Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

WESTWARD HO! 357
LXXX.
Now that the Territories have assumed a significance, not to
say grandeur, unknown in the days of Jackson and Polk, we
may better appreciate Thomas H. Benton's stereotyped advice
whenever a young man called on him in Washington to ask his
influence for a clerkship in one of the Departments: " Go to
the Territories, sir; or to one of the new States. Go to Iowa
or Missouri; go to Wisconsin or Illinois. If you are a lawyer,
hang out your shingle and show that you are deserving; if a
farmer, buy a quarter-section of land and cultivate it; if a mechanic, open your shop and work; but don't stay here to burn
yourself out with rum, or to rust with idleness. Do any thing
but serve as a slave in one of these wretched bureaus." Good
advice thirty, forty, even fifty years ago, and better to-day. The
men who went forth into the Territories in Benton's time, when
he left Tennessee for Missouri, or when Sam Houston left Tennessee for Texas, or when John C. Breckinridge tried his young
fortunes by removing from Kentucky to Iowa, after the Mexican
war; like the early pioneers to other regions, when the West
was bounded by the Missouri River-these men had a hard
time of it. They had to meet not only a primitive people, but
to traverse a primitive country, with few or no conveniences,
either of food or of shelter, and to give weeks and months of
valuable time before they reached their destination. How different to-day! We go West in palace cars, swift "as the sightless couriers of the air," to find even in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains, and in the defiles of the Sierras, the best luxuries
of life, and the choicest temptations to business enterprise or
professional ambition. These modern inducements take off
much of the superior material of the older States, and we need
not be surprised if the West and the Pacific slope furnish, hereafter, the strongest minds in public affairs. Perhaps the mani