Speech #430064458

If you will look over the statistics for the past thirty years you will see. yon -will find. that during the first ten of the past thirty years the production of the Mississippi Valley States more than doubled in that decade . that it doubled in thenext decade up to 1860. until an annual product was reachedof six bulndred million bushels of cereals. and that in the decade frbm 1860 to 1870 it nearly doubled again. amonnting to a thousand million bushels. Those who have been observant of the increase in population of these great cerealproducing States for the past thirty years have become satisfied. judging by the past and taking into consideration that the population during thc decade from 1860 to 1870 increased 60 per cent.. tiit the cerealproducing States of the West must have better ficilities for water transportation or be left at the entire mercy of monopolies. receiving no remuneration for their industries. that this great. broad expanse of country. extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. a basin of over a thousand miles in width. and fron the Gulf of Mexico to the Falls of Saint Anthony. more than two thousand miles in lengththat this country which I have been describing is to be the hope of the people of the entire world who want happy and prosperous homes. You might as well undertake to chain the lightniugs of the heavens or arrest the current of falling thunderbolts as to arrest the current of emigration to the westward. and before the half of our second centennial shall have passed sixty ulillion people will live in this great valley and west of it. I say. judging from the past. observing the increasing productions for thepastthirty years. taking into consideration that only 17 per cent. of the lands of these States are now cultivated. if there is now such a demand for additional facilities for transportation in this country. there is a necessity that we should not only provide for the present. but that it is imperativethatwe should provide for the very near future. No new railroad trunk lines running from the West to the East are now being constructed.