Studies in American History 
397 
Without going further into details, all must see that these are re- 
markable changes and cannot fail to produce remarkable effects. The 
East contributes to the West, when already we are being outgrown and 
politically outweighed; but the intermixture of populations will be 
favorable to the nation, and the implantation of eastern sentiments and 
institutions of great advantage to the West. We shall be relieved of 
what, in “hard times” such as the past winter [1854-1855], is a surplus 
of population, and better will it be for those who go and those who 
remain. . . . This is our advantage over old countries. When financial 
embarrassments come, and trade stagnates, and the poor suffer, they 
have no outlet for the unemployed but in distant colonies; and the 
starving show the banner mottoed “bread or blood”. Here a continent 
gives labor that affords the comforts of life, and wages are never so 
low that ten days work will not carry them to the frontier, where 
lands are free and laborers always needed. We do not regret this out- 
pouring — this swarming; it must result in the common good.®'’ 
A St. Louis editor commenting on the flow of colonists to 
Kansas, in the fall of 1855, stated conclusions that are 
generally sound not only when applied to the situation at 
that time, but when applied to the remaining years of the 
contest as well : 
Emigrants from northern or free States will not go to Kansas because 
they can get as good lands elsewhere, not cursed by mob law, nor ruled 
by non-resident bullies. Emigrants from Southern States do not go to 
Kansas, because they will not put their slave property in peril by taking 
it into a Territory where there is a strong Free Soil element threatening 
the security of slaves. . . . Alabama and Georgia may hold public 
meetings, and resolve to sustain the slaveholders in Missouri in making 
Kansas a slave State. But their resolutions comprise all their aid, 
which is not material enough for the crisis. When slaveholders of 
Alabama and Georgia emigrate, they go to Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
Texas. 
The result is, Kansas, the fairest land under the sun is neglected and 
idle; occupied by a few honest and earnest, but disheartened pioneers. 
The fifty thousand emigrants that ought, this season, to have poured 
into Kansas are not there. The prairie sod remains unbroken. The 
sound of the axe and the whoop of the woodman is [sic] not heard. 
Western Missouri towns are not thronged with settlers buying their 
outfits and their equipments of husbandry. The farmers find no market 
for their horses, mules and cows. There is no new trade springing up 
in Kansas. The much vaunted Kansas towns lie neglected, a mockery 
to their owners and a laughing stock for all men. “Dead-dead-dead” 
Newhuryport (Mass.) Herald, April 3, 1855, clipping in Webb, Kansas Scrapbook, 
III, 80-81. 
