The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-06-02
THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATES.

The June number of Hdrper's Magazine.
just out, contains an article on Wyoming,
written in the exhaustive style of Julian
Ralph. 1t combines history of the Ter
ritory with an account of its material re-
sources. and prefgures the time when
Wyoming viii be the Pennsylvania of the
West. Being the only State west of the
Ohio which produces frst-class coal, the
prediction involves no extravaganza. Six
years ago the range business of Wyoming
began to decline and the festive cowboy TO
disappear from the great pastures. Pas
turage has given place to agriculture and
mining. and the new business of the region
is taking shape.
To forecast the future destiny of the
States west of the central valleys one must
read the history of the older States which
became political organizations after the
Government got In working order. One
OF them is Ohio. which, about hundred
years ago, was in the condition of Wyom-
ing to-day. 1t is just about a hundred
years since General st. Clair, and after
him Judge Symmes, took up land in the
Territory of Ohio ana invited settlers from
New York and Connecticut. The soil of
their holdings was good, but they did not
claim that it possessed any value except as
agricultural land. and settlers were frankly
told that they would have to defend their
homes against the Indians at the muZzle of
the musket Nevertheless, though there
was an abundance of unoccupied land in
New York. New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
the influx of people into Ohio enabled
them to organize n territorial government
in 1899. just ninety-fOur years ago At the
close of the century Ohio contained about
$4,000 inhabitants, as against $4,000 at
present in Wyoming
Thirty years afterward Ohio contained
nearly million people, though its great
resources of coal and petroleum had not
been discovered. and its communication
with the Atlantic seaboard was difficult
and slow, its main outlets being by the
Ohio River to the south and by the canal
to Lake Erie on the north Wyoming
enjoys the advantage of railroad communi-
cation with the north. south. east and
west, and it IL known that it contains.
besides, a soil which will grow all the agri-
cultural STAPLES except cotton. At the
time Ohio first contained million people
the foreign immigration was under q. 600
yearly; it is now more than twenty times
rs large, and il is easier now for a foreign
immigrant to reach the heart of Wyoming
than it was in 1880 to reach the heart of
Ohio. The area of Wyoming is more
than twice that IF Ohio.
On this side of the mountains the law of
State evolution has been disturbed by
accidents. Gold discoveries swelled the
population of California tenfold in thirty
five years; but the abnormal growth was
follow ed by a marked dminution in the
rate of increase. Other States which did
not go through feverish boom, like Ore
gon and Washington, have grown at about
the normal rate for new States where no
hot-house forcing-process was in opera
ton. and there is every reason to expect
that they will continue to grow at about
that rate. 1t is fair TO assume that, all
other things being eqnal, and no exciting
causes being in operation, Wyoming will
go into the twentieth century with pop
ulation Of 125 600 and the coast with not
less than 100000.
Sangnine observers. com pairing the fer
tility Of land on this side of the continent
with the nparatively barren land on the
other side, predict a gradual shifting of
the Ans rican people from ocean to ocean.
On general principles and in the long run
people can always be relied upon to move
from places where life is hard to places
where it is easy. Ohio filled up with farm
ers because farming was more lucrative
there than it was in New England, New
York or Pennsylvania. But these trans
atiOns of great masses of people occupy
long periods of time. AS the desire to
emigrate becomes general the harder it
becomes to realize on holdings. and people
hang on to their old homes because they
C mot dispose of them. If the New Eng
land farmers could sell out to-day they
would mostly move TO the slopes of the
Rock Mountains or to the valleys of the
Pacific Coast. As they cannot the migra-
ton is gradual. Still it seems that it must
be progressive.
If any man had predicted in the Presi-
dency of Jefferson that the center of
power and population would in this coun-
try have shifted from the vicinity of
Washington to the valley of the Ohio he
would have heen regarded as a dreamer.
And some similar epithet would be be-
slowed on him who today should predict
that in the twenty-frst century there
would be as many Americans west as east
OF the one hnndrptlth parallel,