Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1881-02-24
A LOOK AHEAD.
what the United States VIII BE I'm
Half a Century More.

khasE u century Mores
IFrom the Detroit Free Press.
The center of population in the United
States has, during the last ten years,
shifted from Columbus, Ohio, to the
Indiana boundary line in few decades
more it will reach the Mississippi river.
At the rate of increase prevailing during
the present century, the country will, in
1920, contain between $50, 900, 900 and
160, 600, 600. This is only forty years
hence, space easily grasped by those
who can remember the Harrison Pres
idential campaign" Ten or twelve
years more, equal to look backward as
far as the days of jackson, notification
and the United States Bank. the country
will be found to contain 200, 900, 600
equal to the present population of Eu-
rope exclusive of Russia, Austria and
Turkey.
1t is hard to imagine the changes in
the social and commercial phases of the
country which this population implies
the immense domestic trade, the large
interior cities Chicago larger than New
York or Philadelphia, Cincinnati and
st. Louis than Brooklyn, Boston and
Baltimore; Cleveland, Detroit and
cities of that grade containing 500, 900 of
people. Already the New England and
Middle States are falling behind the
average rate of growth, and they win
tend more and more TO the stationary
point, when their annual increase WILDE
insignificant
Under these circumstances, there is
every reason to suppose that there will
grow up IN this central portion an i'm
mense city. perhaps more than one,
which will be the great metropolis and
distributing point of the continent. 1t
may be Chicago. 1t may be, also, Kan
sas City, or some other point farther
West. For, when this country contains
200, 100000 of people, certainly when
east of the Mississippi it begins TO APP
proach the density of European popula-
ton, its domestic commerce will be
more important than its foreign COM
merce, and its interior cities more i'm
portant than its seaports. The metrop-
oils will not be New York, but the cen
trail point of distribution arr exchange.
This is true of nearly every country and
its metropolis the world over, and there
is no good reason for doulting that it
will prove true Of the United States.
London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Vienna,
Madrid, Pekin, in modern days, Athens,
Babylon, Bagdad, Palmyra, in ancient
times, are, or were, all interior cities.
1t viii attract, as they have attracted,
the swarming multitude, the intelligent,
the energetic, the pleasure loving, the
Adventures from the immense reservoir
of populations around it. 1t may be
less cosmopolitan, but it will be more
American than the seaport cities, just as
Paris is tho most distinctively national,
Marseilles one of the most cosmopoli-
tan cities in the world New York so
cially, Boston intellectually, are already
dominated to some extent by foreign in
fiuences, and are not likely to become
less so in the future. They are already
settling down into hard, fixed modes Of
thought and life.
The newspaper press of the different
kinds of cities in the United States be-
gins to family prophesy their respective
tendencies. The press of Boston and
New York is comparatively provincial.
Almost wholly In its news, and mainly
in its comments, it scarcely recognizes
the existence of any interest west of the
Alleghenies. If there is any striking char
acteristic in the New York press at all. its
management and tone partake of the En-
glish type. On the other hand. the
Chicago papers show on their very face
that they are published at central
point. Every point of the compass is
fully represented. Their drag-net of
enterprise is thrown over the whole con-
tinent. This will be the law of their
future growth, and the law of the future
growth of Chicago or whatever the great
central metropolis may be. 1t is to be
vitalized, energetic, distinctively conti-
mental center Of commerce, art, liter
ature and amusement, and will suck into
its whirling current of business and
pleasure the teeming millions which
will then swarm in the great central
States of the Union.