Omaha daily bee., 1894-01-24
THE FUTURE OF

IL LIZ llO SOIloSllOhO vi III III
our most intelligent and enterprising
citizens hat Omaha can become a city
of half a million people within the next
twenty years by developing her CONNER
cial resources and utilizing the natural
products of the country tributary to the
city. The railroads already concentrated
here and the railroads pointing in this
direction afford positive assurance that
Omaha will be a great distributing mer-
camille center. 1t is only a matter of a
very short time when Omaha will reach
out into the wheat belt of South and
North Dakota, as she will into the cattle
breeding panhandle of Texas and the
iron ore and timber belt of Duluth and
Lake Superior.
Whether the canal project materializes
or not, or whether it is abandoned as
impracticable, it Is absolutely certain
that Omaha will get cheaper fuel by
way of Duluth and cheap motor power
material from the Wyoming oil fields.
That Omaha will eventually be the
headquarters of the sugar beet industry
of Nebraska goes without saying. The
Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn valleys are
capable of sustaining 25O factories for
the production Of raw sugar from beets
and Omaha has superior advantages for
refining and distributing this valuable
product.
For the present, however, Omaha can
not hope to make great Roadway with
out stimulating enterprises that promise
to concentrate railroad traffic in this
city and build up our manufacturing in
dustries. To make this a great in
dustrial center we must be in position to
compete with eastern manufacturing
towns in the labor market. That means
that Omaha must either be able to hire
men at the same wages or make the cost
of living cheaper than it a be had in
the manufacturing towns of the east.
We certainly have an advantage in the
matter of food products. With the great
packing houses at South Omaha and the
dairy farms and wheat and corn fields at
our very door we should have cheaper
meat, flour, corn meal, butter, cheese
featuring cities in Pennsylvania or New
England. The only thing We have to do
is to bring consumer and producer to-
gether in a great market house. The
mex burdensome things for the laborer
are rem and fuel. Rents nave been
crowded down already, and the fuel
problem will be solved when we get
competing outlets to Lake Superior and
the Kansas and Missouri coal mines.
The all-important problem is to in
duce capital to come here and to invest
in mills and factories. The opportuni-
ties for such investors are nowhere as
promising. The raw products which
are turned out at South Omaha in them
selves afford an inviting field. The
hides, hoofs, horns and bones of the
thousands of animals slaughtered in the
packing houses, if converted into leather
and finished products, would afford en-
ployment to thousands of mechanics and
workmen. On this score we shall at an
early day point out the feasibility of
new processes of tanning that would
not only make Omaha a great shoe and
leather manufacturing center, but would
open a very profitable industry for
farmers in the arid districts of western
and northwestern Nebraska.
The future of Omaha is more promis-
ing than it ever was, but we cannot hope
to make much progress within the next
few years unless we put our shoulders to
the wheel and help to organize pros
perity.