The Great Southwest.

By CHARLES M. HARVEY.

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 Fé, 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.