The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1908-06-26
He left an honorable record.
UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES OF
AMERICA

AMERICA
Until we learn to think in billion.
we cannot measure the meaning o.
the material development of the
United States during the last quar-.
ter Of a century; much less can we
mentally grasp the potentialit:es
which the coming years have in
store for us. Oar progress, how.
ever, has only been the pioneering
work of clearing the wilderness, OF
blowing and planting amid the
s,umps and drain swamps.
Having an area 81 per cent as
large as that Of all Europe, we have
no such vast, almost uninhabitable,
regions as are to be found in por-
tions Of Europe. Nowhere in all
our land are the winters SO rigorous
as to make the development of the
country impossible. While we have
IS, 900, 900 population against Eu-
ropes ~, 900, 900, we have eight
times as much coal area; We have fal
more iron ore; We have cotton
crop worth annually $500, 900, 900,
while Europe has none! We have
wheat and corn averaging annually
about 3, 400, 900 900 bushels against
Europs's 2, zoe, 900, 600 bushels; we
have 2.5,ooo miles OF railroad =,
against 10000 miles for all of
Europe; we are making almost as
much pig iron as Europe, and min
ing over 60 per cent as much coal.
WHAT we are doing, however, is not
SO striking or remarkable as are the
limitless potentialities which will
, enable US to do in the future far
mo,e-many times more-than all
Of Europe is doing.
The increase in the value OF farm
property, which between 1900 and
1906 amounted to nearly So, ooo,-
600, 900, or but little less than ten
times the aggregate capital of all
the national banks in The United
States, finds its explanation in the
value of farm products. Between
1870 and 1907 the value of farm
products had risen from less than
81, 600, 900, 900 to S7,4oo, 600, 600,
the value in the latter year being
three and half times as great as
that in the former, although during
the same time the number of people
engaged in agriculture has not quite
doubled. The total number en-
gagged in agriculture in 1870 was
5,ooa, 900, and the total number a,
present is 1880, 900. This re-
markaOle change is shown in the
fact that the value of agricultural
products per capita for all engaged
in agriculture, which was Sa86 In
1880, had been steadily rising until
ia 1897 it was over $500 per capita.
How can country so blessed by
nsture, a country which has already
wrought so marvelously, halt for
more than a moment? With noun
aims bursting with mineral wealth,
with a soil of every variety known
capable of doubling its entire output
without an Increase of cultivated
acreage by the improved methods
now being adopted, with the Great
Lakes on the north, the Atlantic
and the Gulf on the east and south,
and the Pacific on the west, with
the Mississippi and its tributaries
splitting the very heart of the richest
valley of earth, looking to Europe
N the oAe side and to Asia on the
other, our lRnd has before it an ad-
vancement so stupendous as TO
dwarf ints insignihcahce all that We
have done. Broad indeed must be
the vision Of the men who, looking
from some mountain peak, is able
to peer into the future, and, seeing
what 1t has In store for us, plan
things big enough to meet its require
"a observation-disclosures Record.
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