The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-04-17
IMMENSE GROWTH
OF UNITED STATES
Activities on Texas Gulf Coast
One of the Striking
Evidences.
GAL WESTON AN EXAMPLE
MILLIONS EXPENDED AS BASE
FOR A GREAT PORT.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of
the growth Of this country in general is to
be seen in the trend of commerce and i'm
migration IN recent years, and particu-
larly in the movements now in progress
commercially, industrially and agricul-
turally, along the gulf front of the state
of Texas.
When the Improvement of Galveston
harbor was undertaken in 1890 Calves
ton FOLK figured that a large volume of
business would shift from Atlantic ports
TO the new gulf outlet as soon as the big
ships could come up tC the wharves, as
Galveston would furnish the line of least
resistance" But in this they were dis
appointed for time. Water can be made
to run up hill Railroads leading from
the granary of the nation" continued to
take products for export to the Atlantic
ports albeit rates slumped. The dream
OF diVertInS commerce was not realized.
Within the last few years the COM
merce OF the port of Galvest ton has grown
enormously. II Is now So per cent greater
than In 1890 Growth of the west and
southwest, growth of the business of the
country in general, is the cause. Atlantic
ports are still doing business at the old
stand. But they have become crowded.
To expand their terminal facilities and
TO build to them new lines of railroad
would involve enormous expenditures. 1t
is cheaper to build to the gulf, and the
great railroad systems Of the West have
been putting out lines to that body OF
water, as the cotton plant sends its roots
to moist soil in a dry season. Upon the
surplus commerce Galveston is growing.
The Atlantic reservoir is full, Galveston
and her sister ports of the gulf have be-
come the spillway for the nations foreign
commerce.
Influence of the Big Ditch.
Some diversion will in all likelihood
come with the completion and utilization
of the Panama canal-nOt because the
gulf ports are so much nearer the At
lantic portal of the canal than are our
Atlantic ports, but because the gulf ports
will then be as faVOrably situated as are
those Of the Atlantic seaboard in respect
TO Oriental and other Pacific coast com
mercs. At the present time they are the
least favOrably situated of all American
ports in that regard, in consequence of
which Oriental business moves by rail to
Pacific and Atlantic ports even out of
Texas.
Finding Room in Coast Country.
Likewise the Texas coast country, the
great coastal plain, is being rapidly pop
ulated, developed and utilized, not through
a process of diversion, but because the
surplus of inhabitants from older sec
tons is here finding elbow room. No part
of our country is yet crowded as is Eu-
rope and Asia, but Americans have been
accustomed TO plenty OF breathing Spdce
and demand it.. The pioneer spirit yet
lives. Whenever q section of the country
becomes moderately thick in settlement
the nomadic impulse asserts itself. Thus,
the new sections get settlers, not so much
because of superior advantages in soil
and climate as because they have breath
ing space; and they do not get settlers
in considerable numbers until that space
is needed.
Transportation facilities, of course, have
much to do in determining the choice of
the homes ecker. Transccntinental rail-
roads, ocean to ocean lines, which were
stretched across the country in the eos
and '70s, afforded access to sufficient new
country to last for many years. In con-
sequence the triangle of Texas, which
lies below the sOuthernmost of these trans
continental lines, was practically neglected
until recent years. Rather curiously It
was early the subject Of colonial effort,
for in 1865 the Chevalier La Sale planted
the Inflated colony, St Louis, midway