THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA. 



181 



iong. Among the prominent men who have already 

 lent their names to irrigation and colonization proj- 

 ects in the last few weeks are B. M. Davies, A. F. 

 Hatch, William H. Holcomb, manager of transporta- 

 tion at the World's Fair, Isaac M. Perry, of the Con- 

 tinental Bank, John R.Walsh, of the Chicago Nation- 

 .al Bank, James W. Scott, of the Chicago Herald, 

 Lyman A. Walton, of the Equitable Trust Company. 

 These facts, and many others that cannot properly be 

 published at this time, indicate quite unmistakably 

 that Chicago has taken hold of the task of making 

 Arid America with'her customary vim. And in this 

 connection it is pleasant to recall that Chicago's 

 motto is, " I WILL.'' 



The West The people of the West do not generally 

 Nicaragua appreciate what a vital interest they 

 Canal, have in the speedy construction of the 

 Nicaragua canal. Men who have studied this great 

 enterprise in all its relations declare that no other 

 factor can accomplish as much for the western half of 

 the continent in fifty years as this great water-way 

 through the isthmus would accomplish in ten years. 

 A very prominent citizen of Chicago says: "It has 

 taken the railroads and all other means of transport- 

 ation nearly fifty years to put 2,500,000 people on the 

 Pacific coast. The Nicaragua canal will put 10,000,- 

 000 people there in ten to twenty years.' 1 He believes 

 that the cheap transportation for passengers and 

 freight which would follow would result in the speedy 

 settlement not only of the Pacific coast proper, but of 

 all desirable territory west of the Rocky mountains. 

 He believes it would also give a great impulse to the 

 production of all that comes from the field, the 

 .orchard and the mine by opening new and promising 

 markets. In other words, he believes the construc- 

 tion of the Nicaragua canal at this time would work 

 a revolution in commerce and industry and do more 

 than all the other factors combined to quicken the 

 life of the far West. It may be that this gentleman's 

 imagination is too fertile, but even if that be so the 

 undisputed certainty of benefits to follow the com- 

 pletion of this enterprise are quite sufficient to unite 

 the people in its support. The government should 

 guarantee its securities and allow American capital 

 and labor to complete it at once and American influ- 

 ence to rule it forever. 



In a recent communication to the Los 

 And " Angeles Times that brilliant Californian, 

 Colonization W in iam H . Mills, accounted for the 

 army of unemployed in the West, and for the general 

 industrial depression of which they are a product, 

 by calling attention to the cessation of railroad build- 

 ing. We have not the figures at hand, but he showed 

 what enormous energies were utilized during the two 



WILLIAM H. MILLS, 

 Land Commissioner, Southern Pacific Railroad. 



decades from 1870 to 1890 in this work. The number 

 of miles of railroads constructed, and of men and 

 capital employed in the work, presented an astound- 

 ing aggregate. The almost total cessation of these 

 tremendous activities would account in large meas- 

 ure for the idle people of to-day. It is interesting to 

 reflect that nearly all the properties built during this 

 period in the West are now in the hands of receivers. 

 The prevailing view of the railroad business is 

 very dark, and yet those who know the capabilities of 

 the country traversed by these railroad lines appre- 

 ciate the fact that the difference between bankruptcy 

 and a reasonable degree of prosperity is not very 

 wide, after all. The fact is that money and labor 

 have been almost recklessly employed in making 

 means of transportation. How would it do to adopt 

 the policy of making something to transport? A 

 high official of the Union Pacific railroad recently 

 said to the writer that he considered every new fam- 

 ily upon his line to be worth, in passenger and 

 freight traffic, counting what they shipped out and 

 in, an average of $250 a year. This railroad man has 

 a very lively appreciation of the fact that a few tens 

 of thousands of families, properly distributed, would 

 transform the most hopeless railroad property of to- 

 day into a solvent, profitable enterprise. The capital- 



