always in danger of an Indian attack. All the iron had to be brought from the East, at heavy expense, and, while the road was being built through the Platte valley, all the lumber as well.

By 1866 construction was well started, and in the last year of the work the gangs were laying track sometimes at the rate of seven or eight miles a day. The movable construction camps, which followed the line, reproduced all the wildness and lawlessness of the mining towns, with perhaps a few variations of their own. The principal one of these camps, known to the builders as "Hell on Wheels," had twenty-three saloons and five dance halls; as for the population, Bowles of the Springfield Republican, declared that "Hell would appear to have been raked to furnish them."

As the two lines, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, came near to each other, Congress named Promontory Point, near Ogden, Utah, as the meeting place. On May 10, 1869, the last spike was driven, and the road was done, thus completing the biggest engineering project ever undertaken in the United States up to that time. In 1864 another transcontinental line, the Northern Pacific, was started, and after some difficulties in connection with the Panic of 1873, it was finally completed in 1883. In 1882 the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy reached Denver, and later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, and also the Southern Pacific, furnished additional lines for through service.

AGRICULTURE IN THE SOUTH

While the West was rapidly growing out of frontier conditions, the South was recovering from the destruction of the war and the misfortunes of reconstruction, and in doing so the section built up a prosperous industrial life of its own. In the reconstruction of agriculture there was a noticeable tendency to break up the large plantations into small farms, some of which were run by their owners, more by tenants. In bringing these farms under cultivation, farmers in all parts of the South resorted to a practice known as the crop mortgage system. The farmer would borrow money, usually from the local country merchant, to secure tools and fertilizer, and perhaps to pay for a little extra labor. As security for the loan he would give a mortgage on the crop. During the season the merchant would advance what supplies might be needed, and at the end of the season they would strike a balance. In many cases the merchant took no

even more.

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interest, but he charged higher prices for goods advanced on credit, so that the farmer really paid enough to amount to forty per cent, or In some sections nine tenths of the farmers were tied up in this system. If the crop raised brought in less than the amount of the loan, the balance would be carried on the merchant's books until the next year. If the debtor farmer tried to open an account elsewhere, in order to mortgage his next crop, he would find that impossible, because no other merchant would lend to him until he could show a clear record. The system still persists in parts of the South. During the last war, when the price of cotton rose to unprecedented heights, the farmers might have escaped, but instead of clearing up their indebtedness and getting a fresh start they preferred to buy automobiles. So it happened that the period of deflation found them as badly off as ever.

In the beginning the crop mortgage arrangement was good, or at least better than nothing, because it made farming possible. As it continues, year after year, it has become a heavy burden, almost a drag on the section. Moreover, it has tended to bring about a too complete specialization. The mortgagor naturally wants a dependable crop for security, something for which there will be a good market, something which cannot be secretly sold, or concealed by the farmer. The two favorite crops have been cotton and tobacco. In many cases where a farmer could do better on some other crop, he continues to raise cotton year after year, because he can mortgage that more easily than anything else.

INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH

In manufacturing, southern progress has been more clearly visible than that in agriculture. The discovery of coal and iron in large quantities in Alabama and elsewhere has made possible the development of a flourishing steel industry, with Birmingham, "the Pittsburgh of the South," as the center.

In addition the business of tobacco manufacturing has grown steadily in importance. Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina all have great tobacco factories. Thanks to the persistence of modern advertising, Durham and Winston-Salem are the best known places in the South, or if they are not their products are. Bull Durham, Prince Albert, and Camels might almost be called the symbols of national greatness.

The greatest southern industry is cotton manufacturing. Even before the Civil War there were traces of progress in this direction, but in 1860 there were few mills in all the southern states, and these were small. As compared with the output of the New England mills their product was negligible. After 1870 the South began to build cotton factories, and at the present time there are more in that section than in the North. The southern mills now consume more raw cotton, and there are more spindles actually working there than in the North. In fact, at the present time the great cotton manufacturing syndicates are not only buying up plants in the South but are building new ones, and transferring business from New England to the new centers. In years past the southern mills specialized on the coarser grades of yarn and fabric, but some of their mills have turned out finer grades of the very highest quality.

For a number of years the southern mills enjoyed certain distinct advantages over their northern competitors. They were much nearer the source of their raw material for one thing, and with the discovery of coal at various points in the South they were sure of relatively cheap fuel. Then the land for buildings, both for the manufacturing plants and for tenements, was cheaper than elsewhere. On the whole taxes were lower, and wages were decidedly lower. In the South of the '80's, as in New England of the early '20's, the cotton mills opened up to the farmers an entirely new source of income. Farmers' sons and especially farmers' daughters found a chance to earn money, and the wages were higher than any they had known before. In North Carolina especially, where the mountain white people were drawn upon, there was an abundant supply of cheap labor. Under these conditions there were few if any labor troubles. The employees were too well satisfied with their wages to think of causing trouble, and professional agitators or organizers from the North were kept out. Even to-day industrial troubles in Southern cotton mills, as compared with the New England centers at Lawrence, Fall River, and New Bedford, have been almost nonexistent.

Another important southern industry is that which utilizes the by-products of cotton, the seed in particular. Formerly thrown away, the cotton-seed is now made to produce oil for salads, oil for cooking, and oil for soap, while cotton-seed meal is used as cattle feed, and what is left, for fertilizer.

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As a result of the industrial development in the South the section is not set off so sharply from the rest of the country as it was before the Civil War. Or, to put it another way, the forces working toward nationalism and centralization have penetrated the South almost as completely as they have the other sections. Back in the thirties of the nineteenth century industrialism drove the old-fashioned states' rights theories out of New England; the same force, plus the overwhelming power of the central government, has now driven them out of the South. By 1890, with the practical completion of the processes of filling up the West, and of bringing the South into harmony with the course of national development, the work of nation building was nearly complete.

CHAPTER L

TRANSPORTATION, 1865-1890

While the West and the South were concerned with their problems of growth and development, the industrial structure of the East was undergoing changes so far-reaching as to justify the use of the term "economic revolution." This revolution was taking place in transportation, in business, and in labor, with the result that by 1890, a new nation had clearly come into being, a nation of "big business." The rise of this new nation was made possible primarily by the railroads. Without them the different parts of the country might have been held together, although that is not at all certain, but the Union as we knew it could not have been created. The great business structure especially would have been an utter impossibility without railroads, or some equally fast and dependable means of transportation. The "trusts" could not have grown up without a nation-wide market. Without cheap and fast transportation the range of commercial interests would have remained as they were at the close of the eighteenth century.

For thirty years before the Civil War the country had been experimenting with railroad transportation and before 1860 connections, but not through service, had been established between tidewater and the Mississippi Valley. The various lines were short, owned by a variety of companies, and not at all well articulated. The defects in this disjointed arrangement were clearly emphasized by the needs of war. Through service became a military necessity, to facilitate troop movements. After the war the desirability of through service for commercial purposes was too plain to be disregarded.

IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION

Between 1865 and 1875 the trunk lines were developed. Separate lines were linked together, and through service was established. By 1875 there were five of these trunk lines between the Atlantic Coast and the Middle West: the New York Central, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Grand Trunk,-a Canadian line-and the