I am anticipating a fact that belongs to a
later theme, but there is no single fact that can better illustrate the
political service of the paths over which we are to-day travelling.
On the economic consequences we need not now dwell. They have had too
frequent and sufficiently conspicuous illustration in every foreign mind
that knows anything whatever of that valley to make it necessary to insist
in this cursory view upon their great contribution to physical comfort. It
is, however, begun to be felt that in the rapid development and
exploitation of the resources of that valley (made possible only by the
railroads) the future has not been enough in our minds. It was said a few
years ago that there was not money enough in the world to lay track to
take the traffic that the Mississippi Basin offered. The valley wanted to
get everything to market in one generation, indifferent to the fate of
those who should come after-the passes through the mountains being choked
by cars carrying to the coasts crops from increasing acreage of declining
productivity or the products of swiftly disappearing forests or the output
of mines that must soon be exhausted.
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