18 SOME IMPENDING CHANGES. 



ciises, found eiiiploynieiit in one of the many channels constantly being opened for labor 

 In the iiiiprovenient of the new States. 



Weary of the city and its hopeless struggles, thousands were yearly resorting to the 

 public d<)nKiin while other thousands, unable speedily to encompass their desiifs in tliis 

 direction, still hope that industry ;itu1 economy will yet enable them to secure a home in 

 the liniitle.-^s West, and %vill not realize that there are no more free lands worth owning 

 until they have made such costly and fruitless experiments as have the people now 

 marching eastward from the arid plains. 



To the capitalist, the settlement and development of the new Stales has presented 

 an invitinjr field, and here have been laid the foundations of many of the great fortunes 

 which excite the wonder and astonishment of Europeans. In this undeveloped region 

 the capitalist and speculator have found a new field for exploitation, possessing, in 

 latent form, wonderful mineral, woodland and agricultural resources and fast filling with 

 a restless race of workers ami consumers, and a vast territory without railways, factories 

 or mines, the construction or development of which promised and furnished profitable 

 employment to an immense capital. 



Here the railway projector and builder found ample opportunities for fame and 

 fortune; the mine operator, rich mines of coal, and all the useful and precious metals; 

 the moneylender, men in almost countless numl)ers, ready to pay high rates for the 

 means enabling them to buy this piece of property or improve that, to erect mills and 

 factories, open and equip farms, build cities and bridge streams, until tlie West became, 

 for the eastern owner of capital, a veritable Pactolian stream, and western farm mortgages 

 were esteemed the best of gilt edged securities. 



Now, however, all this is about to change — is changing. Tlic investor in railway 

 securities cannot much longer invest all his surplus income in the bonds and shares of 

 of new Hues, as little new mileage will be either needed or built outside of the Southern 

 and Pacific States; towns will expand, but few new ones will be built; new factories and 

 forges will rise, and new mines be opened, but local capital \yill largely be employed in 

 such enterpiises and to those interested in railway securities the change means a lessened 

 rate of income, fewer opportunities for profitable investment in new lines, the old lines 

 largely double tracked, new and more commodious equipment, better methods of admin- 

 istration, less manipulation for the exclusive benefit of those active in the management 

 and greater efforts to serve the public, and thereby evade the restraining arm of the law. 



For the owners of buildings it means lower rentals, continuous improvements in 

 order to keep the property up to an advancing standard and a rate of income shrinking 

 as does the rate of interest. 



The implication for the manufacturer is a broader and more exacting home market 

 — as the farmer, receiving for his products from 50 to 100 per cent, more than now, will 

 become a vastly more liberal and discriminating buyer — for his wares, which must be 

 sold at a lower price, oflset l)y lower interest charges and relatively cheaper raw materials 

 of foreign origin, and, if the manufacturer is to furnish employment to all who seek to 

 enter his service, it indicates a search for distant markets and a sharp competition with 

 Europe for the trade of other continents. To the possessor of loanable funds it means a 

 constant shifting of investments to inclined planes where the returns will, by reason of a 

 constantly increasing competition from an augmenting supply of capital seeking invest- 

 ment, continuously diminish, and a probable restriction of choice in investments, the 

 proportion of borrowers being likely to lessen. 



That the West is, even now, in large part emancipated from monetary dependence 

 upon the East, was made manifest during the flurries of last Autumn in the money mar- 

 kets of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, when the western exchanges pursued the 

 even tenor of their way, with but little oscillation in rates, and with loans about as 

 readily procurable as usual. 



Producing so largely of the useful and precious metals, and with an advance of 50 

 to 100 per cent, in the price of the agricultural staples so indispensable to human life, and 

 which are so largely grown in tlie Mississipiji valley, the West will soon receive immense 

 accessions of capital, and — as one of the results of tlie exhaustion of the arable portion of 



