Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 4/The Great West and the Two Easts
THE GREAT WEST AND THE TWO EASTS.
A resounding chorus of gratulations will herald to the world within the next two years the first centennial of two events upon which the history of the Great West is founded—the purchase of Louisiana and the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Columbia River. Whether the student of history at the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904 pause in admiration of the political foresight of Jefferson, or join in the general acclaim of the heroism of our first explorers at Portland, in 1905, the fact that will most impress him is that geographical lines have been obliterated and there is no West. Migrations having their origin in the dim, remote past, and continuing down to the present, have brought the Aryan race face to face on the opposite shores of the great western ocean, and the world finds itself confronted with that condition which William H. Seward predicted, when, addressing himself to the commerce, politics, thought, and activities of Europe, he said they "will ultimately sink in importance, while the Pacific, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter." The East that Columbus sailed westward from Spain to discover will ever be the world's East; the West, "the remote shores that Drake had once called by the name of New Albion," will be the East of the World's Great East, and the West only in its geographical relation to the Atlantic seaboard of our own country.
The West has fulfilled every promise of its value to the Union made by its champions when its cause was before the people of the new Republic; it has refuted every prediction of dire effect made by the opponents of its acquisition. When the purchase of Louisiana was under consideration, the fear was expressed that people who would move to that region would scarcely ever feel the rays of the general government, their affections would be alienated by distance, and American interests would become extinct. The generous response of men and money made by Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, when the Union was in the throes of a struggle for its preservation, attests the loyalty of the Louisiana region. A Southern senator asked, in 1843, what good was Oregon for agricultural purposes, and said he would not give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. Yet the Oregon Country has given the Union three sovereign states, and part of its territory has been taken to form two other states; its occupation by Americans was a direct cause of the annexation of California; it has in the Columbia River and Puget Sound two important bases for military and naval operations; far from being inhospitable to the honest farmer of the Atlantic seaboard, or the Ohio Valley, it has one hundred thousand farms, valued at nearly $600,000,000. Alaska was denounced as a barren waste, that would never add one dollar to our wealth, or furnish homes to our people. Yet in less than forty years Alaska has supplied gold, fish, and furs worth $150,000,000, and has paid revenue to the government exceeding by $1,500,000 the price Russia got for it in 1867; and at no distant day Hawaii and the Philippines will justify American occupation by statistics as telling as those here presented of Louisiana, Oregon, and Alaska.
If a nonexpansive policy had prevailed in our national councils at the beginning of the nineteenth century; if the presidential chair had been occupied by another than the broad statesman who saw beyond the Mississippi, over the Rockies to the Pacific, and over the Pacific to the cradle of the world, we should now have an intolerable situation of affairs in North America. Had we refused Louisiana from Napoleon, what is now the United States would be partitioned, geographically, about as follows: East of the Mississippi would be the Republic of the United States of America of 1783, with England in Canada on the north, and Spain in Florida and fringing the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana would have fallen into England's hands as a result of the Napoleonic wars, and so, perhaps, Oregon, either by reason of a favorable interpretation of the Nootka convention, or Vancouver's discoveries. Mexico, as the successor of Spain, would own Texas and all the remainder of the west south of the forty-second parallel and not included in Louisiana. With a republic on one side, and European sovereignty on the other, the Mississippi would to-day be bristling with cannon. The purchase of Louisiana was political foresight, and the completion of our title to Oregon was a direct result of the Louisiana transaction. The war with Mexico was the logical sequence of both. From whatever point we may regard it, the acquisition of the trans-Mississippi region, viewed in the perspective of a century, was worth what it cost in money, actual war, and risk of war with what, in the early stages of our history was the most powerful nation on the globe.
The beginnings of the West date from 1850. Further back the census reports do not present statistics that can be compared for valuable purposes, with present standards, although as early as 1840 there were nine hundred thousand people along the western shore of the Mississippi in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, and Missouri. These states were long on the firing line of American civilization, and their people subsisted by general farming, or by outfitting ox-train merchandise caravans for Santa Fé and Chihuahua, or by outfitting and trading with pioneer settlers en route to Oregon, or gold seekers flocking to California. Jim Bridger put up in southwestern Wyoming in 1843 the first post for the purpose of trading built west of the Mississippi River, and its establishment marked the beginning of the era of emigration to the Far West. Until a comparatively recent period a goodly portion of the public domain lying west of the Missouri River, and comprising perhaps five hundred thousand square miles, was mapped as the "Great American Desert" and they who penetrated its solitudes and returned unscathed to "civilization" were regarded with that curiosity that pertains to a traveler who has visited an unknown land. With the upbuilding of the country and the spread of knowledge of its capabilities, the title of "Great American Desert" has been swept away, and the colored maps that illustrate the books of the twelfth census, regard the white portion as "unsettled area." This includes a considerable area in every state and territory west of the ninety-ninth degree of longitude. East of that line the only white portion is in southeastern Florida. Progress in the half-century comprehended in this brief review has been remarkable and the present position of the West is strikingly shown in the appended statement, which represent its percentages of the total for the United States for the different items tabulated. In a few instances comparisons are made with 1890 and 1850: | Per cent. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900. | 1890. | 1860. | |
| Gross area with Alaska | 75.4 | —— | —— |
| Gross area without Alaska | 59.1 | —— | —— |
| Population, gross | 27.5 | 26.6 | 8.6 |
| Urban population | 17.6 | [* 1]13.1 | 14.1 |
| Number of farms | 35.8 | 32.6 | 8.2 |
| Acres improved | 48.8 | 44.4 | 6.3 |
| Farms, total valuation | 44.1 | [* 1]36.7 | 6.9 |
| Farm products, value | 43.2 | 37.4 | 20.3 |
| Farm animals | 59.4 | —— | 11.9 |
| Wool, yield | 69.8 | —— | 4.7 |
| Hops, yield | 64.3 | —— | 7.1 |
| Timber, area | 55.4 | —— | —— |
| Lumber product, value | 32.4 | 24.9 | 10.0 |
| Gold, yield | 99.6 | —— | —— |
| Silver, commercial value | 99.8 | —— | —— |
| Coal | 15.1 | —— | —— |
| Railroad mileage | 45.2 | —— | .25 |
| Manufactures, value of product | 16.1 | 14.5 | 3.9 |
| Operatives in factories | 12.2 | 11.9 | 3.1 |
| Imports and exports | 19.0 | —— | —— |
POPULATION.
Aggregate population has increased 957. per cent in fifty years, and foreign population has grown faster than native:
| 1900. | 1890. | 1850. | Per cent of increase, 1859-1900. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Americans | 18,375,337 | 14,117,931 | 1,785,462 | 929.0 |
| Foreigners | 2,659,317 | 2,556,478 | 213,942 | 1143.0 |
| Total | 21,034,654 | 16,674,409 | 1,999,404 | 957.0 |
| Per cent American | 87.3 | 84.6 | 89.2 | |
| Per cent foreign | 12.7 | 15.4 | 10.8 |
The proportion of native born, which suffered a sharp decline between 1850 and 1890, because of the influx of foreigners to the mines of California, Montana, and Nevada, and to the farm lands of Minnesota and the Dakotas, is again in the ascendant, the net gain for the decade just ended having been 2.7 per cent. The native population is largest in the group of southwestern states and territories, Arkansas leading with 98.9 per cent; Indian Territory, 98.8 per cent; Louisiana, 96.2 per cent; Oklahoma, 96.1 per cent. Along the Pacific coast it is highest in Oregon, with 84.1 per cent, and lowest in California, with 75.3 per cent, Washington coming in between with 78.5 per cent. North Dakota, with 64.6 per cent, makes the poorest showing. The proportion of natives in the West as a whole in 1900 was 1 per cent above the average for the Union, which was 86.3 per cent. The per cent of foreigners is highest in North Dakota, where it is 35.4, and lowest in Arkansas, where it is 1.1. Minnesota is the only State having to exceed 500,000 foreigners. California and Iowa have over 300,000 each.
The population of the West in 1850 consisted of 1,500,000 farmers and traders in the Louisiana country, that is, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Minnesota; 200,000 odd who had swarmed into Texas after it had been wrested from Mexico, some 60,000 in New Mexico, a group of gold diggers in California, a few thousand Mormons in Utah, and a handful of hardy pioneers who had braved privations and hostile savages on the plains in following the footsteps of Lewis and Clark to the Oregon country. At that time there were not quite 2,000,000 people in all the boundless region west of the Mississippi River. The establishing of direct communication by the overland stage, followed by the building of the transcontinental railroad, stimulated growth, and by 1870 the West had attained considerable importance in population. In 1850 it reported 8.6 per cent of the total population of the Union; 26.6 per cent in 1890, and 27.5 per cent in 1900. In 1890 it had over four times the population of the new Republic in 1790 and not quite twice the population of the nation in 1820. In 1900 its population was somewhat under that of the whole country in 1850, the ratio being about 21 to 23. The appended table shows how the several states and territories of the West have progressed in the matter of population: | 1850. | 1890. | 1900. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | 209,897 | 1,128,179 | 1,311,564 |
| California | 92,597 | 1,208,130 | 1,485,053 |
| Colorado | —— | 412,198 | 539,700 |
| Idaho | —— | 84,385 | 161,772 |
| Iowa | 192,214 | 1,911,896 | 2,231,853 |
| Kansas | —— | 1,427,096 | 1,470,495 |
| Louisiana | 517,762 | 1,118,587 | 1,381,625 |
| Minnesota | 6,077 | 1,301,826 | 1,751,394 |
| Missouri | 682,044 | 2,679,184 | 3,106,665 |
| Montana | —— | 132,159 | 343,329 |
| Nebraska | —— | 1,058,910 | 1,066,300 |
| Nevada | —— | 45,761 | 42,335 |
| North Dakota | —— | 182,719 | 319,146 |
| Oregon | 13,294 | 313,767 | 413,536 |
| South Dakota | —— | 328,808 | 401,570 |
| Texas | 212,592 | 2,235,523 | 3,048,710 |
| Utah | 11,380 | 207,905 | 276,749 |
| Washington | —— | 349,390 | 518,103 |
| Wyoming | —— | 60,705 | 92,531 |
| Alaska | —— | 32,052 | 63,592 |
| Arizona | —— | 59,620 | 122,931 |
| Indian Territory | —— | 180,182 | 392,060 |
| New Mexico | 61,547 | 153,593 | 195,310 |
| Oklahoma | —— | 61,834 | 398,331 |
| Total | 1,999,404 | 16,674,409 | 21,034,654 |
Louisiana, with 11.4 inhabitants to the square mile, was the most thickly settled state in the West in 1850. Missouri followed with 9.9; Arkansas with 4, and Iowa with 3.5. The average for the Union was 7.9. That year the little State of Delaware, with 91,532 inhabitants, boasted of one two hundred and sixty-third part of the total population of the Union. Where was Oregon with about one seventh of Delaware's population and Minnesota with less than one half of Oregon's? In 1900 the density of the Union was 25.6 inhabitants per square mile. Three western states, Missouri, with 45.2, Iowa, with 40.2, and Louisiana, with 30.4, exceeded the general average. In the remainder of the states the density ranged from 0.4 in Nevada to 24.7 in Arkansas.
The colored population of the trans-Mississippi region is largely confined to the states in the southern belt, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In the Pacific states the colored population is principally Chinese and Japanese.
Throughout the West, with the exception of Louisiana, the number of females to each 100,000 men is under the national average, which is 95,353. Louisiana reports 98,871, and Utah, for obvious reasons, follows with 95,324. Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Texas also have between 90,000 and 95,000 females to each 100,000 men, and in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the average is over 85,000 and under 90,000. The proportion of women to each 100,000 men is exceedingly low in the Pacific coast and mountain states, being 80,987 in California; 73,265 in Idaho; 62,390 in Montana; 65,352 in Nevada; 77,495 in Oregon; 70,329 in Washington; 59,032 in Wyoming. Alaska reports 38,629.
Here, as in other parts of the Union, urban population is growing faster than rural. Comparison for this discussion is with the census of 1870, as the returns for any previous year would make too meagre a showing. In 1870 the West had 56 of the 226 places that reported a population of 4,000 and over. In 1890 the number was 176 out of 899, and in 1900 it was 251 out of 1,158. Of the West's total population in 1900, 20.3 per cent was urban, against 37.3 percent for the Union. In 1900, 17.6 per cent of the total urban population of the country lived in the West, 13.1 per cent in 1890, and 14.1 per cent in 1870. California with 48.9 per cent and Colorado with 41.2 are above the average for the Union, while Washington, with 36.4 makes a close approach to the mark. For other states the average is: Iowa, 20.5; Kansas, 19.2; Louisiana, 25.1; Minnesota, 31; Missouri, 34.9; Montana and Wyoming, 28.6; Nebraska, 20.8; Oregon, 27.6; Utah, 29.4; Arkansas, 6.9; Idaho, 6.2; Nevada, 10.6; North Dakota, 5.4; South Dakota, 7.2; Texas, 14.9; Arizona, 10.6; Indian Territory, 2.5; New Mexico, 6.1; Oklahoma, 5. The following statement shows the drift of the population into the cities: | 1900. | 1890. | 1870. | Increase per cent, 1870-1900. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban population | 5,024,876 | 3,723,427 | 1,145,033 | 338 |
| Rural population | 16,009,778 | 12,950,982 | 5,732,063 | 179 |
| Total | 21,034,654 | 16,674,409 | 6,877,096 | 206 |
In 1870 Saint Louis, New Orleans, and San Francisco were the only cities that had over 100,000 population. In 1900 ten cities exceeded 100,000, while eight other cities, Portland leading the contingent, had between 50,000 and 100,000. Since 1880 Seattle has advanced from one hundred and fifty-first place to forty-eighth place in the rank of American cities; Los Angeles from one hundred and thirty-fifth to thirty-sixth; Duluth from one hundred and fifty-second to seventy-second; Kansas City, Kansas, from one hundred and fifty-fifth to seventy-sixth; Portland from one hundred and sixth to forty-second; Tacoma from one hundred and fifty-seventh to one hundred and fourth; Spokane from one hundred and fifty-eighth to one hundred and sixth, and Dallas, Texas, from one hundred and thirty-seventh to eighty-eighth. So rapid is the growth of Portland and Seattle that before many years they must take position among the country's twenty largest cities.
AGRICULTURE.
| Acres improved. | Acres per inhabitant. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1900. | 1890. | 1850. | 1900. | 1890. | 1850. | |
| Arkansas | 6,953,735 | 5,475,043 | 781,530 | 5.3 | 4.8 | 3.7 |
| California | 11,958,837 | 12,222,839 | 32,454 | 8.0 | 10.1 | 0.35 |
| Colorado | 2,273,968 | 1,823,520 | —— | 4.2 | 4.4 | —— |
| Idaho | 1,413,118 | 606,362 | —— | 8.7 | 7.0 | —— |
| Iowa | 29,897,552 | 25,428,899 | 824,682 | 13.3 | 13.3 | 4.2 |
| Kansas | 25,040,550 | 22,303,301 | —— | 17.0 | 15.6 | —— |
| Louisiana | 4,666,532 | 3,774,668 | 1,590,025 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 3.0 |
| Minnesota | 18,442,585 | 11,127,953 | 5,035 | 16.2 | 8.5 | 0.83 |
| Missouri | 22,900,043 | 19,792,313 | 2,938,425 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 4.3 |
| Montana | 1,736,701 | 915,517 | —— | 7.1 | 6.8 | —— |
| Nebraska | 18,432,595 | 15,247,705 | —— | 17.3 | 14.4 | —— |
| Nevada | 572,948 | 723,052 | —— | 13.2 | 15.8 | —— |
| North Dakota | 9,644,520 | 4,658,015 | —— | 30.2 | 26.0 | —— |
| Oregon | 3,328,308 | 3,516,000 | 132,857 | 8.0 | 11.2 | 9.0 |
| South Dakota | 11,285,983 | 6,959,293 | —— | 28.1 | 21.1 | —— |
| Texas | 19,576,076 | 20,746,215 | 643,976 | 6.4 | 9.2 | 3.0 |
| Utah | 1,032,117 | 548,223 | 16,333 | 3.7 | 2.1 | 1.4 |
| Washington | 3,465,960 | 1,820,832 | —— | 6.6 | 5.2 | —— |
| Wyoming | 792,332 | 476,831 | —— | 8.5 | 7.8 | —— |
| Alaska | 159 | —— | —— | —— | —— | —— |
| Arizona | 227,739 | 104,128 | —— | 1.8 | 1.7 | —— |
| Indian Territory | 3,062,193 | —— | —— | 7.8 | —— | —— |
| New Mexico | 326,873 | 263,106 | 166,201 | 1.7 | 1.7 | —— |
| Oklahoma | 5,511,994 | 563,728 | —— | 13.8 | 9.0 | —— |
| Total | 202,543,416 | 159,097,543 | 7,131,518 | 9.6 | 9.5 | 3.56 |
The new farms opened since 1850 are nearly equal in the aggregate to the land area of the original thirteen states. The new farms opened between 1890 and 1900 are more than the combined land areas of the states of Tennessee and West Virginia. North Dakota, with a little over 300,000 population, has more land by 1,500,000 acres under farms than has all New England with 5,600,000 people. The average number of improved acres per inhabitant more than doubled in the West between 1850 and 1890 and showed in 1900 a slight increase over 1890. In the older agricultural states it is steadily decreasing. Thus, in New England it fell from 4 acres in 1850 to 1.4 acres in 1900; New York from 4 to 2.1 in the same interval. The Ohio valley states have held up steadier. Ohio has decreased from 4.9 to 4.6, and Illinois from 5.9 to 5.7. Indiana has increased from 5.1 to 6.6.
The West has 2,056,748 farms compared with 1,491,405 in 1890, and 119,510 in 1850. Texas, with 352,190, leads the Union, and Missouri, with 284,886, holds second place. Iowa has 37,000 more farms than all the New England states combined. While the West has not quite half the improved acreage of the country, it has 63 per cent of the unimproved acreage or 269,000,000 acres out of 426,400,000 acres. Farms average in size from 93.1 acres in Arkansas to 885.9 acres in Montana, 1,174.7 acres in Nevada, and 1,333 acres in Wyoming, where stock raising predominates and requires large ranges. The average for the West is 229.1 acres against 146.6 acres for the Union.
The proportion of the total land area in farms ranges from 3.7 per cent in Nevada to 97.4 per cent in Iowa. Kansas has 79.7, Missouri 77.3, Texas 74.9, Oklahoma 63, Nebraska 60.8, and Minnesota 51.8. No other State has 50 per cent. In the Rocky Mountains and Pacific states the average, considering the capabilities of the soil, is surprisingly low. California reports 28.9, Washington 19.9, Oregon 16.6, Wyoming 13, Montana 12.7, Utah 7.8, and Idaho 5.9. Iowa leads the Nation in this respect, followed by Indiana with 94.1, Ohio with 93.9, and Illinois with 91.5. It is from these four states, whose areas are so largely taken up and whose land values are high, that the extreme West is seeking by reason of its cheap lands and equable climate, to draw its new population. East of the Mississippi River the percentage ranges in New England from 32.9 in Maine to 80.8 in Vermont. Along the Atlantic coast the average is from 59 per cent in New Jersey to 85 per cent in Delaware. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois have already been shown in comparison with Iowa. Kentucky has 85.9, Tennessee 76.1, Wisconsin 57, and Michigan 47.8. Florida with 12.6 and the District of Columbia with 22.1 are the only percentages reported from east of the Mississippi River, that look like western figures. Values follow: | Total farm values. | The Union. | The West. | Per cent in West. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | $20,514,001,838 | $9,155,558,744 | 44.1 |
| 1890 | 15,982,267,689 | 5,872,085,782 | 36.7 |
| 1850 | 3,967,343,580 | 276,464,837 | 6.9 |
| Value of farm products. | |||
| 1900 | 4,739,118,752 | 2,050,766,616 | 43.2 |
| 1890 | 2,460,197,454 | 920,823,920 | 37.4 |
| 1870[121-1 1] | 2,447,538,658 | 499,092,093 | 20.3 |
- ↑ Not reported by United States census prior to 1870. Values for this year in depreciated currency. To get true value, reduce one fifth.
Productions in quantity of principal crops in the West in 1890 and 1850 and percentages of the total for those years are thus shown:
| Product. | Yield, 1900. | Yield, 1850. | Per cent of total, 1900. | Per cent of total, 1850. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat, bushels | 431,963,900 | 5,288,868 | 65.5 | 5.2 |
| Corn, bushels | 1,363,983,943 | 70,467,713 | 51.1 | 11.9 |
| Barley, bushels | 93,767,657 | 47,709 | 78.2 | .92 |
| Buckwheat, bushels | 312,456 | 77,341 | 2.7 | .86 |
| Oats, bushels | 454,460,412 | 7,849,962 | 48.1 | 5.3 |
| Rye, bushels | 7,705,068 | 76,255 | 30.1 | .53 |
| Total grain, bushels | 2,352,193,536 | 83,807,848 | 53.1 | 9.6 |
| United States, bushels | 4,424,800,923 | 867,453,967 | —— | —— |
| Butter[121-2 1], pounds | 390,810,814 | 15,184,444 | 36.4 | 4.8 |
| Cheese,[121-2 1] pounds | 7,609,331 | 614,732 | 46.4 | .58 |
| Wool, pounds | 193,516,806 | 2,500,885 | 69.8 | 4.7 |
| Flax seed, bushels | 19,791,647 | 16,010 | 99.0 | .28 |
| Hay, tons | 44,799,194 | 253,297 | 53.3 | 1.8 |
| Potatoes, bushels | 87,288,453 | 1,764,969 | 31.9 | 2.6 |
| Hops, pounds | 31,673,821 | 12,719 | 64.3 | 7.1 |
The West leads the East in flocks and herds, viz:
| The Union— | The West— | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1900. | 1850. | 1900. | 1850. | |
| Dairy cows | 17,139,674 | 6,385,094 | 7,011,333 | 722,221 |
| Other meat cattle | 50,682,662 | 11,393,813 | 35,585,356 | 1,756,059 |
| Mules and asses | 3,366,724 | 559,331 | 1,655,654 | 122,371 |
| Horses | 18,280,007 | 4,336,719 | 10,063,260 | 528,459 |
| Sheep | 39,937,573 | 21,723,220 | 26,940,389 | 1,628,159 |
| Lambs | 21,668,238 | —— | 13,632,117 | —— |
| Swine | 62,876,108 | 30,354,213 | 32,274,381 | 4,193,895 |
| Total | 213,950,986 | 74,752,390 | 127,162,490 | 8,951,164 |
| Per cent | 59.4 | 11.9 | ||
MANUFACTURING.
The center of area in the United States, excluding Alaska and recent acquisitions, is in northern Kansas, the center of population in Indiana, and the center of manufactures in Ohio. The center of area will always be in the West and the centers of population and manufactures are slowly moving that way. Manufacturing is of minor importance, though the aggregate of output exceeded the agricultural output in 1900 by over $50,000,000. Relatively its position is not so strong, being but 16.1 per cent of the total, against 27.5 per cent for population and 43.2 per cent for value of farm products. Manufacturing increased substantially in the 1890 and 1900 decade and materially in the past fifty years. Thus,
| 1900. | 1890. | 1860. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value of products | $ 2,104,940,868 | $ 1,367,835,887 | $ 40,398,488 |
| Number of operatives | 652,561 | 508,371 | 30,084 |
| Dollars per operative | 2,991 2,690 | 1,342 | |
| Per cent of total: | |||
| Product | 16.1 | 14.5 | 3.9 |
| Operatives | 12.2 | 11.9 | 3.1 |
Missouri is the principal State for this branch of industry, California second, and Minnesota third. These states stand for nearly half the total output of Western factories. The output of California, Oregon, and Washington, in 1900, was $435,670,399, constituting 3.3 per cent of the value of products for the United States. Commenting on this, we find the census of Manufactures (part 1, page CLXXVIII) saying:
COMMERCE.
The combined imports and exports of the United States in the year ended June 30, 1901, were geographically distributed as follows: New York, 45.73 per cent; other ports east of the Mississippi River, 35.24 per cent; the West (Pacific and Gulf ports), 19.03. Of the seven great ports in the Union, three are in the West, New Orleans ranking the third, Galveston sixth, and San Francisco seventh. New Orleans has a foreign commerce of $173,000,000 a year; Galveston $102,000,000, and San Francisco $70,000,000. Puget Sound and the Columbia River, which before many years will be large ports, have between them $40,000,000. Of the total exports of the United States in 1901, the West reported $354,682,075, or 23.1 per cent. Imports were $86,275,443, or 10 per cent. Breadstuffs form a considerable item of the exports of Western ports. For the ten years ended June 30, 1901, shipments were 240,000,000 bushels of barley, corn, oats, rye, 450,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 26,000,000 barrels of wheat flour, of a total value of $521,000,000. San Francisco led in this business, with New Orleans second, and Portland, Oregon, third.
MINERAL PRODUCTIONS.
| Gold. | Silver. | Total value. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $15,816,200 | $ 583,668 $ | 16,399,868 |
| Colorado | 28,829,400 | 12,700,018 | 41,529,418 |
| Idaho | 1,724,700 | 3,986,042 | 5,710,742 |
| Montana | 4,698,000 | 8,801,148 | 13,499,148 |
| Nevada | 2,006,200 | 842,394 | 2,848,594 |
| Oregon | 1,694,700 | 71,548 | 1,766,248 |
| South Dakota | 6,177,600 | 332,444 | 6,510,044 |
| Utah | 3,972,200 | 5,745,912 | 9,718,112 |
| Alaska | 8,171,000 | 45,446 | 8,216,446 |
| Arizona | 4,193,400 | 1,857,210 | 6,050,610 |
| Texas, etc. | 1,587,100 | 704,568 | 2,291,668 |
| Total | $78,870,500 | $35,670,398 | $114,540,898 |
Other mineral productions are 30,000,000 tons of coal; 200,000 short tons of lead; 413,000,000 pounds of copper; 3,600,000 barrels of petroleum, and 30,000 flasks of quicksilver. The copper mines of Montana and Arizona have lessened the importance of the Lake Superior region as a source of supply, cutting its percentage of the total American output from 62.9 in 1862, to 25.9 in 1899.
One of the greatest gold mining regions of the world is located in eastern Oregon, covering a gross area of between 3,000 and 4,000 square miles. Prof. J. Waldemar Lindgren, of the United States Geological Survey, believes that the strong, well-defined veins upon which most of the important mines of this region are located will continue to the greatest depths yet attained in mining.
LUMBER INDUSTRY.
Texas, with 64,000 square miles, leads the Union in wooded area. Oregon is second, with 54,300 square miles, and Minnesota third, with 52,200 square miles. Arkansas, California, Missouri, Montana, and Washington each have over 40,000 square miles of wooded area. Oregon, Washington, and California have at least one third of the standing timber of the country, but they cut less than ten per cent of the total lumber product. The redwood forest of California is, perhaps, the densest forest, measured by the amount of lumber per acre, in the world. In quantity of standing timber, Oregon leads the Union with 225 billion feet; California second with 200 billion feet, and Washington third with nearly 196 billion feet. Minnesota, with a product of $43,600,000 leads the West and Washington is second, with $30,300,000. The total value of the lumber product of the West in 1900 was $184,135,988, against $109,201,667 in 1890 and $6,075,896 in 1850. The lumber cut was 10,925,736 M feet, board measure, or a little less than one third of the output of the Union. Among Western states, Minnesota led with 2,342,388 M feet, Arkansas second with 1,623,987 M feet, and Washington third with 1,429,032 M feet. Oregon cut 734,528 M feet.
RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION.
The transcontinental railroads have brought the West up to its present state of development, for they have opened it to settlement, and provided reasonable rates for the transport of its products to the Eastern markets, even if at the same time they have exposed its infant manufacturing industries to the competition of the large capitalization of the Atlantic seaboard and the Ohio Valley. In 1850 the West had 79½ miles of railroad, all in Louisiana. All the rest of the westward stretch of the nation to the Pacific was without so much as a single rail. What Louisiana could so proudly boast of in 1850 was less than the mileage operated by the Boston and Maine and its branches in Massachusetts that same year. By 1900 the total had swelled to 87,406.13 miles out of the 193,345.78 miles in the United States and the percentage from .25 to 45.2. On the basis of miles of railroad per 100 square miles of territory Iowa leads with 16.56 and Nevada is lowest with .83. In miles of line per ten thousand inhabitants Nevada is first with 214.98, and Louisiana last with 20.44.
In view of the enormous railroad construction in the West in the past thirty years it is worth while to recall President Buchanan's telegram to John Butterfield, the pioneer of Western overland transportation, when the first direct overland mail arrived by stage at Saint Louis from San Francisco October 9, 1858:
FINANCE.
FUTURE OF THE WEST.
The future of the Great West must be considered from two view points: (1) In its relation to the Asiatic countries and their trade; and (2) in its ability to support a large population. These will be taken up in their order.
Asia and Oceanica comprise an area of 21,262,718 square miles, and have a population of 847,000,000, or more than half that of the globe. Of this number, 435,000,000 are in China and its dependencies, Japan, Asiatic Russia and Corea. Asia, and the islands of the Pacific, annually buy from the world goods valued at $1,446,000,000 and sell to it goods of a value of $1,436,000,000, representing a total trade of $2,882,000,000. The United States will in time have a tremendous trade across the Pacific, although at present our proportion of the business is inconsiderable. In the year ended June 30, 1901, only 9.25 per cent of our foreign commerce was with Asia and Oceanica, of which 2.17 per cent was with the British East Indies; 2.09 per cent with Japan; 1.67 per cent with Chinese ports, and .37 with the Philippines. The new theatre of the world's activities is a virgin field, as little understood on our Pacific seaboard as on our Atlantic seaboard, for the exporters of both sections make the same mistakes in packing, and in long range dealing with the Oriental customer, to whom the first essential in trade is what our consular officers persistently pour into unwilling ears as the "look see," or the privilege of inspecting the commodity offered for sale, before buying it. These, however, are details of commercial organization which our exporters can be depended upon to settle on a satisfactory basis. The fear expressed in some quarters that the opening of Siberia by the completion of the great Russian railroad, and the consequent development of a region that will become a competitor of the United States in the trans-Pacific country, would appear to be groundless so far as any detrimental effect upon our country is concerned. Our general development is based upon the attraction of our institutions, the freedom of industry, the cheapness and fertility of our lands, hospitable climate, and above all, to the long enjoyment of the guarantee of peace. No other country in the world can offer the same inducements to progress and no country in the world can compete with us on our own terms.
Viewing the future of the West from the point of its ability to support a large population, the measure must be the record of the half-century just past. It has done more than its most sanguine friend dared foretell of it a century ago and it is not half developed. Excluding Alaska, it has an area of 2,138,488 square miles and a population of 20,971,062, with a density of 9.8. The population density of the Union is 25.6 to the square mile. The West is capable of reaching this mark and on this basis its population would be, approximately 55,000,000, a little more than the states east of the Mississippi had in 1900. Every foot of the West is useful for some purpose, the purpose depending in some degree upon the success of irrigation. The high lands of Nevada are no more to be ignored in the general scheme of economy than the irregular and broken surface of Vermont, where intensive cultivation of the soil now obtains as a result of Western competition in agriculture. When one contemplates the rugged mountains of Idaho, eastern Montana, northern California, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, he should reflect that some where in this broad land cattle must have range if the price of meat is to be kept within bounds. Conditions for horticulture and agriculture in Louisiana are as favorable as in any other State in the Union. The Columbia-river basin in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho is an empire in itself, with a population less than Chicago, and eastern Oregon, under irrigation, could produce 100,000,000 bushels of grain. There are those who expect Alaska to take station as an agricultural community. Manufactures in the West will ultimately bear a close ratio to population. Commerce will depend largely upon the effort the Nation in general makes across the Pacific.
The West comes on the stage of the world's activity in an era of peace, prosperity, and advancement of American principles and institutions. Its loyalty to the Union never has been doubted and no cloud of discord appears to bring it into contest with the East, for its interests are identical with those of that section, and community of interest promotes community of purpose. The West, instead of proving the Nation destroyer, has proved its savior. What the future is in all its aspects, no man can say. The Briton would have been thought insane ten years ago who would have dared to predict the day that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would be called upon to uphold the prestige of the empire at the Cape of Good Hope. No American, however pessimistic, contemplates with pleasure the possibility of war, still every American is pleased to see his country protected against the day of war. The generation that was contemporaneous with the statesman who said Oregon was not worth a pinch of snuff left sons and daughters to see an Oregon regiment sailing away from San Francisco to plant the Stars and Stripes at Manila and raise the United States to the dignity of a world power. In that city whose legislative halls echoed with dire warnings if Louisiana should be accepted from Napoleon, the citizens of some future day may be gladdened to the heart by the sight of a regiment from the Yukon River marching down the broad avenues to the defense of the national capital.
HENRY E. REED.