Among the bright indications for the future are the increase of
industrial education, the beginning of cooperation between capitalists
and employes, the increasing intelligence and combined strength of the
laboring class, which give assurance of good wages, and the
subdivision of the land into smaller farms, which substitutes an
independent yeomanry for the landlord and tenant relation. Thus, in
the thirteen States, formerly slave-holding, the average size of farms
in 1860 was 346 acres, but in 1880 it was 146.
We have vast mineral resources as yet untouched, of coal, iron, and
other metals far exceeding all that has yet been reached in the old as
well as new regions. The marbles of Inyo, California, are more than
twice as strong as the best marbles of Italy.
"Astonishing as the statement may appear," says the _Denver News_, "it
is nevertheless a fact that there are here, within the borders of
Colorado, the wealth in coal of two or even three States like
Pennsylvania. For the vast trans-Missouri country, eastward, even to
the valley of the Mississippi, Colorado is the great present and
future storehouse of the fuel which the demands and necessities of its
varied commercial and industrial life will require. Many generations
hence, when Colorado shall have become an old State, when the frontier
days shall have been forgotten, when gold and silver mining shall have
ceased to be profitable, even then will the coal fields of Colorado be
yielding their hidden treasures of fuel to supply the demand."
We have no territory which sanitary science may not render a healthful
home, and we have millions of acres of elevated territory, where the
highest conditions of human health and happiness may be attained in
connection with the highest spiritual development. But these regions
are not on the Eastern coast, chilled by the icy currents from the
North. "Westward the star of empire wends its way," and the Pacific
Coast is destined to witness the development of the highest
civilization on the globe. Of the health and beauty of California all
its residents can speak, but physicians can give decisive facts. Dr.
King, of Banning, Cal., says, "Out here we scarcely know what storms
are. All winter long my front yard has been green and beautiful--roses
blooming in January, and callas in March. During three and a half
years there have been but two cases of acute disease of the chest
within six miles of my office. I do not know of any death having
occurred in this village or vicinity from an acute disease, since I
came here nearly four years ago." What are the lauded climates of
Italy and Greece compared to such a record as this?