Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-10-18
The Four New States

Philadelphia Fres5.
President Harrison will soon issue
proclamation, declaring the formal
admission Of Washington, Montana
and the two Dakotas to the Union of
States. These are giant children,
these baby States. They are giants
in Territory, they are advanced to-
ward maturity in development, social
and industrial, and their population
is growing with startling rapidity. 1t
! Is hard for the Eastern mind unaccus-
| toned to the vast distances OF the tar
Northwest, to grasp their hignesa.
The four new States all make a belt
extending Southward from the Brit
ish American boundary, interrupted
only by the narrow panhandle pro-
lection of Idaho, which separates
Montana from Washington. This belt
stretches Eastward from the Pacific
ocean to Minnesota. There is only
one way to realize what this bare state
ment means. Take map OF the
United States; fold it so that Portland,
Me-, will fall upon Portland, Oregon.
The middle crease thus made will cut
through Minnesota justsa little east of
its western boundary, and just Il little
east of Fargo, OAK, soon to be Fargo,
North Dakota. East of this crease
stretches the belt OF old States, reach
ing 1000 miles to the Atlantic. West
ward stretches the belt of new States,
covering 1000 miles to the Pacific.
Keep the map still before you, and
taking lead pencil place its point ON
the British line and grasp the pencil
between thumb and foreiinger where
it crosses the southern border of Mon
tana. The distance thus measured
will be fair average of the width OF
the new States, for. while Montana is
wider, north to south, than Washing
ton, it is narrower than the two Da-
kotas. Now move the pencil sideways
and eastward, keeping the point al
ways on the northern border OF the
United States. The part OF the pencil
between the point and the place
grasped by the finger and thumb will
cover all Minnesota, the northern
third of Iowa, all Michigan and Wis
consin, the cas- stern two-thirds of Ohio,
part of Kentucky, all West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New York and the six
New England States.
Compared with Pennsylvania these
four new States seem almost empty.
immigration is pouring into them
all in an cver-increasing stream. Cit
les are rising like magic from the
plains These four new empires are
being peopled and subjected to the
rule OF civilization with rapidity
which can not only be explained by
the fact that nature leaps TO meet the
embrace OF labor. The tales OF these
new Western lands read like travellers
fables of the ancient East. There is u
colossal element about all statements
of fact concerning them that savors of
the luxuriant imagination of the ORR
ent. And yet these tales are not fic-
tion; they are confirmed every day by
the telegraph, by the letters of trained
newspaper correspondents and by the
serious reports OF agents to investigate
and upon the accuracy of whose state
ments is staked the investment Of
millions of Eastern capital. Agricul-
tural lands so rich that they need but
tickling to laugh with harvests; veg
etables of such size that one potato
makes a meal for four men mineral
deposits of gold, silver, iron, coal and
tin; great forests whose lumber ca
pacity staggers the belief of experts
from the pineries of Michigan; subter-
ranean lakes that give such pressure,
through ar.esian wells, that steam is
not needed for manufacturing cliffs
of chalk, beds. of jasper and factories
of chalcedony-these are some OF the
wonders Of the new land that has so
long been knocking at the door of the
Union for admittance