“Yes,” returned Hugh; “nearly double that number. By the census finished last June, Chicago had, at that date, 7,345,906 souls living within its corporate limits.”
“Come, Hugh,” pettishly exclaimed Cobb, “that’s a little too strong. I remember that it was estimated, in 1887, that Chicago would have about 1,500,000 in 1890, and if that estimate was correct, this vast population given by you could never have been obtained through ordinary growth.”
“Nor was it, Junius. The growth was extraordinary,” lightly returned the other.
“Humph! So I should say. Why, it is equivalent to a gain of 53,000 persons every year since 1890. Such a rapid growth for so many years is an absurdity.”
“As you please; have it so. But let me enlighten you a little. In 1910 the population of Chicago was 1,800,000—a rapid but fair growth for a city possessing the surrounding country, energy, resources, and natural attractions of Chicago. But it was after the year 1916, and for the next ten years that Chicago, as well as many other towns and cities in the West, received the greatest addition to its population. After the great cataclysm of 1916 the vast numbers of people who were driven from their homes by the rising of the waters over the doomed area of the Ohio basin, sought temporary shelter in all the towns and cities surrounding the Central Sea. As time progressed and showed the future destruction that would be wrought as the waters rose, the people emigrated in great numbers. The movement was westward, only a small portion going East or to the South. The great cities of Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Kansas City received vast additions; but of them all, Chicago, being the nearest and largest, gained the most. From a million and three-quarters, in 1910, that city had over four million in 1930. The rest of her immense population has been gained through natural increase and immigration, being at the rate of about 50,000 per year, or less than one and-a-half per cent. increase.”
“And Chicago is now the metropolis of the United States,” mused Cobb. Then aloud: “Yes, it was to be. The condition and extent of this great republic were factors to cause a westward movement, not only of the center of population, but of the location, even, of the metropolis of the nation.”
“Now, Junius, go to bed and get a good sleep; we will rise early in the morning,” said Hugh, rising from his chair.
“All right; anything to keep me interested,” returned Cobb. “I must have excitement. I feel blue and down in the mouth the instant my interest flags.”
“O, pshaw, man! you ought not to feel that way. You’ll come around all right in time; you mark my words,” and Hugh sauntered off to his room.