The transformations through which the United States is passing in our
own day are so profound, so far-reaching, that it is hardly an
exaggeration to say that we are witnessing the birth of a new nation in
America. The revolution in the social and economic structure of this
country during the past two decades is comparable to what occurred when
independence was declared and the constitution was formed, or to the
changes wrought by the era which began half a century ago, the era of
Civil War and Reconstruction.
These changes have been long in preparation and are, in part, the result
of world-wide forces of reorganization incident to the age of steam
production and large-scale industry, and, in part, the result of the
closing of the period of the colonization of the West. They have been
prophesied, and the course of the movement partly described by students
of American development; but after all, it is with a shock that the
people of the United States are coming to realize that the fundamental
forces which have shaped their society up to the present are
disappearing. Twenty years ago, as I have before had occasion to point
out, the Superintendent of the Census declared that the frontier line, which its maps had depicted for decade after decade of the westward march of the nation, could no longer be described. To-day we must add that the age of free competition of individuals for the unpossessed resources of the nation is nearing its end. It is taking less than a generation to write the chapter which began with the disappearance of the line of the frontier—the last chapter in the history of the colonization of the United States, the conclusion to the annals of its pioneer democracy.
It is a wonderful chapter, this final rush of American energy upon the
remaining wilderness. Even the bare statistics become eloquent of a new
era. They no longer derive their significance from the exhibit of vast
proportions of the public domain transferred to agriculture, of
wildernesses equal to European nations changed decade after decade into
the farm area of the United States. It is true there was added to the
farms of the nation between 1870 and 1880 a territory equal to that of
France, and between 1880 and 1900 a territory equal to the European area
of France, Germany, England, and Wales combined. The records of 1910 are
not yet available, but whatever they reveal they will not be so full of
meaning as the figures which tell of upleaping wealth and organization
and concentration of industrial power in the East in the last decade. As
the final provinces of the Western empire have been subdued to the
purposes of civilization and have yielded their spoils, as the spheres
of operation of the great industrial corporations have extended, with
the extension of American settlement, production and wealth have
increased beyond all precedent.
The total deposits in all national banks have more than trebled in the
present decade; the money in circulation has doubled since 1890. The
flood of gold makes it difficult to gage the full meaning of the
incredible increase in values, for in the decade ending with 1909 over
41,600,000 ounces of gold were mined in the United States alone. Over
four million ounces have been produced every year since 1905, whereas
between 1880 and 1894 no year showed a production of two million ounces. As a result of this swelling stream of gold and instruments of credit, aided by a variety of other causes, prices have risen until their height has become one of the most marked features and influential factors in American life, producing social readjustments and contributing effectively to party revolutions.