IMPORTANCE OF RAILROADS 29 there were six different railroads crossing the country from east to west, and able to convey passengers from New York to San Francisco in less time than had been required a hundred years earlier to go from New York to Washington. To aid in the building of these roads the Federal Government made land grants aggregating millions of acres and pledged its credit for millions of dollars, nor was their construction accomplished without wholesale corruption and misappropriation of funds. It must be conceded, however, that in this ease, as in the case of the state-aided railroads, the ultimate benefit to the material development of the country far exceeded the loss to the public purse. Already, by 1861, the railway mileage of the United States Importance was equal to that attained in 1900 by any single European of Railstate. In 1910 the total mileage for the United States was roads. 240,000, as compared with 400,000 miles for the rest of the world, of which 207,000 were in Europe. The increase in the business of the railroads in recent years has been even more remarkable than the increase in their mileage. Thus the number of" passenger miles "* reported by all of the roads of the country increased in round numbers from 11,800,000,000 in 1890 to 32,300,000,000 in 1910, or 173 per cent, and the number of " ton miles "* reported from 77,200,000,000 in 1890 to 255,000,000,000 in 1910, or 230 per cent. When it is considered that it is good average hauling over a country road, for a man and a team to move one ton twenty miles in a day, some conception may be formed from these figures of the importance of the service which the railroads of the country render. In 1910 they carried as much freight as could have been moved on this basis by 34,931,507 teams working every day in the year. To accomplish the work in this way would have required more teamsters than the entire male population of the country over sixteen years of age. No single fact so well illustrates the rapid industrial expansion of the United These are the units usually employed to compare the businesses of different transportation systems. "Passenger miles" mean the number of passengers carried one mile; “ton miles," the number of tons carried one mile. They are determined by adding together all the miles traveled by all of the passengers and all the miles covered by all of the tons of freight. Growth of States as this remarkable development of its transportation facilities. § 17. The following table shows the growth of the popula Population. tion of the United States by decades from 1790 to 1910: The Foreign Born. These figures do not include the populations of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The additions to be made under these heads for 1910 made the population of the whole country over 100,000,000. In comparison with the rates at which the populations of other countries have grown during the period covered, the growth of the United States has been astonishing. In fact, history furnishes no parallel on an equal scale to the increase from 1790 to 1860, when the total population doubled three times. The marked falling off in the percentage of increase since 1860 is indirect proof that the chief incentive to the rapid growth of the preceding years was the abundance of fertile and practically free land which was open to settlement. It is also reassuring to those who feared lest the country should be burdened with a superabundant population. From the beginning of its history the United States has and Native each year attracted large accessions to its population from abroad. From 1820, when statistics of immigration first began to be kept, to 1910, nearly 28,000,000 immigrants came to the country. The largest number in a single year previous to 1903 was 789,000 in 1882. The number continued large, averaging about 500,000 each year, until 1894, when it was DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION 31 reduced by the industrial depression. The lowest number in recent years was reached in 1898, when only 229,000 immigrants were reported. By 1902 the number had increased again to 649,000, and in 1907 it was 1,285,000. Declining in 1908 and 1909 on account of business depression, it was again in excess of 1,000,000 in 1910. No statistics of births and deaths for the country as a whole are collected, so it is impossible to compare directly the "natural increase," that is, the annual excess of births over deaths within the country, with the increase due to immigration. Some notion of the relative importance of these two sources of population is afforded, however, by the census comparisons of the native and foreign born. The enumeration for 1910 showed that of the total white population, 68,400,000, or 84 per cent, were native born, and 13,300,000, or 16 per cent, foreign born. During the decade from 1900 to 1910 the native born increased 21 per cent, while the foreign born increased 31 per cent. The census distinguishes also the native born white of foreign and mixed parentage. They aggregated in 1910 18,900,000, or 23 per cent of the white population. The native born of foreign and mixed parentage and the foreign born taken together constituted in 1910 over one-third of the total population of the country. Another element in the population which is of great sig- Negroes. nificance is the Negro. In 1910 9,800,000 persons, or 10.7 per cent of the people in the country, were Negroes. This element increased from 1900 to 1910 11 per cent, while the white population increased 22 per cent. Should the white population of the country continue to increase twice as rapidly as the colored population, the " race problem" will gradually diminish in relative importance. § 18. When the first census was taken in 1790, only 5 per Distribucent of the population was found west of the Appalachian tion of the Mountains. In 1900 nearly 60 per cent was so located. The Population. progress of this westward expansion is indicated by the following statistics: From 1800 to 1850 the population of the North Atlantic States increased by 225 per cent, and that of the South Atlantic States by 105 per cent. In the same period the population of the North Central States increased from Race Prob lem in South. The Foreign Born. only 51,000 to 5,400,000, and that of the South Central from only 335,000 to 4,300,000. In the later years of this period the settlement of the Far West was just beginning through the migration of gold seekers to California. From 1850 to 1900 the population of these sections increased as follows: North Atlantic States, 144 per cent; South Atlantic States, 123 per cent; North Central States, 387 per cent; South Central States, 227 per cent; Western States, from only 179,000 to 4,100,000. As shown by the accompanying map, the most striking facts about the growth of population from 1900 to 1910 were the continued rapid expansion of the far western states and the very slow growth of the agricultural states of New England and the Mississippi Valley. Washington, Oklahoma and Idaho more than doubled their populations in the decade. At the other extreme, New Hampshire and Vermont showed increases of less than 5 per cent; Missouri, an increase of only 6 per cent, and Iowa an actual loss of threetenths of one per cent. The great task of giving to the Misssissippi Valley its quota of the population of the country, thus appears to be accomplished. At its present rate of expansion, the Far West will soon have its quota also, and the westward movement that has characterized our national development from early colonial days will cease. § 19. The distribution of the Negro and foreign-born elements in the United States has given rise to special problems for the sections most affected. Only about one-eighth of the Negro population has withdrawn from the states where slavery flourished before the Civil War. In 1910, in two of these states-Mississippi and South Carolina-the Negroes outnumbered the whites. In four more of them-Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida-Negroes constituted over 40 per cent of the population. In all of them the race problem overshadows all others. The immigrants who come to the United States settle for the most part in the North and West. In 1910 over 85 per cent of the total number of foreign-born whites were living in the North Atlantic and North Central States, and nearly 10 per cent in the Western States. The states in which the foreign born constituted over one-fourth of the population in 1910 |