CHAPTER XVII.

THE NEW UNITY OF THE VALLEY.

The development of commerce on the Lakes and its movement through the Erie canal eastward emphasized the growing tendency of the country to divide on "Masons and Dixon's Line" into North and South. Industries, commerce and politics, social, civil and financial differences, tended to override and disregard some of the natural unities founded on geological and geographical bases. This tendency was resisted by the river system until the railroad system was developed, when the loosening of the bonds between the upper and lower basins of the Valley became the ruling feature. They were separated by temporary interests even more effectually than by political contests. The course of trade united all the free States and secured their success in the civil war It was a fortunate coincidence for the permanence of the Union.

With the close of the war all natural unities began to reassert themselves. The upper and lower parts of the Valley were sufficiently various in productions to prevent their being rivals in the markets of the East and of the world; they had mutual interests of exchange and of commerce that must grow larger with every year; they could assist each other's development effectually in many ways, and their greatest future welfare required that they should be as closely united by social, political and business ties as they were by unbroken slopes and levels, and by waterways.

The lake system and relations with the manufactures and commerce of the Northern Atlantic States were only two among the numerous connections of the great Valley. It was a question if the relations instituted by the Mexican Gulf

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would not soon become even more important than those with the North Atlantic.

This tendency to unity had been strong enough to produce the Louisiana purchase at the beginning of the century and it made the prosperity of the Valley in the early periods. The permanent relations began to regain their influence and a new unity was developed. The commerce of the rivers must still be comparatively unimportant for some decades; but the necessary preparations that were to bring out the full value of the river system and the gulf commerce commenced at once. In the early stage of their development the railroad and telegraph had been powerful agents of disunion; they now spread impartially over the whole surface and still more powerfully promoted the consolidation of every part of the Valley into a single business community whose great general interests were much more important than any sectional ones could be.

The first great movement was the extension of the railroad system to complete the settlement of the extreme West and Southwest, which soon became colossal. Settlement in Nebraska, Colorado and on the upper Missouri went on fast but was soon much inferior to that in Kansas, Texas and the Southwest, generally. Chicago became a market of importance to Texas, and its business with St. Louis was very large. The railroad and telegraph soon bound the northern and southern Valley more closely together than at any former period. They enlarged the field of Northern activity and opened to it various supplies and markets in the South and aided the South in its distress to recover from the destruction of its capital.

These movements were fairly underway when the financial crisis, that had long been hanging like a black cloud in the horizon, broke in storm and disaster over the country. The building of railroads beyond the paying point, the diversion of an immense capital from active business in their con

struction, the vast investments in manufactures and machinery, overthrew the equilibrium of business. The whole country suffered. As the civilized world had been doing the same thing the trouble was almost universal, and a prolonged period of depression, during which a readjustment of business and finance was to be made, commenced.

It was a period of great distress for it struck at the incomes. of millions of men, paralyzed most manufactures and greatly reduced the activities of trade and the earnings of capital. But the railroads and the telegraph proved of signal value in modifying the effects of the disaster. The population thrown out of labor were redistributed on a large scale; their vast activities continued, though at a reduction of gain, and never, in the history of the country, had a larger space of virgin land been turned into fruitful fields. The East, Europe and the 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 of the Valley itself must be fed and the Valley farmers were still prosperous, if they gained less than before on equal amounts raised.

During this time the shrinking of values was great, and the losses of the extreme East and the extreme West, that is, the parts of the country outside of the Valley, were immense. They were to be counted by hundreds of millions; but it is doubtful if the Valley did not gain. Least of all to suffer were the South and Southwest. They had time to build up and create resources for the future; what they produced was salable and stagnation elsewhere favored the flow of both capital and labor to them. But most of all did the agricultural interest--the great specialty of the Valley-show its superiority in solidity-its power to resist shocks-over manufacturing and commercial pursuits. Incomes might be smaller but the most that was required for a comfortable living was raised by the individual farmer; expenses not essential to comfort might be diminished, and, as a vast surplus must necessarily be in demand to feed others, there must always be a moderate income beyond his own needs. It was usually

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easy to preserve the ordinary relation of income to outgo and the more economical habits gradually acquired were equivalent, in the section itself, to a large increase of income.

Thus, while the crisis greatly diminished the capital and the income of other sections, it probably virtually increased both in the Valley. It was equivalent to a transfer of both from other parts to the Valley, for there was actual loss elsewhere and actual gain here. Besides, the positive wealth was increased by the extensive opening of new sources of income, and by the transfer of capital and labor to this field, where it could be most profitably employed. Thus did the Valley "Come to the Front!" It had a stable base founded on the most pressing and permanent necessities of mankind. Probably the financial crisis was a means of enriching it by many hundreds of millions of dollars.

By the new development it had acquired much greater independence. It united in itself agriculture and manufactures, and the yet undeveloped capacities of its commerce could be looked after. If it was not already so it could become a real world and country in itself, in a broader sense than the East or the West; this capacity gave it the character of a vast and stable nucleus to the whole country. It had, by far, the largest part of the solid unchangeable values; the natural, as opposed to the conventional, wealth of the country. It was the vast rock under which the rest of the country took refuge from the fury of the storm; it had the realizable assets from which were to come the reconstruction of national and business finance after their demoralization. With its resources they could not possibly become bankrupt.

The great development of the Valley after the war, and the closer and more profitable relations of all its parts, gave a new unity to the whole country. Sectional issues disappeared, or tended strongly to vanish. The most favorable feature of its influence on the Republic and on modern liberal progress had always been its tendency to consolidate the country by inter

est-a centralization of much greater permanence and value than that resting in government. It ever tended to liberalize and disperse political power while increasing the adhesive tendencies of the Federal units in an equal degree. This was, and will continue to be, the true centralization of the country. It has no great interests unfriendly to those of the East or West. Their development, each in its own line, is its prosperity and its own resources enter a hundred fold more largely into the prosperity of those sections than any other whatever. They would each become comparatively insignificant without the Valley, and the Valley would be unable to dispose of but a small portion of its vast products without them. It consolidates and centralizes the country under the most liberal natural laws, which are never oppressive or tyrannical. It can not have an interest in depriving the other sections of any degree of freedom or any source of wealth; and the continual demand of its people and business is for the largest freedom consistent with equity. True centralization means the widest and most perfect harmony of interests.

The new unity of the Valley has fairly commenced under the universal spread of railroads and telegraphs, and the resulting generalization of interests; it has, however, only begun; its great results are in the future. The wealth now locked up in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other States, is to become of great importance to the States of the northern basin. The exchanges are now great and profitable, but when they have increased a hundred fold-as they probably will have done by the close of the century-a much more complete reciprocity of interests will be established. It will be vastly increased by the commerce of the river and the Gulf coast with outside countries, for then the overflowing fruits of agriculture and manufactures in the center and the north will roll in a great flood down the Mississippi. The parts of the Valley will be welded together by community of interests and of friendly sympathies based on them.