HE greatest opportunity makers are the railroads. Without them the achievement of new territory is practically impossible. Without new territory the expansion of the race and its enterprises is checked almost to stagnation. Possibly it is the demand that created the supply of railroads in this country. Population was confined to the eastern seaboard. Vast empires of opportunity stretched unimproved westward to the Pacific, southward to the Isthmus and northward to the Arctic Circle. More than two hundred years these areas remained unimproved after the arrival upon the shores of this continent of the pioneers who came for the earliest settlements. During that two hundred years the billions of undeveloped wealth which have since made the United States the richest country in the history of the world remained untouched. During that two hundred years there were eager, ambitious, heroic men ready to pioneer wherever new wealth might await them. During that two hundred years history matured slowly on this western continent. Through the Indian War, the War for Independence, the War of 1812, the early settlers struggled along close to the Atlantic Ocean, not dreaming that in another hundred years this continent would have made more progress in the development of wealth and civilization than any other nation has ever made in a thousand years. Organized Enterprises Due to the Railroads We do not read that any of these early pioneers broadened mentally beyond the vision of the individual. Their thoughts were the farm, the store, the bank, not as part of the great agricultural or mercantile or financial system, but as isolated units. The interdependence of all the avocations of mankind and of all different sections had hardly reached the formative stage of the theory. No man could see beyond the sphere of his personal effort. Of course, war brought the organization of armies, but that was only a temporary condition to meet the passing emergency. Organization on a staple basis, promoting, protecting and prospering the people as a whole only came into existence after the invention of the steam locomotive. By R. L. BERNIER In the hundred years that have passed since Spending Fifteen Billions to Create Over a Hundred These 250,000 miles of railroad track with their equipment have cost in the neighborhood of $15,000,000,000, or five times as much money as there is in circulation in the United States and Canada combined. That seems large at first glance, but it is small compared to the wealth that has been created because of these railroads. That wealth amounts to the staggering total of nearly $130,000,000,000, and it is growing at the rate of $10,000,000 per day. The latter figure is based upon the authenticated statistics which show that the annual increase of wealth in this country is $3,000,000,000. The railroad discussions which have filled the public print in the last few years have diverted the public mind from these great basic facts; in fact, the average citizen does not realize the primary mathematics with which he should be familiar in order to discuss either railroads or trusts or any branch of development. It is for that reason that the average citizen does not understand that the most vital consideration in developing this continent is the extensions of the railroad system. It Will Take More Railroads for this Territory Take a map, trace out the trunk linesthose railroad systems which travel long distances come under the railroad term trunk lines in counterdistinction to local lines. Take western trunk lines, for instanceSanta Fe, Rock Island, Union Pacific, Burlington, Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern and NUMBER ONE the soon-to-be Grand Trunk Pacific. Only a few names these, but they are about all the railroads there are which reach out across that enormous territory in the United States and Canada where agriculture, horticulture, mining, city building and all the wealthproducing activities of mankind are coming into existence to support a population that may in the course of the next hundred years exceed 100,000,000 people. It is only fifteen miles that a wagon can profitably haul the production of the soil to the railroad. Add fifteen miles to either side of any of these trunk lines and you have the actual area they now serve and you will see that James J. Hill was right when he said: "It will take one million miles of railroad to serve the needs of this continent." That is 750,000 miles additional to what we have, and absolutely indispensable when figured out with the crudest mathematics. Wherever land is, unless it be upon the mountain top or too near the Arctic Circle, there man can exist in a large degree of comfort and prosperity, not owing to the potentiality of the land or the climate, but because the railroad will bring him all he needs for his existence, carrying into market all that he can produce that is salable, and the great modern systems of land utilization, particularly irrigation, will enable him to secure from the earth natural wealth for his own support and increment. Irrigation and Banking Will Receive Special Treatment In another article in this issue the subject of irrigation is discussed. It will be dwelt upon still more extensively in the special irrigation number. Another special edition will be devoted to banking, which is one of the great primary systems by which prosperity is distributed over the land. It is not physically as essential as the railroad. Without the railroad the settler could not find a market for his crops and consequently could not make a living beyond the limited areas where people existed in sufficient numbers to afford him a local market. However, be his opportunity wherever it is and whatever it is, the bank becomes indispensable. Just as the railroad brings him his supplies and carries his crops to market, so the bank brings him his financial life blood. It is the great circulating system by which the money and the credit of the continent pass through the en tories that were started there last year, the thousand more that will be started this year, the opportunities they furnish for capital, for labor, for finding a home in a mild climate and finding means with which to support it-this will be a most interesting story of opportunity-creating a new land, but one that is comparatively old. You will smell the sweet magnolia and hear the negro melodies and catch a glimpse of the old chiva lry of the South and the new industrialism in that story, and you will see what a marvelous thing it is when organized effort is a pplied to solving the great problem of prosperity in a land where it seemed for a short time as if prosperity were dead. Then where the cactus was the most conspicuous product of the soil-that semi-arid Southwestern country-will be made the text of a story which will show what railroads that serve the Southwest have done to open up a country where there are big attractions of climate and soil now that the government has added irrigation necessary in some parts, but not everywhere. Railroads and Publicity Spell S. W. & N. W. Success In fact, the recent settlement movement which has taken place in the Southwest is not so much the result of irrigation as it is railroad development and good advertising. California and Canada had previously been almost the only sections of the West which were well advertised-California through the gold discoveries of half a century ago and by its minerals and climate; Canada by combination of the government and railroads in a gigantic publicity plan which brought the This movement to the Southwest for the past year brought several millions of people to cultivate opportunities which are adequate for many millions more, opportunities for all kinds of agriculture and fruit-raising schemes, which require specific treatment and which will receive it through the plan which we have developed for publishing in each one of these special editions material gathered through divers channels and most carefully formulated for publication with carefully formulated for publication with suitable illustrations. The Railroad Development of the Rocky Mountains, Etc. The railroad development through the Middle West is also taking on a new and very important aspect. With Denver as a center, various roads extending out through that country northward, southward, westward, finding new valleys of the Rocky Mountains with prolific opportunities for rais ing millions, sugar beets, alfalfa, etc., so that this year the production of the soil of Colorado far exceeded the value of its mineral production for the same period. In Arizona and Nevada great railroad enterprises attach areas where several million of people will some day dwell in the prosperity which comes from being able to reach new lands and through irrigation. Then in the Northwest are gigantic railroad enterprises which are sending new lines from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean and branches of other lines which are opening up millions of acres to settlement. When it is stated that 21,000 towns, each exceeding 1,000 in population, are being located in the new sections of the United States, some idea of the business and industrial opportunities which are afforded by these new railroad enterprises can be understood. In Canada its one great transcontinental railroad is being supplemented by two other great enterprises which are opening up vast new territory throughout the whole western section of the Dominion. These will be fully treated by the Canadian Department of Opportunities of To-Day. Wonderfully interesting information will be given to the public as to all the areas which are now coming into line for the opportunity seeker. The Material Has Been Most Carefully Compiled In securing the material for this great railroad edition Opportunities of To-Day has been valuably assisted by heads of the great railroad systems which serve the opportunity sections of the continent. Realizing the importance of the work Opportunities of To-Day undertakes to do, the presence of railroads who have never before lent themselves to publicity have consented to be quoted in response to questions asked in order to bring out the fascinating story each of these great roads has to tell. This is supplemented by special information from the departments which deal with colonization and industry and these in turn are supplemented by special reports from the sections where newest opportunities exist. These reports are furnished by our special agents, by state and provincial authorities. |