The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1910-07-15
GREATEST MANUFACTURING
DISTRICT IN THE WORLD

Hdl-Wd. dCIOSS Lake MlCIlSdu HSdIly
due east of the Wisconsin-Illinois line,
and describe a half circle to the left
from Milwaukee to South Bend. 1t
looks like a small bit of territory, but
that strip of land as it curves around
the end of Lake Michigan, some 25
miles wide and 200 miles long, is
destined to become the manufacturing
center of the world. This assertion
Is not imaginative, but is based on
solid facts and figures, and it's truth
fu'ness is rapidly forcing itself on the
minds of the countrys leaders in in
dustry and finance. Conditions there
to-day more than foreshadow the flu
ture. Look again at the map and
note the cities that are included in
your semi-circle Milwaukee, Racine,
Kenosha, Elgin, Aurora, Chicago,
South Chicago, Pullman, Kensington,
Chicago Heights, Sheffield, Whiting,
Hammond, East Chicago, Gary, La
Porte, Michigan City, South Bend and
a score of lesser note. In every one
great manufacturing establishments
are roaring day and night, all the
year round, turning out products for
the world The smoke from the myr-
lad chimneys lies like pail over the
land by day, and by night the glare
of their furnaces lights up the sky
like a chain of CONGREGATIONS. Hun
dreds of thousands of railway trains
and thousands of vessels pour into
these cities an endless stream of raw
material-iron, steel, lumber, grain,
coal-and depart again laden with
manufactures that are sold in nearly
every land on the globe.
So it is to-day. What will 1t be to-
morrow, when the deep waterway
from the Great Lakes to the Gulf is
opened up, as it must be, and the
Panama canal is completed? The &C
complishment of those mighty enter
prises means that the entire South
American continent will be reached
from this manufacturing district at
the foot of Lake Michigan more di-
rectly and economically than from
any other in the world And the
manufacturers there are alive to the
opportunity and prepared to accept
It, The wonderful farming lands of
western Canada are only beginning to
be known. but already thousands of
alert progressive American farmers
are there, and they are calling for
American-made farm machinery Mex
leo is demanding our manufactures
more and more insistently each year.
American threshers, harvesters,
plows, buegies, wagons, windmills and
mining machinery are used in every
civilized country, on earth. And our
own broad land, rich and prosperous,
steadily demands almost as much as
the manufacturers have been able to
supply.
That is the market of the present
and near future. The laws of trade
are that it must be supplied by a
district so located that the raw ma
terial can be brought in and the fin
lsned product sent out most expedi-
tiously and most cheaply; a district
with ample transportation facilities
BY land and water; a district with
plentiful supply of skilled labor and
a climate in which the laborer can
work to best advantage; district
with capitalists of brains and energy,
who are not afraid to spend money
In order to accomplish results. In a
word such a district as is found
around the southern and southwest
ern shore of Lake Michigan-and
found nowhere else on earth. Wise
Americans of affairs are well aware