steel, cotton, coal, copper, gold, silver, dairy products, corn, wheat, lead, lumber, tobacco, petroleum, and hogs. It would be strange, indeed, with the vast mineral and agricultural resources at our command, if we did not "lead the world" in many things. Public Lands. Of our 2,973,000 square miles of territory about three fourths at one time or another has belonged to the central government. The possession of this vast common treasure by the United States has played an important part in dignifying and strengthening the federal government. But the lavish alienation of the public lands in endowing free schools, subsidizing railways and other internal-improvement companies, and in providing free homes for the landless, has been an even more potent factor in hastening our economic development; though it has led, as has been said with some justification, "to the ravishment rather than the development of our natural resources.” Even more important is the influence which "free land" has exerted upon the wages of labor and the distribution of wealth in this country. While it was not until the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862 that land could be legally acquired without cost by simple occupation and cultivation, it is practically true to say that from the seventeenth century until a few years ago any enterprising citizen could, by the exercise of a minimum amount of industry and frugality, secure a homestead large enough to support himself and family. This opportunity offered to the artisan a free choice between wage service and farming, constantly depleted the ranks of mere laborers, operated to keep wages as high as the earnings of a "no-rent " homestead, and kept fresh and vigorous that feeling of independence which has been the distinguishing mark of the American workingman. Up to June 30, 1909, according to President Van Hise, the United States had sold or disposed of to corporations and individuals 571,600,000 acres; it had granted to the states for various purposes 153,500,000 acres; 324,500,000 acres had been reserved for parks, forests, and other public purposes; while there were 363,300,000 acres still unreserved and unappropriated, not counting 378,000,000 acres in Alaska, of which all but about 10,000,000 acres were unappropriated and unreserved. The lands which were sold brought less than it cost to acquire, survey, and carry them. At the date mentioned 127,000,000 acres had been given away under the Homestead and Timber Culture Acts supposedly to actual settlers and 142,000,000 had been given to corporations to stimulate the building of railroads and other internal improvements.1 How long the public lands will hold out it is impossible to say. Notwithstanding the fact that the national government is disposing of its lands at the rate of from fifteen to twenty million acres a year, there is still left if we count Alaska --almost as much territory as we have alienated since the adoption of the Constitution. Most of this is worthless or unavailable; but irrigation and dry farming are reclaiming certain districts. In the East, especially, we have almost certainly entered upon a new era, and it must be remembered that fifteen sixteenths of the population reside in the eastern half of the United States. East of the Mississippi trade and manufactures taken together have outstripped agriculture, and a large majority of the people lack the inclination and necessary training, even if they possessed the courage and energy, to avail themselves of possibly cheaper lands elsewhere. Whatever the quality of this cheap land, its importance has diminished as an outlet for the population upon whose economic condition it formerly exerted so salutary an influence. Considering the population as a whole, the conclusion seems irresistible that we have reached, if indeed we have not already passed, the parting of the ways; and the assistance that free land has rendered in maintaining wages and restraining the evil tendencies of the modern system of capitalistic production must in the future be secured from other sources. The distinctive Americanism of the past was generated, as has been said, in the performance of our national task "of winning a continent from nature and subduing it to the uses of man "; 2 it was a product of the frontier. But the frontier has now disappeared. 1 Charles R. Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States p. 294. 2 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, p. 1. QUESTIONS 1. What peculiar characteristics mark the economic stages of the United States? 2. Is the pastoral stage through which the people of our Great Plains have passed essentially different from the pastoral stage through which the people of Israel passed? 3. Enumerate the great sectional struggles which have disturbed the United States. Why does radicalism accompany the frontier? 4. Has the frontier and the work of settlement left a permanent impress upon the American people? Of what kind? 5. How rapidly is the population increasing at the present time? Are the richer or poorer classes multiplying more rapidly? Can you state the reason? 6. What are the distinctively economic factors of the negro problem? 7. When did the immigration problem first alarm residents of this country? What charges are directed against the "newer immigrants"? 8. Have we shown an ability to assimilate all kinds of immigrants? What has been the historical policy of this country toward immigration? 9. What part did the public domain play in bringing about and preserving the Union? in maintaining wages? 10. How does the growing size of the country modify the influence exerted by free land? REFERENCES BOGART, E. L. Economic History of the United States. Contains bibliography. BRUCE, P. A. Economic History of Virginia (2 volumes). Bureau of the Census. A Century of Population Growth. CALLENDER, G. S. Selections from the Economic History of the United States. COMAN, KATHARINE. Industrial History of the United States. Contains bibliography. Economic Beginnings of the Far West (2 volumes). COMMONS, J. R. Races and Immigrants in America. EMERY, H. C. "Economic Development of the United States," in The Cambridge Modern History, Vol. vii, Chap. xxiii. FAIRCHILD, H. P. Immigration. HART, A. B. (ed.) The American Nation (37 volumes). Contains chapters on economic history. HOURWICH, I. A. Immigration and Labor. JENKS, J. W., and LAUCK, W. J. The Immigration Problem. MCMASTER, J. B. A History of the People of the United States (8 volumes). Ross, E. A. The Old World in the New. SEMPLE, E. C. American History and its Geographical Conditions. SIMONS, A. M. Social Forces in American History. TURNER, F. J. "The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in Bullock. C. J., Selected Readings in Economics. First edition in Report of the American Historical Association, 1893. United States Immigration Commission. Reports (39 volumes, including useful Abstracts of Reports, in 2 volumes). VAN HISE. C. R. Lands. The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States. CHAPTER VI THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES (Continued) IN the preceding chapter attention was confined to certain fundamental and peculiarly American conditions which have influenced the economic development of this country. They form the background and setting of the picture. When we come to fill in the details, however, the general effect is very similar to that produced by the description of English industrial development given in Chapter IV. There are differences, of course, differences important enough to make this separate discussion of American economic evolution necessary. But, on the whole, it is surprising how rapidly we have developed the industrial maladies and economic problems of the Old World. Mercantilism in America. In the American colonies, as in England itself, the Industrial Revolution was preceded by a period in which trade and industry were subject to minute regulation by the government. Bounties were freely offered in several colonies for the manufacture of leather, iron, paper, silk, and cloth; land grants were made and taxes remitted, particularly in the support of the iron industry; and in order to encourage the home manufacture of shoes, for instance, the General Court of Massachusetts in 1640 commanded that every hide "be sent to a tannery under penalty of a £12 fine," while "leather searchers" were appointed to see that the law was obeyed. This early colonial regulation was restrictive as well as protective. In the New England colonies, in the seventeenth century, laws were repeatedly passed prohibiting idleness, fixing the hours |