118 
Were we to attempt to describe the probable results and improvements 
which will occur to Wisconsin, or even to Rock county, during the next 
five years, from causes now being put in operation, we might be ridiculed 
as an enthusiast, a visionary, or one insane—we shall attempt no such 
thing. Yet, although we may not set ourself up as a prophet, or the 
son of one, we may judge of the future somewhat by the past and pre¬ 
sent, and our opinion, based upon those data, is, that we are destined to 
have some few years, at least, of prosperity and success. I know that 
some, and persons too, whose opinions are entitled to consideration, 
think that we may be, even now, on the eve of a revulsion like that of 
1836, and give, as reasons, our great indebtedness abroad and enormous 
extravagance at home ; that soon we shall be pressed to pay our foreign 
debts, and then the crash will come, for, say they, ‘it was just so in 
1836 and 1837.’ 
It is doubtless true that our foreign indebtedness is large, and doubt¬ 
less quite too true, that our people are growing extravagant. I think 
though, our Wisconsin farmers have not justly exposed themselves to 
such a charge. But all that does not make out a similar and analagous 
case to the times of 1836. Then speculation was the order of the day. 
Then it was no uncommon occurrence for a man to become a millionaire 
before breakfast, in buying and selling corner and water lots in some 
city in the moon, or other out of the way place. Banks were as plenty 
as grasshoppers, and issuing their rags by the million, without a dollar 
in their vaults to redeem them. Farmers and mechanics left their busi¬ 
ness and turned speculators ; labor ceased ; every body was about as a 
gentleman, expecting to stumble upon a sudden fortune. Labor, in fact, 
by all classes was esteemed to be disreputable, and a man was considered 
below par who could not get rich by his wits. Such a course could but 
bring ruin and bankruptcy in its train, and the sequel showed that not 
only individuals, but entire States, were engulphed in the general over¬ 
throw and destruction. 
Row the times have taken an entirely different phase. If we Lave a large 
foreign debt, it is not mainly for gew-gaws, but for real substance—for 
railroad iron and the like, every pound of which enriches the country, 
and renders it better able to pay the debt, than to do without the article. 
All the foreign debt incurred in this way, will eventually be an income. 
