Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-04-15
OUR FUTURE GREATNESS.

Is it possible that any one can realize
the exceedingly probable fact, that in
4l-.5-~ &c ~>-- LArd 900-onlv twenty
eight years hence-the population of
the United States will number 10000
900 of. it is to be hoped, free and indie
pendent citizens Yet that eminent sta
tistician, Mr. Samuel F. Ruggles, dem
onstrates very clearly that such will
be the case, without making allowance
for annexations, North and South, that
will certainly come about; Mr.. Sumner
and others opposed to annexation to the
contrary Notwithstanding. MIR. Ruggles
explains the reason for his prophecy in
figures, and though the old adage, that
Figures don't lie," is the most unvera-
cious of proverbs, the statistician's fig
ures have acquired reputation of their
own, and a good one at that. For fully
thirty or forty years, Mr.. Ruggles has
been figuring about our internal and
domestic commerce, and though the
gentleman has not infrequently been
accused of the rather paradoxical task
of romancing in figures, the facts have
as frequently sustained his predictions.
When, therefore, the ablest, most expe-
rienced and decidedly the most trust
worthy statistician of the age informs
us that we shall have population of
100000 in 1900, the more youthful
part of the present generation may as
we'll reflect upon what awaits them in
their maturity and old age.
Seventy-fve millions of people in the
United States signifies the settlement
of the entire South and West by as
dense a population as that which New
England has to-day; The reclamation of
the arid wastes of the great Planes by
irrigation the development of States
as strong and powerful as Ohio, Indi-
ana, and Illinois, along the Rocky
Mountains the settlement of the great
Utah Basin by four or five millions of
agricultural and pastoral people; the
development of tier of agricultural
States along our northern border, from
Lake Superior to the Pacific, as popu-
lous and as prosperous as Missouri and
Minnesota railroad communications
with the mines of Nevada, Montana,
Colorado, Idaho, and California as ex-
tensive as that which now relieves Penn
sylvania of its black diamonds the
growth of the Pacific States into com
monwealths as rich and populous as
New York and Pennsylvania.
Seventy-fve millions of people in the
United States in twenty eight year:
from now, means that the city of New
York will cover the whole of Manhattan
Island with population of nearly three
millions, to say nothing of the outlying
suburbs in New Jersey and across tn,
East River; that Chicago and St. Loui
will each become as large cities as Phil
adelphia is at present, and that San Fran
cisco will have not far from a million
r inhabitants. The national debt of Uncl
Samuel will have become tradition
and will be looked upon, not only a
' one of the remarkable facts of the re
mote past but with wonder how it wa
ever difficult to raise three OF four hun
dred millions year by taxation.
Such are the glorious visions of futur
= greatness which are excited by the pro
] sale and careful figures of an eminen
S statistician. If any of the readers of th
t WORLD are disposed to be, what i
termed among the brokers of Wal
Street, unduly ''Bearish' in their ten
! denotes, or rather inclined to- get til
n blues ever our future, and anxious t
sell United States bonds short, deliver
: able in twenty eight years, we advis
, them to indulge in the line of though
=" suggested by Mr. Ruggles' striking fig
/ ures, and carry the predictions we hav
d only illustrated more into Details
/ Crofi1tts Westera World