The New Nation

by Frederic L. Paxson

Kansas City rose suddenly to prominence as the meeting-place of the railways of the West and Southwest with those of the East. Near to the line that divided steady agriculture from the nomadic life of the plains it became a convenient market for both. Here the packers developed the traffic in fresh beef that the new railways with their refrigerator cars made possible. The cities of the East, in need of more fresh meat than the local farmers could provide, found their supply on the plains of the Far West.

Beyond the plains, the mountain regions changed less from the advent of the railways than any other section of the remote West. They had attracted population to their camps during the Civil War, and now they grew in size and permanence. But only such regions reached permanent importance as had valleys to be irrigated and fields to be cultivated. Without agriculture no important region has flourished in the West.

Toward the end of the eighties the pressure of the population for more homestead lands brought about the opening of Oklahoma. Here, for over half a century, the Indian tribes had lived in full possession. After the Civil War the plains tribes had been colonized here too. Now, as the lands were awarded to the Indians in severalty under the Dawes Act, the old tribal holdings were surrendered and large areas were offered to white settlement. After ten years of ejectment and restraint the Oklahoma boomers were let into the country in 1889. Guthrie and Oklahoma City were created overnight, and in 1890 the Territory of Oklahoma received permanent organization.

Before the last continental railway was finished, the Territories were asking for statehood and were showing advance in population to justify it. When Villard aided in the corner-stone laying at Bismarck in 1883 there were already three clearly defined groups of population in Dakota and an ultimate division had been determined upon by the settlers. Repeatedly, in the decade, the Dakota colonists framed constitutions and signed petitions, and the Republicans in Congress sought to give them statehood. The Democratic House, which prevailed from 1883 to 1889, saw no reason for creating more Republican States, as these would likely be, and found pretexts for holding up the bills. Montana, less advanced than Dakota, and Idaho and Wyoming which were yet more primitive, joined the forces of the statehood advocates. Arizona and New Mexico did the same, and Utah had been a suitor since 1850. Washington, with a growing population on Puget Sound and in the Spokane country, was obviously not long to be denied.

For party purposes, the Democrats resisted the demands for statehood until the election of 1888 insured Republican control through every branch of the United States Government. Thereafter there was no point to resistance, and Cleveland, in 1889, signed an "omnibus" bill under which North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington were admitted. Idaho and Wyoming, defeated at this time, were let in by the Republicans in 1890. The unorganized frontier was now all but gone, and the pioneers of these new States used Pullman cars and read the monthly magazines like any other citizens.

Arizona and New Mexico were excluded from the new States of 1889 and 1890 because a Republican Congress expected them to be Democratic, and both remained Territories for more than twenty succeeding years. Utah, with ample population, was kept where the Federal Government could control it because of the practices taught by its Church. The Mormons had made a prosperous Territory in Utah by 1850. They had flourished ever since, but their institution of polygamy frightened the United States and created permanent hostility to their admission. In 1882 the Territory was placed under a commission, and thereafter polygamous citizens were brought to punishment. In 1890 the Church gave up the fight and formally abandoned the obnoxious doctrine, but the surrender came too late to accomplish admission at this time.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, 1789-1904
The large rectangle represents the total land area of the United States, excluding Alaska and the Islands

By 1890 the good agricultural lands of the United States were nearly all in private hands. Their occupation had been hastened in the last five years by facility of access and the efforts of the railways. With the disappearance of free lands a new period in America began, as was recognized at the time, and has become clearer ever since.