102 TRANSPORTATION 



factured state, as flour and beef products. On the other hand, 

 with the maturer development of every community, comes an in- 

 creasing desire to be economically independent and to develop 

 resources in a well-rounded way. The Pacific Coast wants to make 

 its own ships; the Middle West to make its own shoes; the South 

 to grind its own flour and spin its own cotton. Every force which 

 operates in this direction toward the decentralization of industry 

 means a reversal of the previous effects of industrial growth in the 

 line of regional division of labor. Every utilization of local raw 

 materials for local manufacture to be consumed at home means a 

 change in the character of freight offered for transport. The 

 problem comes home every day to the traffic manager of a great 

 system. If St. Louis shoes the great Southwest with hides of local 

 Western origin, what becomes of the long-haul business from New 

 England? If Richmond and Atlanta become the seats of thriving 

 local manufactures of furniture, crockery, wagons, and soap, what 

 becomes of the traffic displaced? The answer is, of course, that 

 every such industry has to be fed, clothed, and supplied in a hundred 

 ways which more than compensate the carrier for the direct loss of 

 traffic. This is, of course, true. But the change exemplifies exactly 

 what we have in mind, namely, that the maturer development of 

 a country will profoundly influence not only the amount, but the 

 character of the transportation service demanded as well. 



Many forces tending to specialize industry and locate it predomi- 

 nantly in peculiarly favored places are familiar to us all. The 

 oldest, and for our country the most important, historically, is 

 nearness to the market. Nearly one half (48 per cent) of the manu- 

 factures of the United States, according to the latest data, are located 

 in the six states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New 

 York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. But this concentration is 

 rapidly yielding before the spread of population, with increased 

 consumption power, through the South and West. Who can say 

 that within a hundred years the center of manufactures will not pass 

 beyond the Alleghenies? It has already almost done so in the case 

 of several industries. A second concentrating influence is, of course, 

 the location of raw materials in the ground and of climatic advantages 

 in the air. There are no signs of weakening in the supremacy 

 of Pittsburg or Birmingham as centers of the iron and steel 

 industry. 



Yet many of the more highly elaborated products of these staple 

 raw materials, from ships to hardware, will be more and more made 

 near where they are to be consumed. Other factors to be noted 

 presently may readily prove it to be more economical to carry the 

 raw material, pig-iron or steel billets, rather than the finished products 

 over the long haul. Consider the cotton industry. We hear a great 



