The state capital., 1899-01-13
PROGRESS I'm THE WEST.
The Rapid March of Civilization
Through the Forests and
Prairies.

The two Dakotas, Montana and
Washington have recently completed
their tenth year as states and IN one
or two of them there were suitable
exercises in some localities. A tenth
year is ordinarily not very lmpos-
ing anniversary, but this particular
cycle has seen many changes among
the far northwestern members of the
sisterhood of states. ''But yesterday"
remarks the Bismarck Tribune, I'VE
had the sod shack, the OK team, the
prairie schooner and the war whoop
of the untamed red man; to-day we
have soirees, musicales, pink teas and
functions and we have golfers in plaid
cloaks and populists with whiskers.
We are only ten years old, but we are
a great state
Nothing in the growth of any other
great nation of the world equals the
expansion in population and in the
area of civilization in some parts Of
the United States in recent years. TAX
ing the four states which were all
mitted in November, 1889, in the order
of population, Montana had, in the
census year 1890, 1888 inhabitants;
North Dakota, 1919; South Dakota,
328, ,8O8, and Washington $40, 800. Ac-
cording to the estimates made by the
governor of each at the beginning Of
1889 Montana then had 250,000 inhab-
itants; North Dakota, 235,C00; South
Dakota, 100000, and Washington 425,-
900. Perhaps these figures are, in
some instances, a little eXtravagant,
but the national enumeration of 1900
will undoubtedly show a great IN
crease in population and in the in
habited area of all the new states,
as well, of course, as in every state in
the west. Three other states are
Younger than these four. Idaho and
Wyoming were admitted in 1890, and
Utah in 1896. In all of these, too,
great gain is certain to be shown by
the enumeration of 1900.
| A striking fact in connection with
| the westward march of civilization is
| the acceleration of the movement
| which has come within the memory
of men now living. It took a century
and two-thirds for the occupied area
of the country to move from the At
| lantic to the Alleghenies. These were
crossed in the more southerly quarter,
| in Tennessee and Kentucky, just be-
! fore and during the revolution, and
were crossed at more northerly
point when Samuel Parsons, Rufus
Putnam and their associates, in 1888,
planted the Marietta colony at the
mouth of the Muskingum and laid the
foundations of the state of Ohio. in
| about a third of century after the
days when Boone, Harrod, Logan, Sew
ier, Robertson and their comrades
planted their little stOckade settle
ments in the Indian country just west
of the Alleghenies, civilization crossed
the Mississippi at its southern end
when Louisiana was admitted to
statehood and the river was passed
at a more northerly point when Mis-
souri, was let in.
\ little less than third of a CEN
tury spans the time between the ad
mission of Missouri and that of Cal
ifornia and a little more than a third
between Missouri's creation and Ore.
CONS. In less than half the time
which ii took for the Jamestown.
Plymouth and other settlers and their
immediate descendants to creep the
geo or 800 miles from the Atlantic 20
the top of the eastward wall of the
Appalachians the descendants ot
Boone, Parsons and their companions
had crossed the $500 miles separating g
that mountain range from the Pacific
Of course the invention of the steam
boat, the railroad and the telegraph,
coupled with the gold discoveries in
California, Colorado and other parts
of the west, are largely accountable
for this increase in the speed with
which the new territory has been oc-
cupied in the past 50 or 60 years. When
the history of what Alfred Russell
Wallace calls this wonderful century
is written no part of the story will
be more marvellous than that which
will tell of civilizations conquest OF
the American continent.-St. Louis
Globe-DemOcrat.