt partly to the hardships of the miners and smelters, there was -widespread and loud dissatisfaction with the treatment accorded the -lead owners by the Galena middlemen. Efforts were made to establish -some other lead shipping port as a rival to Galena, which helps to -explain the rise of both Cassville and Potosi. - -The inference from these facts is that Hamilton probably thought he -saw in a smelter located at the steamboat landing at English Prairie a -possibility of immediate profit, even though margins were very narrow, -and a chance to build up a flourishing business. He could buy the -cheapest ore--that which was produced near the northern edge of the -lead region, Centerville, Wingville, and Highland. The haul from those -places would be short and all down grade and if the mineral were taken -direct from the mines there would be no rehandling until the bars of -pure lead were ready to be dumped from the furnace floor into the hold -of the steamer. The teams employed to bring down the raw mineral could -carry freight back the fifteen or twenty miles to the mines much more -cheaply than it could be transported from Galena or Cassville three -or four times as far. Finally, abundant supplies of wood were at hand -to feed the furnace, and French rivermen were a source from which to -recruit labor. - -To an enterprising, speculative, acquisitive character like Hamilton, -who had no family to tie him to a particular spot, such arguments would -appeal strongly, and there is no inherent reason why the venture should -not have succeeded. Hamilton operated the furnace, either personally or -by proxy, at least till 1838 and possibly longer, selling it finally to -Thomas Jefferson Parrish, whose principal mining and smelting business -was located at the head of Blue River, afterwards Montfort. - -The fact that Parrish owned the ground at the steamboat landing -and that in 1837 he was postmaster at English Prairie (then called -Savannah) suggests that he may have been a partner in the business from -the first and perhaps local manager of the furnace. At all events, -Hamilton continued his business at Wiota and very soon cut loose -entirely from the English Prairie venture.[83] That place, under the -name of Savannah or English Prairie, was a calling place for river -steamers as early as 1838 and is scheduled as forty-one miles from -the mouth of the Wisconsin.[84] It was said that the only boat which -regularly plied on the river in that year was the _Science_, piloted by -Captain Clark, who made his first voyage in June, 1838.[85] But there -were doubtless visits from steamers running to Fort Winnebago (Portage) -during that and earlier years. - -In one of the Milwaukee papers for 1841 is a statement that “four -sucker teams” had brought in lead from Thomas Parrish’s furnace “near -Muscoday in Grant County.” This reference has been taken as proof -that the Muscoda furnace was still in operation. I think it refers -not to the Muscoda furnace but to one of several furnaces Parrish was -conducting in the lead region near the heads of Blue River. The phrase -“near Muscoday” used as far from the lead region as Milwaukee may very -well mean some place fifteen or twenty miles from the Wisconsin; and -the word “near” instead of “at” certainly excludes Muscoda itself. -Setting this evidence aside, there is no proof that the Muscoda furnace -was operated as late as 1841. Nor, on the other hand, is there proof of -its earlier discontinuance. We simply do not know how long it was kept -alive or how large a business it developed at the “Landing.” - - -SIGNS OF HARD TIMES - -Two things suggest that the little village failed to develop a “boom” -or even to gain a basis for healthy growth. These are the land -entries in the territory adjacent and the story of the post office. -Practically, there were no new entries of land between the years -1841 and 1849. This is true for all the townships in the tributary -region--7, 8, and 9, range 1 W, and 7, 8, and 9, range 1 E. The post -office under the name of Savannah appears in the government list for -the first time in the report for 1837. At that time Thomas J. Parrish -was postmaster. In 1839 S. A. Holley was postmaster, the office then -being listed as English Prairie. The postmaster’s compensation was -$5.68. Charles Stephenson’s compensation in 1841 was even smaller, -$3.36, the net proceeds of the office amounting to only $7.55. In 1843, -for the first time, the post office was called Muscoda. The postmaster -was Levi J. D. Parrish, who received as compensation $9.29, the net -proceeds of the office having risen to $16.51. - -It is probable that most of the seeming prosperity of 1843 was due to -the presence of the land office, which had been removed from Mineral -Point to Muscoda in 1842. Some have charged that the change was brought -about through James D. Doty’s influence in order to save the town. -If so, the scheme failed, for the land office promptly went back to -Mineral Point in 1843, and May 16, 1845, the post office department -discontinued the office at Muscoda. Muscoda was not listed in the post -office report for 1847 or in the report for 1849. In 1851 it reappears, -with James Moore as postmaster. Now the compensation is $39.74 and the -net proceeds $53.09. The exact date of its restoration is not given -but it must have been as early as 1850, and possibly 1849 or even -1847.[86] - - -BEGINNINGS OF SETTLEMENT - -The reopening of the Muscoda post office, about 1850, synchronizes with -the first movement of pioneer farmers into the good lands tributary -to that place. A number of tracts of land were purchased by actual -settlers in this and adjoining townships in the years 1849 to 1851. -Indeed, Conrad Kircher’s purchase dates from 1847. Charles Miller and -Emanuel Dunston bought land in 1849; Isaac Dale and Moses Manlove in -1851. We know also that the Moore family owned land at Muscoda as early -as 1851. Across the river, in township 9-1 W, Robert Galloway, William -Pickering, William and Andrew Miller, and two or three others bought -in 1849; several in 1850; and a few others before 1854, when the great -rush came. - -A similar story can be told for township 9-1 E (now Orion) where -J. H. Schuermann and Daniel Mainwaring (settlers) bought lands in -1849; Albert C. Dooley in 1850; and Jacob Roggy in 1851. One of the -purchasers of 1848, John H. Siegrist, was probably the earliest actual -settler in the township. A half dozen families bought in township 8-1 -E as early as 1849; and a few others were added before 1854. A very -few settlers were to be found in township 7-1 W prior to 1854, and -while there were a good many settlers and miners in township 7-1 E, -the greater part of that township was served from Highland where a -post office was established as early at least as 1847 and where there -was much lead mining activity, and from Blue River which had a post -office from 1839. These mining centers doubtless drew their supplies -from the steamers unloading at Muscoda, for the road to the river -at that point had been open for many years, but settlement was more -numerous and local activity much more intense, as revealed by the post -office returns. The Highland post office led the Muscoda post office in -importance for just about ten years--from 1847 to 1856. With the coming -of the railroad, Muscoda drew ahead. - - -THE RAILROAD - -If one had no other evidence than the sales of land at the United -States Land Office, it would still be clear that in the years 1854 to -1856 something important was astir affecting the value of lands in -those townships (7, 8, and 9-1 W, and 7, 8, and 9-1 E) which pivot on -Muscoda as the trading point. For, while up to 1854 only scattering -tracts of land had been entered, and those largely by speculators using -military land warrants in making payment to the government, by 1856 -nearly every forty-acre subdivision of first-rate land and much of the -second-rate land also was under private ownership. And the state lands -in the townships had also been purchased to the same extent. Besides, -the vast majority of the purchasers of government land during those -years were actual settlers, with only an occasional speculator.[87] - -These facts challenge attention and call for an explanation. Wisconsin -had been in course of settlement for about two decades. The earliest -settlements were in the southeastern and eastern parts of the state -where the economic support was the market reached by the Great Lakes -and the Erie Canal; and in the southwestern section where the basis of -prosperity had been lead-mining. The lead found its market mainly down -the Mississippi, though increasingly the superiority of the route open -to the lake ports had impressed itself upon the people. - -At the legislative session of 1841-42 a bill was introduced for the -chartering of a railroad from Milwaukee, via Madison, to Potosi. -Despite continuous effort, the first railroad bill to pass, in 1847, -provided only for a railroad from Milwaukee to Waukesha. In 1848 this -was by law extended to the Mississippi. - -The agitation of plans for a railroad from Lake Michigan to the -Mississippi tended to give the lake route an overshadowing importance -in the popular mind. Actual construction work on the Milwaukee-Waukesha -section began in 1849; that portion of the road was completed by the -end of the year 1850, and in another year it was practically completed -to Whitewater on Rock River. It reached Madison in the year 1854. - -The intention of the company had been to build to the Wisconsin River -so as to intercept steamboat transportation at or near Arena. Thence -the road might run along the river to its mouth, or it might run along -the ridge between the Wisconsin and the south flowing streams, reaching -the Mississippi at some point, like Potosi, lower down. By the year -1853 it had been determined to follow the Wisconsin Valley route to -the Mississippi, and during that summer the line was surveyed from the -mouth of Black Earth Creek to Prairie du Chien. - -It can easily be imagined how the clangor of railway construction -echoed in the minds and hearts of intending settlers. That they should -have watched, with greedy eye, the reports of progress of the location -of the road and hurried away to the land office as soon as it was -definitely located, to buy the good lands adjacent to the right-of-way, -is a perfectly normal phenomenon. The township plats showing original -purchasers of the government land tell the story. In section 1, -township 7-1 W, four forty-acre tracts were bought in 1854; eleven in -1855; and one in 1856. In section 2, one in 1854; twelve in 1855; and -two in 1857. A single forty had been bought as early as 1847. The other -sections of that township show very similar dates and proportions in -the entries; the same is true of the other townships of the group. The -1854 entrymen were those who pursued the railway surveyors with keenest -determination. The slower ones came mainly in the two years following, -during which trains actually were put on the roadbed. In October, 1856, -the village of Muscoda, which had maintained a precarious existence -for twenty years, awoke to newness of life at the sound of the puffing -locomotive. And the beginning of permanent prosperity for the village -meant the beginning of prosperity for the rural neighborhood tributary -to it. - - - - -POPULAR CENSORSHIP OF HISTORY TEXTS - -JOSEPH SCHAFER - - -Wisconsin has now a unique law on the subject of school history texts. -That law provides, section 1: - - No history or other textbook shall be adopted for use or be in any - district school, city school, vocational school or high school - which falsifies the facts regarding the War of Independence or the - War of 1812 or which defames our nation’s founders or misrepresents - the ideals and cause for which they struggled and sacrificed, or - which contains propaganda favorable to any foreign government. - -The method provided in other sections of the law for banishing -textbooks which have been adopted but which are repugnant to the above -provision is as follows: Upon complaint of any five citizens, filed -with the state superintendent of public instruction, a hearing shall -be arranged, to be held before the state superintendent or his deputy, -in the county from which the complaint came. Previous notice must -have been given through the press to the public and by mail to the -complainants and to the publishers of the textbook complained of. A -decision must be rendered within ten days. If the book shall be found -obnoxious to the provisions of the law, that fact shall be noted by -the state superintendent in the list of books for schools which he -publishes annually. Thereafter the book so listed may be used only -during the remainder of the year in which the state superintendent -publishes it as proscribed. The penalty for retaining it beyond the -time limit, shall be the loss to the school or district concerned of -the state aid normally falling to its share. - -The passage of this bill in the senate with only one vote against it, -created a good deal of surprise, which changed to admiration for the -oratorical powers of its author and sponsor, Senator John Cashman of -Manitowoc County, when it was learned that his impassioned appeal to -patriotism figuratively swept senators “off their feet.” - -History students can have no quarrel with the motive assigned by -Senator Cashman for the passage of this law. He says: “The history -of a nation is its proudest asset. It includes the record of its -great men, their ideals, sacrifices, and achievements. To preserve -that history in all its original purity and teach it to the rising -generations is a nation’s first duty.” With every word in that stirring -exordium the historically minded man or woman will cordially agree. -Thoughtful persons, whether historians or not, will also sympathize -with Senator Cashman when he undertakes to rebuke anything approaching -levity in characterizing the fathers of the Republic or captiousness in -criticizing their policies, motives, and achievements. Unfortunately, -there always have been among writers some who display a certain air -of “smartness” or superciliousness which hardly comports with the -inherent dignity of the historian’s office, or with the aim of doing -equal and exact justice to all persons and to all causes discussed. -Yet it will probably be no light task to convince an impartial umpire -that writers of textbooks which have been adopted for use in the -schools, after careful scrutiny by boards of education and other school -officers responsible to the people, have been guilty of “treason -to the nation,” as Senator Cashman seems to think has often been -the case.[88] The framers of the constitution, with wise prevision, -limited the application of the word “treason” in such a way as to -exclude that indefinite class of crimes known elsewhere under the name -of _constructive treason_, which in England and other countries had -provided a favorable soil for plotters of revenge against individuals -and in times of high tension always yielded a sinister harvest of -oppression and suffering. So they defined treason against the United -States narrowly as consisting only in “levying war against them or -in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and they -also provided that conviction under a charge of treason could be -secured only on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or -confession in open court. - -This view of the fathers as relates to treason was of course lost sight -of during the Civil War, when in the North it used to be fashionable -for men to pillory as “fool” or “traitor” (with an emphatic expletive) -anyone who had the temerity to vote the Democratic ticket; it was -lost sight of in the recent war when men were called traitors because -they refused to buy liberty bonds or because they declared the draft -a violation of the rights of the individual; and it is likewise -lost sight of when we condemn under the term treason opinions on -history which we may regard as too favorable to our nation’s one-time -enemies, or too contemptuous of the characters or the acts of our own -distinguished men of a past age. It would be strange if the impulses -engendered by the war and the peace were not reflected more or less in -editions of books prepared since 1917. It is probably true that some -authors have overstressed the “hands across the sea” sentiment, while -others perhaps lean unduly in an opposite direction. But that any of -them have been guilty of treasonable acts or even intentions is what no -one who knows the historical profession can believe without the most -explicit proof. - -But this question of treason aside, the problem still remains to -determine what is the history of our country “in all its original -purity.” What shall be the test of purity inasmuch as, happily, there -is no established list of authorized books or records from which -writers must derive their facts? Are they not compelled either to -investigate each point for themselves or to accept as probably correct -the results of other men’s investigations? To be sure, every important -event creates its own legend or tradition, and such legends tend to -be preserved and to be handed down from generation to generation. But -legends are not history. No one worthy to rank as a careful historian -would presume to write the history of the Great War on the basis of -legends now crystallizing about it. No more can one write the history -of the Revolution on such a legendary basis. This view, that much -which once was thought to be history but was in fact mere legend, is -not in any sense new. James Russell Lowell, who ranks among the very -distinguished Americans of the last generation, wrote, in 1864, that -the early reports of the battle of Lexington claimed for the Yankee -minutemen a non-resistant attitude. - - The Anglo Saxon could not fight without the law on his side. But - later, when the battle became a matter of local pride, the muskets - that had been fired at the Red coats under Pitcairn almost rivalled - in number the pieces of furniture that came over in the Mayflower. - Indeed, whoever has talked much with Revolutionary pensioners knows - that those honored veterans were no less remarkable for imagination - than for patriotism. It should seem that there is nothing on - which so little reliance can be placed as facts, especially when - related by one who saw them. It is no slight help to our charity to - recollect that, in disputable matters, every man sees according to - his prejudices, and is stone blind to whatever he did not expect or - did not mean to see. Even where no personal bias can be suspected, - contemporary and popular evidence is to be taken with great - caution, so exceedingly careless are men as to exact truth, and - such poor observers, for the most part of what goes on under their - eyes.[89] - -It is hardly necessary at this late day to insist that no writer is -justified in building his narrative of events on unverified tradition. -He must try to penetrate to the truth that lies behind the legend -(which in some cases will differ very widely from the legend itself). -It is no easy task at best to perform a successful piece of historical -research, and the questions on which final agreements have been reached -are not numerous. Accordingly, if the law should be so construed -as to enforce banishment from the schools of any book which can be -proved incorrect in some of its alleged facts without regard to their -importance, no textbooks will be left in the schools, for none are -impeccable. True, the Cashman law would condemn only for falsifying -the history of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, leaving four -other foreign wars in which our country has engaged, and the great -Civil War, to be treated without other restraint than that contained -in the last clause of section 1, denouncing propaganda in favor of any -foreign government. But under that sole provision it might still prove -embarrassing for a writer to tell the truth about the Mexican War and -possibly the others also, for the term propaganda--as the whole world -has learned lately--is a most elastic one. Presumably, the propaganda -test applies as well to other phases of history as to the military -phases, wherefore an author of a textbook is apt, under a strict -construction of this law, to be hauled into court on the charge of -propaganda if he should consider it his duty to say a single thing in -commendation of any other nation. For, will there not always be found, -in any school district, five citizens whose views collide with those of -the author; and if so, what is to prevent a case being called? Surely a -word in favor of France would be resented by some; a word in favor of -Great Britain would be resented by others; a word in favor of Germany -would offend still others; and so on through the list. In the present -mournful state of general unrest and want of confidence among nations, -an author would tread unsafely on any ground outside the “three-mile -limit.” - -It does not follow from the fact that under the law it is easy to -bring cases, that convictions would be equally easy. Presumably the -state superintendent has had knowledge of all books now in use in the -schools and, in effect if not in form, has approved them. This he would -not have done had he considered any of them purveyors of treason or -excessively faulty in statement. Moreover, as judge in cases that may -arise under this law, the superintendent will be bound to take judicial -notice of some things. For example, it is common knowledge that no -history text is perfect either on its factual side, in its literary -qualities, or in the author’s perspective of events; that few writers -display at all times perfect taste, and none perfect judgment, in -their criticisms of men and their comments on historical actions and -movements; that a given textbook may be valuable, despite minor defects -in all of the above points, by reason of its superior arrangement, its -psychological adaptation to children’s needs, and the success with -which it communicates to them the main features and the spirit of -American history. He will also be obliged to rule that the truth is not -malicious propaganda and he is bound to maintain an author’s right to -liberty of research. - -It goes without saying that if a book is palpably and grossly -inaccurate; if it gives the child a wholly erroneous view of history; -if it is crassly censorious of America’s great men; if it is written -in a spirit tending to destroy American ideals; if it tends to make -boys and girls ashamed of American character and achievements, not -in exceptional instances here and there, but generally; then there -would hardly be a question about the duty of getting rid of it with -all convenient promptness. But would it not be strange if, with the -superintendent and other educational experts on guard, such a book had -got itself adopted? On general principles one would expect that only -in the rarest cases would this law come into operation; for it ought -not to be easy for a thoroughly unworthy book to elude the critical -eyes of publishers, editors, school superintendents, teachers, and -school boards, to be finally detected and exposed by some school patron -or other private citizen. No doubt such cases are possible, but one -could hardly conceive them to be of common occurrence. Misgivings are -aroused, therefore, by the report that at the legislative hearing -Senator Cashman denounced, by name, five well known and widely used -textbooks. - -If the Senator’s historical views, as published in the _Senate Journal_ -under date of March 1, 1923, are intended to be made the platform in -a campaign to purify the history teaching of our schools, the upshot -may prove widely different from what is now anticipated; for among -those views, the derivation of which is not indicated, are some which -it would be difficult to find expressed in any existing textbook. For -example, Senator Cashman holds that our country is indebted to Holland -“for town and county representation in a legislature.” Americans -have long been taught that, in the picturesque phrase of John Fiske, -“self-government _broke out_ in Virginia” in 1619 by reason of the -fact that these people were English. We are aware of no investigations -which have brought forth evidence compelling the abandonment of that -view, though some very extravagant claims have been made for the -Dutch influence upon both colonial politics and colonial education. -He also holds that “our free public school system came from Prussia.” -If by this were meant merely that Prussian influence has been felt in -the creation of a system of state supervision of education, and in -the strengthening of a school system already in existence, we would -gladly concur. But the statement is too sweeping to admit of such an -interpretation. Wisconsin Germans ought to be very glad to assign to -New England colonies and states the chief influence in giving us the -public school system because, in the present state of research, that -appears to be where the credit belongs. To all that the Senator says -about the selection of immigrants for America, the development in the -colonies themselves of a new and vivid love of liberty which found -expression in the Declaration of Independence, the stupid tyranny of -George III, and the heroic sufferings and achievements of patriots in -the Revolution, we utter a hearty Amen; realizing, of course, that his -statement is necessarily a crowded summary, cast in oratorical mould, -and not designed as a complete exposition of his views. But, in thus -concurring we do not yield up our sympathy with the aphorism of Edmund -Burke, that in their reaction to tyranny the colonists “are descendants -of Englishmen.” - -The same reservations might be made with reference to Senator Cashman’s -statement on the constitution. And yet a fair interpretation of what -he says on that subject compels us to class him with those extreme -worshipers of that document who, like the authors of the New York -teachers’ test oath, would maintain the constitution, unchanged, at -any cost. Speaking of the fathers and their work, he says: “Then -they wrote and the states adopted the supreme law of the land, the -American constitution, the most sublime public document that ever -came forth from the mind and soul of man, establishing a system of -government based upon the consent of the governed, with religious -liberty protected, inherent rights guaranteed, _to be written in -indestructible letters into the pages of the nation’s laws_.” [Editor’s -italics.] It is a well known view of the present progressives, as -it was of the framers themselves, that, great as was the original -constitution, it was still far from being perfect. Also, most -progressives now accept in principle the conclusions of Charles A. -Beard, the historian whose recent investigations on this point are -now well known, that the constitution represents a partial reaction -from the democracy of the Revolution, and was designed in part to set -limitations upon the popular will. While venerating the constitution, -progressives in the main believe that such restrictions as the -legislative election of senators, the appointment and life tenure -of judges (some would include the mode of electing the president), -were intentionally anti-democratic, and that these and other defects -which time has revealed ought to be subject to modification whenever -the people desire the changes. The mode of amendment having been -designed to make changes difficult, or impossible (though in recent -years several changes have been adopted), leading progressives have -long held that that fundamental article ought to be amended first in -order to facilitate other changes. This was Justice John B. Winslow’s -opinion, put forth in 1912; it was the burden of an important plank -in the La Follette national platform the same year; that doctrine was -preached, at least in spirit, by the late President Roosevelt. In -short, it is a progressive principle that the constitution must cease -to be a fetish--a dead hand upon the present and the future--and must -be adjusted, from time to time, to existing social, economic, and -political conditions. The document represents, for the time, a mighty -triumph of constructive statesmanship, so progressive leaders believe, -and it should not be changed “for light or transient causes,” much less -revolutionized, but “it was designed for a rural or semi-rural state.” -The men who made it “however able could not anticipate or solve the new -problems of life and government which have come upon us in the last -half century.”[90] - -To follow Senator Cashman’s outline of American history into the -recent period to the all-engrossing event of the World War and -America’s participation therein would be fruitless. Not one of us can -conscientiously claim to be an impartial investigator with respect -to things which have wrenched our souls. We cannot abdicate our own -personalities. In treating the war, all that any historian at present -could hope to do would be to state his views with becoming restraint -and concede that those views may ultimately prove to be quite wrong. -A censorship law of fifty years hence (if our people shall then still -adhere to the censorship idea) would be sure to condemn the teaching -of what some of us now piously believe with reference to this feature -of history; just as a censorship law of today, if it included in its -scope the Civil War, would condemn the teaching of some things which -nearly one-half the voters of Wisconsin sincerely believed in 1864. -“Time is the great sifter and winnower of truth,” and we must consent -to leave these matters to the investigators of our grandchildren’s -generation. Yet the gravest danger to be feared from the law we are -now discussing lies in the psychological probability that every second -man’s opinion of a given history will be based not on what the author -says about the Revolution, or the Constitution, or the War of 1812, -but on what he says about the recent war and the League of Nations. In -other words, the reader who is prejudiced against an author on account -of his last chapter, which is almost sure to be unsatisfactory to many, -will find the first, the middle, and all other chapters reeking with -faults, and this even while personally he may be unconscious of having -imbibed a prejudice at all. - -There is a possibility that, as an engine for expelling books now -used, the law will become a dead letter, first, because it may prove -unexpectedly difficult for a dissatisfied citizen to persuade four -others to act with him in making complaint, which however is not -probable; second, because of the clamor of those in the district who -are not keen for or against the book, but who realize that if it is -thrown out all old copies will be worthless and they will have to pay -for new books at the opening of the next school year; third, because -the first cases brought may go against the complainants and discourage -others from multiplying complaints. But, the popular psychology -being what it is, there is an equal chance that the law may foster -a widespread disposition to attack history books, geography books, -civics books, and even readers; that it may keep educational matters -in a state of turmoil, engendering much social bitterness due to -the clashing of parties and interests over questions raised in the -school-book fights. In such controversies teachers would be the first -to suffer, because their opinions would be called for at once, which -would place them between two fires; and no surer way could be found -to degrade the social influence of our schools than by keeping the -teachers in a state of perpetual anxiety. - -We have reason to think that Senator Cashman, an acknowledged friend -and promoter of education, would deeply deplore such a result. If he -had anticipated anything of the kind, doubtless he would have refrained -from offering his bill. But laws, like children, when they get out of -hand, have a way of surprising their progenitors. However, we have the -law and must use it to the best ends. - -If every one in position of leadership or authority in relation -to it--and among those are members of this Society--shall feel a -responsibility for guiding discussion into proper channels; if debate -on school-book questions shall be kept not merely free but also -parliamentary in form and spirit; if we all insist that differences -of view must be treated tolerantly; if we can secure from the public -toward the arguments and facts in these cases a measure of that -openness of mind which characterizes the American juror sworn to try a -case fairly on the evidence, it may be possible to mitigate or prevent -the evils apprehended. - -And if, without discouraging research, the law shall merely enforce -through future adoptions the idea that good taste is as obligatory upon -the textbook maker as good manners are upon the private individual, -one point will have been gained. We trust this may not be won at the -expense of a disposition to whittle down the truth to fit a supposed -demand, or that it will result in substituting books written by -dishonest or spineless persons for those written by men and women of -real character and scholarship. - -In the midst of the late war the school supervisors of a western -state discovered what they believed to be propaganda favorable to one -of America’s enemies, and demanded the expulsion of the book from the -schools. The superintendent, being a wise and thoughtful man, prepared -and printed a page of corrective criticism, which all teachers were -asked to paste in the accused book and to teach to the children with -the regular text. By that simple device he saved the people of the -state many thousands of dollars which would have been paid for an -inferior text, if the book had been expelled. If the law shall permit -such a handling of the borderline cases, does it not seem that in a -time when we are at peace with all nations, we could act with equal -calmness, equal justice to authors or publishers, and equal regard for -the interests of the people who have to buy school books? - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[1] As the tide of emigration from the northeastern states rose higher, -it bore along a goodly number who were not of the old American stock, -particularly English and Irish, with some Scotch and Germans. Yet, many -of these were natives of the states named and, if foreign born, had -enjoyed so long an apprenticeship to the Yankee system of life as to -enable them faithfully to represent it. - -[2] Of whom England, Ireland, Scotland, and Canada combined furnished -1920, Germany 460, and Norway 340. - -[3] _Wisconsin Domesday Book, General Studies_, I. _History of -Agriculture in Wisconsin_, chap. 2. - -[4] William Dames, _Wie Sieht Es in Wiskonsin Aus_ (Meurs, 1849). - -[5] For example, see William Dames, _Wie Sieht Es in Wiskonsin Aus_. - -[6] See J. F. Diederichs, _Diary_. Translated by Emil Baensch. Account -of a trip from Milwaukee to Manitowoc. - -[7] Those who filed with von Rohr and on the same day (Nov. 5, 1839) -took up most of sections 17, 18, 19, and 20. All of these lands were -described by the surveyor as “second rate” and all had a heavy forest -covering consisting of sugar maple, lynn, birch, alder, black and white -oak, ash, elm, ironwood, etc., together with some cedar in the swamps. -The land lay on both sides of the creek, along which was some meadow, -but the big marsh was farther east. - -[8] William F. Whyte, “Settlement of Lebanon,” in Wisconsin Historical -Society, _Proceedings_, 1915, 105. - -[9] MS. translation by Emil Baensch. - -[10] Page 29 in printed German edition. - -[11] This farm, located in the town of Greenfield, Milwaukee County, -was afterwards divided among Kerler’s three sons. A portion of it, at -least, is I believe still in the possession of the family. Louis F. -Frank, _Pioneer Jahre_ (Milwaukee, 1911). - -[12] Michel Chevalier, _Society, Manners, and Politics in the United -States_ (Boston, 1839), chap. x, 112-113, 117, says: “Loading a wagon -with a plough, a bed, a barrel of salt meat, the indispensable supply -of tea and molasses, a Bible and a wife, and with his axe on his -shoulder, the Yankee sets out for the West, without a servant, without -an assistant, often without a companion, to build himself a log hut, -six hundred miles from his father’s roof, and clear away a spot for a -farm in the midst of the boundless forest.... He is incomparable as a -pioneer, unequalled as a settler of the wilderness.” - -[13] See his _Common Sense_ (Philadelphia, 1791). - -[14] See Captain Basil Hall, _Travels in North America in the Years -1827 and 1828_ (Edinburgh, 1829), i, 130. - -[15] _American Agriculturist_, i, (1842), 115 ff. - -[16] Captain Robert Barclay, _Agricultural Tour in the United States_ -... (London, 1842), 41. - -[17] _American Agriculturist_, i, 311. - -[18] _Germania_ (translated slightly differently in University of -Pennsylvania _Translations and Reprints_), 11. - -[19] J. H. von Thünen, _Der Isolierte Staat_ (Berlin, 1875), 103 ff., -“Ueber die Lage der Höfe in Mecklenburg.” - -[20] In southwestern Wisconsin, about 1870, a respectable German farmer -announced to his relatives the marriage of his daughter to a man who -had arrived but recently and had the status of a mere laborer. To parry -all questions about the suitability of the groom, who was known to be -addicted to liquor and other vices, the farmer added: “I’m very willing -to give him my daughter, for he is the best ‘grubber’ I’ve ever had on -my farm.” - -[21] When John Kerler settled near Milwaukee in 1848, he bought a farm -on which was no provision for sheltering livestock other than work -animals. He built a barn at once, refusing to permit, for a single -winter, the cruel American practice of leaving cattle out in the cold. -His case is typical. - -[22] See the author’s _History of Agriculture in Wisconsin_ (Madison, -1922), _passim_. - -[23] Editor’s italics. - -[24] An example is in Abram E. Brown, _Legends of Old Bedford_ (Boston, -1892). - -[25] Timothy Dwight, _Travels in New England and New York_ (New Haven, -Conn., 1821), ii, 459, 462. - -[26] Edmund Burke, _On Conciliation_. - -[27] The Ohio Company’s grant, 1787, contained a reservation for -religion as well as grants for education. Joseph Schafer, _Origin of -the System of Land Grants in Aid of Education_, Wisconsin University -_Bulletin_, History Series, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Madison, 1902). - -[28] See Edward Eggleston, _The Circuit Rider_ and _The Graysons_. - -[29] Goodsell, who was one of the founders of Beloit College, removed -later to Northfield, Minnesota, and became one of the founders of -Carlton College. S. A. Dwinnell, Reedsburg (Wis.) _Free Press_, -December 24, 1874. - -[30] _Madison City Express_, March 14, March 23, and April 27, 1843. -Strong and Hamilton are not reputed to have been total abstainers. - -[31] The vote stood, for prohibition, 27,519; against, 24,109. - -[32] The story was printed in the _Columbian Centinel_, Boston, -December, 1789. - -[33] See _Diary of Sarah Connell Ayer_ (Portland, Me., 1910), 227. - -[34] See _Almon Danforth Hodges and His Neighbors_ (Boston, 1909), -217-218. - -[35] “At sun two hours high,” says the _Farmer’s Almanack_, 1815, -“the day is finished and away goes men and boys to the bowling alley. -Haying, hoeing, plowing, sowing all must give way to sport and toddy. -Now this is no way for a farmer. It will do for the city lads to sport -and relax in this way, and so there are proper times and seasons for -farmers to take pleasure of this sort, for I agree that all work and no -play makes Jack a dull boy.” - -[36] See _Hodges and His Neighbors_, 94. - -[37] J. R. Lowell, _Biglow Papers_. - -[38] The death of Goethe occurred on the twenty-second of March. The -news must have taken several days in travel. - -[39] Prussians were apt to console themselves for the pusillanimity -of King Frederick William III by harking back to the really strong if -ruthless monarchy of Frederick the Great, familiarly spoken of as _Der -Alte Fritz_. - -[40] Guy Stanton Ford, _Stein and the Era of Reform in Prussia, -1807-1815_ (Princeton, N. J., 1922), 185. - -[41] Victor Cousin, _Report on the State of Public Instruction in -Prussia_. Translated by Sarah Austin. London, 1834. - -[42] See _Life and Works of Horace Mann_ (Boston, 1891), iii, 346 ff. - -[43] Cf. Franklin’s views on the comparative thrift of English and of -German laborers, and note his tentative explanation of the difference. -_The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin_ (compiled and edited by -John Bigelow, New York and London, 1887), ii, 291 ff. Letter to Peter -Collinson, dated Philadelphia, 9 May, 1753. - -[44] By writers like Samuel Laing, in his _Notes of a Traveller on the -Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy, and -Other Parts of Europe_ (London, 1854), especially 108-115. - -[45] _Life and Works of Horace Mann_ (Boston, 1891), iii, 346 ff. See -also _Reminiscences of Carl Schurz_ (New York, 1907), i, 40. - -[46] See William Howitt, _Rural and Domestic Life of Germany_ (London, -1842), _passim_. That portion of Carl Schurz’s work (see note 8 _ante_) -which describes his boyhood life at Liblar throws much light on the -amusements indulged in by the people. There is a delightful account of -the Schützenfest, or marksmanship contest, on pages 45-48 and pages -81-83. - -[47] Albert Bernhard Faust, _The German Element in the United States_ -(Boston, 1909), ii, 472. - -[48] _Daily Free Democrat_, December 27, 1850. - -[49] _Nordamerika, Wisconsin, Calumet. Winke für Auswanderer_ (edition -of 1849), 64. - -[50] Bradley and Metcalf. - -[51] It was managed by G. and J. Burnham, who had an investment of -$10,000. - -[52] This was John Braun’s. Best and Company had the largest investment -among the German brewers, $7400, but their output was only $11,250. -Other German brewers were Weizt, Englehardt, Stolz and Schuder, H. -Nunnemacher, and H. Beverung. - -[53] If our count is correct, the 1850 census lists as “clerks” -fifty-one Germans. Doubtless many of these were serving in American -stores. - -[54] Or thirty-six, if we omit the teachers, some of whom at least were -probably not liberally educated. - -[55] The Lutherans included a Fr. Lachner, C. Eisenmeyer, and Ludwig -Dulitz; the Evangelical preacher was Christian Holl, and the Methodist, -Christian Barth. - -[56] The Western Medical Society of Wisconsin, representing the -counties of Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette, reported in December, 1850, -that out of sixty persons engaged in the practice of medicine in that -area, only twelve were entitled to be called “doctor.” _Daily Free -Democrat_, January 8, 1850. - -[57] “The University and the Germans,” _Daily Wisconsin Banner_, August -23, 1850. - -[58] The remaining cases of marriages between Germans and Americans -were briefly as follows: A whitewasher, born in Pennsylvania, was -married to a German woman; tailor, born “in U. S.,” married to -a German; a weaver, born in Germany, married to a woman born in -Pennsylvania; a laborer, born in Ohio, married to a German woman; a -stage driver, born in Ohio, married to a German woman; a minister (M. -E.), native of Hanover, married to a woman born in Illinois. - -[59] _Daily Wisconsin Banner_, August 1, 1850 (translation). - -[60] _Wisconsin Banner_, August 29, 1846. - -[61] _Wis. Hist. Colls._, xxvii, 235. - -[62] See this magazine, vi, 395-398 (June, 1923). - -[63] “Events teach us,” said the _Banner und Volksfreund_, October 15, -1855 (in the thick of the bitter Barstow-Bashford campaign), “that -the Shanghais (Republicans) despite their prating of antislavery, -are further removed from actual human freedom than the slaveholders -themselves. The occurrences of the past year, during which the -Shanghais have been dominant in various state legislatures, have shown -us that this party is the incubator of the temperance law.” This line -was followed vigorously through the campaign. - -[64] Note, for example, the Louisville, Kentucky, riots in which -the Germans were driven from the city. The Wisconsin Democracy, in -August, 1855, made that the excuse for a resolution refusing seats in -the convention to men of Know-Nothing proclivities. See _Argus and -Democrat_ (Madison), August 29, 1855. - -[65] See the _Milwaukee American_, 1855-1856, which was the party organ. - -[66] Those belonging to the Turner Society are generally classified as -“free thinkers.” The _Turner Zeitung_, national organ of the Society -in 1855, was Republican in its politics, which probably influenced the -result in Wisconsin. - -[67] The Mayberry lynching. The lynchers were loggers from an up-river -camp belonging to the murdered man. - -[68] See his letter, MS, to Lyman Draper, August 28, 1855. - -[69] In the year 1855 the _Wisconsin Banner_ and the _Volksfreund_ were -united and became the _Wisconsin Banner und Volksfreund_. - -[70] “Fifteen participators in the lynching affair were indicted and -tried for the murder of DeBar in May, 1856. They were acquitted, as the -testimony did not sustain the allegation that ‘he came to his death by -hanging,’ _there being a reasonable doubt as to his being alive when he -was hung the last time_.” _History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties_ -(1881), 358. Editor’s italics. - -[71] See a brilliant editorial by Colonel David Atwood, in the _Daily -State Journal_ at Madison, for August 13, 1855. - -[72] See the article in _Banner und Volksfreund_, July 28, 1855, -entitled “The So-Called Republicans:” “We encounter in the _Watertown -Anzeiger_ the following appropriate article concerning the so-called -Republican (vulgarly Shanghai) party, by which so many Germans were -duped at the last election and which expects to repeat the same -swindling tactics in the approaching election.” (Translation). The -election of Coles Bashford as governor was due in part to German votes. - -[73] “The temperance swindle,” says _Banner und Volksfreund_, October -16, 1855, “is an outflow of Puritan bigotry and comports with other of -their pious pretensions, for example, such a rigorous observance of the -Sabbath as will reduce all sociability to the condition of a Puritan -graveyard. For this sort of thing, also, is the Republican party the -fruitful soil. The Know-Nothings harmonize, in these matters, with the -Republicans.” - -[74] Success was to render it practically as cosmopolitan as a -protracted career of triumphs had long since rendered the Democratic -party. - -[75] The Chicago and Northwestern. It follows in the sector south of -Muscoda the old military road from Fort Winnebago to Fort Crawford. -Towns taking some of Muscoda’s former trade are Montfort, Fennimore, -and Cobb. - -[76] _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, III, 352. - -[77] _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, I, 38, 41. - -[78] _Wis. Hist. Colls._ XVIII, 263-64. - -[79] Featherstonhaugh was obviously in error in calling that stopping -place Prairie de la Bay. The context shows it must have been English -Prairie. See his _A Canoe Voyage on the Minnay Sotor_, I, 199-201. - -[80] _Wis. Hist. Colls._ XIV, 147. - -[81] The Portage canal was begun in 1836 by a private company. Its -completion was promised in 1837. See Governor Dodge’s message to the -Legislative Assembly, Belmont, Oct. 26, 1836. - -[82] Ox-teams owned by Illinois farmers. - -[83] Hamilton went to California during the gold rush, finding, -however, not a fortune but an untimely grave. - -[84] See Abel, Henry I. Geographical, Geological, and Statistical Chart -of Wisconsin and Iowa, Phila. 1838. The fare for passengers from St. -Louis to Helena (it was doubtless the same to Savannah) was in the -cabin from $10 to $15 and on the deck from $2 to $4. - -[85] Smith, William R., _Observations_, 44. - -[86] If the office was not open in 1847 it is hard to explain the -language used by a correspondent of the Prairie du Chien _Patriot_, -Feb. 23, 1847, who says: “The mail from ... Mineral Point to Muskoda -goes but once a week. There is no post office in Richland County; their -post office is at Muskoda.” The census of 1846 assigns to the northern -district of Grant County 1,482 persons. It is possible to identify in -the lists of heads of families six families whose later homes were at -or near Muscoda. They are John D. Parrish, James Smith, Manuel Denston -[Dunston?], Thomas Waters, Wm. Garland, and Richard Hall. All of these -are met with again in the census returns for Dec. 1, 1847, where the -“Muscoday Precinct of Grant County” is listed separately. The precinct -seems to have included townships 7 and 8-1 W and townships 7 and 8-2 W, -or the present towns of Muscoda, Castle Rock, Watterstown, and Hickory -Grove. That precinct is credited with thirteen families aggregating 77 -persons. Aside from the families mentioned above (except Denston) we -find the names of S. [R?] Carver, J. Moore, N. Head, M. Manlove, D. -Manlove, I. Dale, S. Smith, D. Smith, and A. Mills. Garland is credited -with a family consisting of nine males and two females, which confirms -the statement in the county history that he was managing a hotel in -Muscoda at that time. Moses Manlove has a family of seven males and -five females which suggests a second hotel or “boarding house.” Most -of the other families mentioned probably lived some distance from -Muscoda on farms. Aside from those in Muscoda Precinct of Grant County, -several families living in Iowa County, township 8 1-E, must have -depended for their supplies either on Muscoda or on Highland. These -were John Pettygrove, A. Palmer, A. Bolster, three Knowlton families, -Mathias Schafer, Henry Gottschall, Vincent Dziewanawski, and the two -Wallbridges. If Richland County settlers really were, as reported, -getting their mail at Muscoda, that would mean, according to the -census, that 235 persons living north of the Wisconsin must have done -some trading at that place. The county history says the old log house -once used as the land office served in 1847 as the store. - -[87] This is not true of the state lands, which went mainly to -speculators first, then to settlers. - -[88] Speech of Senator Cashman, _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, vi, -444-449 (June, 1923). - -[89] Essay on _The Rebellion_. - -[90] John B. Winslow, quoted in _La Follette’s Magazine_, vol. iv, no. -20, p. 6. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been preserved from the original. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin, by -Joseph Schafer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON *** - -***** This file should be named 56012-0.txt or 56012-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/1/56012/ - -Produced by MFR, David E. 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