The Marvelous Development, Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial, That
Is Now in Progress in the States of Texas and Arkansas and
the Adjoining Territories.
_Revised from_ MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE _and brought up to date by the author
for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
EDITOR'S NOTE.--In the growth of interest in the great
States west of the Mississippi River the Southwest has until
lately been commonly neglected. Gold sent men rushing first
to the mountain States. Then grain led them to the prairie
States. With the more fertile wheat lands fully occupied,
there has of late been a tendency to the Canadian Northwest.
But at the same time a remarkable development, commercial
and industrial, as well as agricultural, has been going on
in the Southwest. The progress made in Texas during the last
few years is simply astounding.
Unknown to the great mass of the people of the United States, a new empire
is being planted in the Southwest. Much is written about the thousands who
are crossing the Canadian frontier and settling in Manitoba, Assiniboia,
and Alberta; but very little is heard about the tens of thousands from the
Northwest and the Middle West, from the East and Europe, who are moving
into Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona.
The officials of the railways running into this latter region could tell a
little of this story if they wished to. Last year, from April to November,
something like a million dollars was paid into the treasuries of the
Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, the
Iron Mountain, the Missouri Pacific, the St. Louis and San Francisco, and
the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railways, for fares by seekers of homes in
the Southwest. About one-third of these prospectors become permanent
settlers. The money put into farms, into manufacturing industries, and
into business of various sorts in that region, according to the estimates
of railway officials and of immigration agents, has amounted during the
past twelve months to fully two hundred million dollars.
The Empire State of the Future.
Consider for a moment the State of Texas--as she was, as she is, and as
she will be. Admitted to the Union in 1845, newly baptized with blood in
her struggle against the Mexicans, she then contained little more than a
hundred thousand inhabitants. To-day she has three and a half millions,
and ranks fifth among the States, having passed Missouri since the last
census. Only New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio are now ahead of
her. If all these States continue to advance in population at the same
rate as in recent years, she will pass Ohio before 1920, Illinois by 1930,
and Pennsylvania by 1940. Before 1950 she will have outstripped New York
and will be the Empire State of the Union.
In spite of her more than twenty-fold increase during the past six
decades, Texas is still, comparatively speaking, a sparsely settled
region. She has as yet a mere fraction of the population her generous soil
could support. Remember that she is larger than France or Germany, larger
than two Italys or two Great Britains. When she became a State she had
two square miles of land for each of her inhabitants. She now has about
thirteen people to each square mile. The State of New York has one hundred
and sixty people to the square mile, and is steadily growing in
population. Massachusetts has three hundred and seventy-five to the square
mile, and is steadily growing. Belgium has five hundred and ninety to the
square mile, and is steadily growing. England has six hundred and
twenty-five to the square mile, and is steadily growing. If the present
ratio of increase continues, think of the incalculable growth that the
coming years will bring to the great Southwestern State!
If Texas were peopled as densely as New York State, she would have
forty-two million inhabitants--more than ten times what she has. Settled
as closely as Massachusetts, she would have one hundred millions; as
closely as England, one hundred and sixty-six millions. This American
State is destined to rank with the powers of the world.
Remarkable as was the showing that Texas made at the last census, other
portions of the Southwest could point to a still more phenomenal gain.
While the population of the Lone Star State advanced thirty-six per cent
between 1890 and 1900, that of Arizona rose one hundred and five per cent,
that of the Indian Territory one hundred and seventeen per cent, and that
of Oklahoma no less than five hundred and forty-four per cent in the ten
years.
Texas Now Leads in Railways.
From 1870 till 1904 Illinois had a larger number of miles of railway than
any other State. In 1904 Texas passed Illinois. On March 1, 1906, the
great Southwestern State had approximately twelve thousand miles of main
railway track, or over two hundred miles in excess of Illinois.
Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and New York, in this order, stand
below Illinois in railway mileage, New York's total at the same date being
a little short of nine thousand miles.
In recent years, about half of the country's entire new railway mileage
has been built in the Southwest. The increase of mileage between 1897 and
the end of 1903 was twelve and a half per cent for the United States. It
was ten per cent in the Middle States, seven per cent in the Rocky
Mountain region and on the Pacific Slope, and three per cent in Ohio and
Indiana. It was twenty-seven per cent in the section comprising Arkansas,
Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico. There could
scarcely be a more significant index of advancing wealth, population, and
industry.
The Land of Corn and Cotton.
The Southwest at this moment is enjoying a prosperity unexampled in its
annals. Last year's yield of corn, wheat, and cotton proved better than
was expected early in the season, the corn crop being particularly good.
Land values have doubled in much of this region during the past five
years; though prices are still so much below those prevailing in Missouri,
Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana that the inrush from those
States continues to be large.
Traveling salesmen report better business in Oklahoma, Texas, and their
neighbors than in any other part of the West. More visitors came to the
St. Louis Exposition from the Southwestern States and Territories than
from any other part of the country, in proportion to population--which was
a good test of that region's financial condition.
Before the Civil War, when the South was proclaiming cotton to be king,
cotton's realm was in the Atlantic seaboard States. But Texas now produces
nearly a third of the country's entire crop. Her recent average has been
about three million bales; last year the yield was a little less than
that. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma are beginning to figure
prominently in cotton production. Cotton accounts for much of the
prosperity of the Southwest. More and more the farmers of that region are
raising other crops for a living, and using the proceeds of their
cotton-fields as a surplus fund.
What Statehood Will Mean.
Statehood, of course, will give a new impetus to the growth of the
Territories of the Southwest, attracting settlers and capital. It is
practically certain that Oklahoma and the Indian Territory are shortly to
become a State under the name of Oklahoma. The political future of New
Mexico and Arizona is more problematical, being a subject of controversy
at Washington as this is written. It is variously proposed to admit each
Territory separately, to admit New Mexico while excluding her sister
Territory, or to unite them into a single State, probably under the title
of Arizona. The question will have been settled before this reaches the
reader, unless its settlement is postponed to a later session of Congress.
The State of Oklahoma will start with a population of fully a million and
a half--about equal to that of California, and considerably above that of
such commonwealths as Louisiana, South Carolina, or Maryland. If New
Mexico and Arizona should be united, they will have about half a million
inhabitants. In area they will form the second State in the Union,
inferior only to Texas.
The Growth of the Gulf Ports.
Through the growing popularity of the Gulf ports as outlets for the
country's merchandise, the Southwest is bound to be a great gainer. As
compared with 1904, there was a larger gain in the exports by the ports of
the Gulf of Mexico in 1905 than the Atlantic ports showed.
This gain is due to several causes. More and more the great railways are
establishing terminals at the Gulf outlets. From the chief productive
centers of the Mississippi Valley the distances to these points are
shorter than to the Atlantic, and the grades are easier. In population,
productivity, and general industrial and commercial importance, the
southern end of the vast Mississippi Valley is growing with
disproportionate rapidity. The Southwest's pull on the population center
of the United States is shown by the fact that during the decade ending
with 1900 that point moved fourteen miles westward and three miles
southward.
The center of the country's production of wheat and of oats, and the
center of the total area in the country's farms, are now west of the
Mississippi. The center of the production of cotton, now on the western
verge of the State of Mississippi, and the center of the production of
corn, now in the western part of Illinois, will cross the big river before
1910. More than sixty-five per cent of the country's exports already
originate west of the Mississippi.
Galveston and the Panama Canal.
For all the region between the Mississippi and the continental divide of
the Rockies, the Texas ports, chiefly Galveston, will be the natural
outlets to the sea. In aggregate value of merchandise exports Galveston
has left Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston far behind. In
the last calendar year she stood third among American ports in the value
of her merchandise shipments, New York and New Orleans being the only two
ahead of her. She has gained so rapidly on New Orleans in recent years,
and the Crescent City led her by so slight a margin in 1905, that for the
twelve months ending with next December it seems safe to predict that the
Texas seaport will take second place.
Much has been said of the benefits which the Panama Canal will bring to
the United States by giving us a short cut to the Pacific littoral of our
own continent, to the west coast of South America, and to Asia and
Australia. Undoubtedly the isthmian waterway will open new markets to
Galveston and other Texas ports, and will be a powerful influence in
enabling the Southwest to score further industrial and commercial
conquests.
He who allows his happiness to depend too much on reason,
who submits his pleasures to examination, and desires
enjoyments only of the most refined nature, too often ends
by not having any at all.--=Chamfort.=