The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-11
GROWTH IN A CENTURY.
Vast Expansion of Population and
wealth Since WashingtOn's Day.

Wealth Since Washington's Day.
From Leslies Weekly.
Yet the expansion which has come in
The power and prestige of the country in
the century which has passed since WASH
4ngton's death has been immeasurabiy
greater than could have been conceived by
anybody in his day The population of the
United States, which was about 100000
at that time. is now 100000 The larg-
est city in the country then, Philadelphia,
had 5000 inhabitants, while it now has
1.2O0O 900 TO l. 100000. New York then
with 5000 population, has 100000 to-
day. Chicago, then hunting ground for
Indians, with no place on the map until
over third of a century after Washing
tons demise, has more populations now
than was between the Potomac and the
country's southern line as that time. The
states of NV York asd Pennsylvania
have each al present many more inhabi-
tants than the entire United States had
100 years ago.
The area of the country was $4,000
square miles i'm 1899 while ii is S.700 90
m 1900 It's western boundary. which was
at thc Mississippi then, was long ago adj
Vancod to the Pacific, and has now been
extended to the Philippines, In Asiatc
waters. Its southern boundary, which was
latitude 81 degrees at that time, The north
ern line of the present state Of Louisiana,
has in the passing years, taken in Florida,
with that localbys then extension 10 the
Mississippi, and has reached down to the
lower part of the Gulf of Mexico Its
northerly line, then the Great Lakes, has,
in the case of Alaska, been stretched far
north of the Arctic circle. In the year
of Washingtons death the receipts of the
government were 100000 and lis eXpendi-
lures 50 00O. goo In the fiscal year 1899
the expenditures were 500, 900 900 aud
the receipts were slightly below that
mark The wealth of the country, which
was less than $1,000O 00, 600 then, or much
below that of the single city of New York
now, is 800 100000 at the present time.
Even the most daring Imagination in the
country that of jefferson, could not form
any conception of the expansion which has
come in che past 100 years. In his first
inaugural jefferson congratulated the
American people on possessing a chosen
country with room enough for our de-
scendants to the thousandth and thou
sandth generation" A country several
times larger than the third Pres
ideht had in mind has filled most of its
waste places in three generations. But
neither Washington, Jefferson, nor any
other of their contemporaries could have
foreseen the steamboat Ghen beginning in
the most rudmentary way, the railroad,
or the telegraph, and the changes they
would bring. The sixty days required to
make journey from New York or Boston
to the Mississippi century ago would
carry a person around the globe to-day
Several weeks passed before the news or
Washingtons death reached kentucky or
Tennessee, while intelligence OF any oc-
clrrence can be diffused all over the earth
in a few seconds at present.
Morally, the advances made by the Unit
ed States are as great as they are physic-
allv. The neutrality" of the country
which Washington was anxious to have
respected" is observed in a scrupulously
consnicuous degree in these days. All ma
lions are DESTROYS. as the expressions OF
leading British German, French and Rus
sian Statesmen in the past twelve months
show, to gain the goodwill of this coun-
trV