Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-11-14
What Paper Has Helped to Make.

The development of the products of
the printing press, the founding of
schools and colleges, and the attention of
every kind given to the promotion Of
education and enlightenment in this
country, have been on scale common
surate with The opening up of our mag.
n1fcent natural resources, and the rapid
increase of our population, due to an
precedented emigration. In 1776 the
civilized population Of this country
numbered about 100000, and occupied
the thirteen original States; now, after
an interval Of scarcely more than one
hundred years, our population comprises
43,00O,O00 individuals scattered over s.
100000 square miles OF this continent, or
through thirty-seven States and nine
Territories. Our broad domain, with
mighty navigable rivers in its heart. and
with thousands ofmiles of fertile prairies,
has become by far the chief agricultural
region of the world, and the value of our
agricultural productions has now reached
the enormous annual aggregate of So,
500,000,000. Our mineral resources are
also unequaled. The United States, ex-
elusive of Alaska, is estimated to con-
tain more than 100000 square miles of
workable coal beds, or "eight times as
large as the available coal area of all the
rest of the world" Within twenty years
Calofrnia and neighbOring Territories
have yielded to American enterprise not
less than one thousand millions of COL
lars in gold, and yet at the time America
was discovered, Europe contained only
sixty millions of this precious metal.
Vast beds of other minerals, especially
iron, abound. In the development of
manufactures of all kinds, giant for
ward strides have also been made. Of
cotton factories alone there are over 1000
in the country.
Now turn and look at our remarkable
literary advancement within the same
period. At the breaking out of the rev.
olution the colonists possessed but nine
colleges, among them Yale and Harvard !;
now there are about 800 similar institu-
tons in this country, while the develop
ment of the common school system, from
scanty beginnings, with few books, etc.,
to the establishment of numerous fine
school-houses, and the furnishing of all
that can render education easily and
cheaply obtainable by the multitude,
has been a much greater feature of our
progress.
But these educational results have
been to great extent made only posi-
BILE by the wonderful achievements of
the modern printing press, which, in
turn, owes heavy debt to those great
Improvements in our facilities for man
ufacturing paper, that alone have rem
dered the latter article suffi GENTLY plen-
tiful to meet the enormous demands of
the press, and that alone enable us to
buy cheap school books, as well as cheap
periodicals of every kind.
Our great progress in journalism is
shown by the fact that in 1875 there
were in the United States less than forty
newspapers and periodicals whose aggre-
gate issue for that year, comprised l.
100000 copies; now the united press
publishes over 500 daily newspapers,
more than 1000 weeklies, and about 600
monthly publications, of the dailies
that existed in 1870, about 100000
copies were struck Oft that year; of the
weeklies, about 600,000,000; and Of 9th
er serial publications, about 100000, 900,
amounting in all to 100000 copies.
And to sum the matter up yet more for
chilly, it must be stated that the United
States publishes more newspapers, with
greater combined circulation, than all
other countriesa of the world can to-
gether boast of having.
The history of the postal department
of the government Spresents an interest
ing feature of our national growth;
Shortly alter the close of TITS, it was es-
timated that there were about fifty post
offices in the United States. There is
still to be seen in the postal department
in the city of Washington, small book
containing about fifty sheets of foelscap
paper, and in this book the entire &C
counts of the general postoffice depart.
ment were kept. In 1889, when the con.
federacy was supplanted by the present
folm of national government, the mum
Der of pestoffices was about seventy five
the annual income from them about
$4,000; annual expenditures, $4,000
and the combined length Of postroao:
reached about 1000 miles. At the pres
ent time this country contains ovel
$4,000 postofices, with an aggre
gate length of post routes of $4,000
miles; the annual revenue amounts tt
$23 100000, and the annual expendi
lures to $29, O,000.-Paper World.