THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



Thus it was that the work of taming the wilderness 

 went on with increasing fervor. Thus it was that thirty- 

 two new States were added to the original thirteen. 

 Thus it was that the national population was increased 

 fourteen-fold, and that cities rivalling the greatest urban 

 centres in the Old World, in size and wealth and power, 

 were developed on the site of the colonial villages of the 

 early days. Thus it was that the Republic was able to 

 welcome, and to absorb into its apparently insatiable in- 

 dustrial system, the millions of immigrants who flocked 

 to its shores. 



During these days of rapid material expansion over 

 new areas, Uncle Sam was the proprietor of the most gigan- 

 tic employment bureau on earth. He had enough work 

 for his own prodigious family of sons, and for the over- 

 flow of all the families across the sea. He offered the 

 highest wages in the world-wide market. He distribu- 

 ted his abounding prosperity through all channels of 

 trade, all classes of industry, all grades of society. He 

 made men and communities rich first by employing 

 their energies in the conversion of the wilderness into a 

 civilization, and paying them roundly for the work ; 

 then by the rise in values, or " unearned increment," 

 which comes with population and development ; finally, 

 by the premium, or interest, upon capital thus acquired. 

 All this was the logical fruit of a policy of continental 

 conquest bravely undertaken, magnificently achieved. 



Behold the story of national prosperity in the form of 

 a few clear-cut figures, divested of all rhetorical cloth- 

 ing : In a little more than one hundred years the area of 

 farms increased from sixty-five thousand square miles to 

 over one million square miles. The number of persons 



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