A SKETCH OF THE WONDERFUL REGION BEYOND 

 THE MISSOURI, AND ITS POSSIBILITIES. 



BY ARTHUR I. STREET. 

 Associate Editor of the Denver Times. 



TX TATCH THEM COME. The ranks 

 V V of the investors with faces turned 



toward this Republic are swelling daily. 

 Two Republics (City of Mexico), May, 



1897. 



A novel colonization movement, having 

 its headquarters in Chicago, has been 

 started for the purpose of affording relief 

 to the vast army of the unemployed in 

 that and other cities of the United States. 

 Why not induce this army of the unem- 

 ployed to come to this country and set 

 them at work developing its immense 

 agricultural and mineral industries. Two 

 Republics (City of Mexico), May, 1897. 



The constant inflow of letters from 

 the Unietd States to the Two Rt publics 

 seeking information about the resources 

 and chances for investment reveal the 

 startling fact that most of them are from 

 men who are the possessors of capital 

 ranging from $3.000 to $6,000. Two Re- 

 publics (City of MexicoX April. 1897. 



There's nothing 48-cent about the boom. 

 Mexican Herald, May, 1897. 



If Mexican newspapers can be justi- 

 fied in writing such things as the above, 

 and if they be Americans who are causing 

 this non-48-cent boom, then either Ameri- 

 cans do not know that they are needlessly 

 going out of their own country in the pur- 

 suit of prosperity, or they are wilfully 

 and deliberately disgusted with Uncle 

 Sam and desire to leave him. 



In the eighteen states comprising the 

 territory west of the Missouri river there 

 is a total area of nearly two million square 

 miles that contains less than one-thirtieth 



of the population it is capable of support" 

 ing. It has railroads, cities, state and 

 county governments, schools and all the 

 appurtenances of modern civilization 

 awaiting the new resident, and appealing 

 to his effort to enlarge and perfect them. 

 The Indians who infested and made the 

 West dangerous a generation ago have dis- 

 appeared. The hardships, privation and 

 barbarism encountered by the pioneers are 

 virtually things of the past. Only one 

 great difficulty lies before the western in- 

 habitant. That difficulty is the problem 

 of redeeming the arid lands by irrigation. 



Massachusetts, containing only 8,000 

 square miles and a population of 2,238,000 

 individuals, has no more tillable land in 

 proportion to its area than any one of 

 the western states. In 1890 it had only 

 1,657,000 acres under cultivation, whereas 

 California with 12,200,000 acres under 

 cultivation had a population of less than 

 half of that of Massachusetts. Colorado 

 in the same year supported only 412.000 

 people upon a cultivated area of 1,823,000 

 acres, or nearly 200,000 acres more than 

 were cultivated in Massachusetts. 



California and Colorado are but repre- 

 sentative of the other eighteen western 

 states. On an improved area of nearly 

 125,000,000 acres they support an average 

 of only one person for every thirteen acres, 

 whereas Massachusetts has less than 80 

 per cent, of an acre for each person. No 

 complaint has ever been made that Massa- 

 chusetts is overcrowded, or if complaint 

 has been made it is only since the un- 



