assumed the administration of the public revenues and the payment of the creditors. Secretary Hay did not make much progress toward the creation of Pan-American cooperation. His successor, Secretary Root, however, interested himself in this matter, and Pan-American conferences have now become regular and of increasing importance.

oceanic

canal.

The acquisition of territory in the Pacific rendered the The inter necessity for an interoceanic canal more pressing. A fleet might be needed in either ocean; without a canal two fleets would be required. Secretary Hay preferred a canal constructed under international guarantee, but the demand for an American canal had grown to be insistent. In 1901 he negotiated a new treaty with Great Britain to take the place of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which would allow an American canal, provided that equal rates be charged the vessels of all nations. It had by this time become evident that the building of the canal was too great a task for a private corporation, and Congress finally decided to undertake it. In the meantime the question of location arose. A long contest between the advocates of the Panama and Nicaragua routes resulted in the Spooner Act of 1902, which authorized the President to arrange with the old French company, which had begun work but had abandoned it, and with Colombia for the Panama route, if he could do so "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms," but otherwise to accept the offer of Nicaragua. President Roosevelt bought out the French company for $40,000,000, but Colombia refused to ratify the Hay-Herran treaty which had been drawn up at Washington, and which accorded privileges to the United States. President Roosevelt withdrew our representative at Bogota, July 9, 1903, and prepared to insist on our rights to construct the canal under the treaty of 1846. On November 3, however, the province of Panama revolted from Colombia. It was promptly recognized as independent by the United States and it as promptly

The Far
East.

granted the United States all the latter required, including a ten-mile strip of territory from ocean to ocean, for which the United States was to pay ten million dollars in cash, and, after 1912, a quarter of a million a year. The international difficulties in the way of canal construction, therefore, were cleared away, and the work of sanitation in the canal zone and of actual construction was begun.

The Pacific and the Far East did not fall within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine. In that region the United States and the great world powers met on equal terms, and Secretary Hay not only assumed an equal interest with England, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan, in the "concert of powers," but also in some respects the leadership. In 1900 the United States coöperated with the other powers in dealing with the Boxer outbreak against foreigners in China. Secretary Hay also secured assent, at least professed, to the "open door" policy of allowing all nations equal commercial privileges in colonies, protectorates, zones of influence, and especially in China. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war he secured the restriction of hostilities to a specified area, and obtained guarantees of the territorial integrity and independence of China. The war was, moreover, brought to a close at the suggestion of President Roosevelt. During all this period, in spite of real difficulties due to our desire to restrict the immigration of Chinese and Japanese and the sensitiveness of their governments to discrimination, and difficulties less real arising from the fear of the "Yellow Peril," friendly relations were maintained with China and Japan. No one can doubt that the United States has acquired a permanent interest in eastern Asia and that American capital and enterprise will share in the awakening of that continent. By 1905, therefore, most of the difficult problems existing in 1898 had been solved, and new policies had been outlined to meet the questions arising from the Spanish War.

Our

Macdonald, Select Documents, nos. 109-129. Harrison, B., Sources. Views of an Ex-President, 185-272. Howe, A. H., Insular Cases (House Exec. Doc., 56 cong., 2 sess., no. 509). Thayer, J. B., New Possessions. Schurz, Carl, Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers, 6 vols. From 1860 to 1904 he delivered a speech or wrote a letter in each presidential campaign, summarizing the issues, and presenting one side very strongly.

accounts.

Latané, J. H., America as a World Power. Bancroft, Seward, Historical II, ch. XLII. Henderson, J. B., American Diplomatic Questions, 137-208. Benton, E. J., International Law and Diplomacy of the Spanish American War. Chadwick, F. E., Relations of the United States and Spain. Coolidge, A. C., The United States as a World Power. Fish, C. R., The Path of Empire, vol. 47 of Chronicles of America. Latané, J. H., Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Spanish America. McLaughlin, J. L., and Willis, H. P., Reciprocity. Reinsch, P. S., World Politics. Sargent, H. H., The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba. Taussig, Tariff History, 251409. Thayer, W. R., John Hay.

Elliott, C. B., The Philippines. Jones, C. L., Caribbean In- Dependenterests of the United States. Le Roy, J. A., The Americans in the cies. Philippines.

Growth of population in the North.

CHAPTER XXVIII

INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL CHANGES

THE practical elimination of the currency question from politics by the election of 1896, with the adoption of the gold standard in 1900, and the sudden expansion of United States interests beyond its borders, which have been the main topics of the last two chapters, prepared the way for a new epoch of development. They were, however, rather the symptoms than the causes of change. In order to understand thoroughly how they and other political conditions came about, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the United States was growing.

In 1870 the total population of the United States was about thirty-eight and a half million; in 1910 it was over ninety-one million, excluding that of the colonies. About twenty-four millions of this increase was in the states north of the Mason-Dixon line and the Ohio, and east of the Mississippi, with Iowa. In this region the increase amounted to about one hundred and ten per cent; the additional population was occupied for the most part in manufacturing, mining, transportation, and commerce, and lived in urban communities. Although agricultural productions doubled, the population of purely agricultural regions was generally stationary, and often declined. The rapid extension of the use of agricultural machinery after 1870 enabled the farmer to dispense with some labor. The manufacture of farm products, such as flour milling and meat packing, became concentrated in large cities. The growth of railroads and, after 1900, the use of automobiles tended to centralize farm trade at favorably located towns from thirty to fifty miles apart, stunting the

intermediate towns. The states in this group showing the greatest increase were: those devoted to general manufacturing, like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; states not fully developed in 1870, like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa; and New York and Illinois, containing the great cities of New York and Chicago.

The former slave states, excluding Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, gained about twelve million, or one hundred per cent. In certain districts, particularly in West Virginia and on the southern and eastern slopes of the mountains, iron mines and iron and cotton mills had come to employ tens of thousands, but the great bulk of the increased population was engaged in agriculture. The cotton crop increased about fourfold, and machinery was able to do little to lessen the labor of its production, while other crops had come to be raised much more extensively than before. While the average yield per acre increased, to a still greater extent the growth in production represented the occupation of the waste spaces, so abundant in the South during the plantation era.

Growth of population in the South.

of the population.

The remaining seventeen millions of increase, pouring Expansion into the outlying areas, expanded their population almost six hundred per cent. Their task was the familiar American one of extending the frontier and subduing the wilderness to civilization. They pressed agriculture to and beyond the western boundary of sufficient rainfall, about the hundredth meridian, recoiling in the nineties before a succession of dry years which caused much of the distress from which arose the Populist movement. Sheep ranches drove before them the cattle from the ranges between the hundredth meridian and the Rocky Mountains, and farms encroached upon the sheep ranches. In the mountains, miners and capitalists from the East met those from the Pacific coast, uniting the two frontiers. The Indians, not without fighting, were first confined within reservations, and later these reservations were contracted in size and subdivided. By 1910 the tribal