Rudyard Kipling's Western Frontier Dispatch
The renowned writer muses on the frantic growth of new towns, the 'epidemic of politics' in the Canadian prairies, and the restless ambition of the Pacific Northwest.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
From Yokohama to Montreal is a long day's journey. A great stretch of the distance is as new as the day before yesterday, and strewn with townships in every stage of growth—from the city of one round house, two log huts and a Chinese camp, somewhere in the foothills of the Selkirks, to Winnipeg, with her league-long main street and her warring newspapers. Just at present there is an epidemic of politics in Manitoba. It is sweet to find a little baby city, with only three men in it who can handle type, cursing and swearing across the illimitable levels for all the world as though it were a grown-up Christian center. All the new towns have their own wants to consider, and the sum of these is a railway. If the town is on a line already, then a new line to tap the country; but at all costs a line. For this it will sell its corporate soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before which it has groveled rides rough-shod over the place.
“For this it will sell its corporate soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before which it has groveled rides rough-shod over the place.”
Kipling’s observations on the 'booming west' capture the exact moment when the Pacific Northwest shifted from a frontier outpost to a speculative real-estate empire. His description of towns groveling for rail access mirrors the modern-day competition for tech headquarters and transit infrastructure, proving that Seattle's growth-at-any-cost mentality has deep, historic roots.
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