Progress in America

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 1, 1874

Progress in America.

GLANCE for a moment at the increase in population and material resources on this continent. In the year 1700 the total population of the Anglo-American colonies was 262,000. In 1749 and 1750 the population was a million. In 1775, upon the eve of an open rupture with Great Britain, it became necessary to ascertain the numbers of the people, and the result of the most careful estimates that could be made, as the basis of taxation and raising armies, was that the total population then amounted to only 2,389,300. In 1789, the year in which the Constitution went into operation, the total property valuation for taxes was $519,977,259; the number of dwellings at that time, 276,659. In the year 1860 our population had reached to 31,443,321, while, according to official and individual returns, the real and personal property of the country in that year was in value upwards of nineteen thousand millions of dollars. In the year 1870 the inhabitants of the Union had risen in numbers to forty millions, with, by estimate, six millions of comfortable abodes. The crop of bread-stuffs in that year having reached 1,200,000,000 bushels, valued at $1,000,000,000, the country possessing fifty thousand miles of railway, with a domestic trade over six times the amount of our national debt. The increase in the power of labor and improvements in machinery have been equally wonderful. Engines of colossal size and amazing strength and intricate contrivance have been multiplied beyond precedent or conception. These iron giants, moved by the agency of steam, upon sea and land, yield instantly to the command of man, dashing on with impetuous fury or pausing at his touch. The capacity of these engines of power is far in excess of the manual strength of the human race; they traverse the railways and water-courses of the globe, crossing oceans and visiting distant seas. The elements of life are breathed into them from the coal fields, which in the United States have a discovered area eight times the extent of the whole of the coal fields of Europe, besides extensive regions of like material, yet but partially developed between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean.

Now, gentlemen, turning from these great mechanical results, look at our own great State, stretching leviathan-like along the bold shores of the Pacific, and covering a surface of 189,000 square miles. In less than a quarter of a century she has risen to the full proportions of a majestic State seven hundred miles in length, with an average width of over two hundred. Her vast industrial, agricultural and mineral resources are beyond estimate. In skilled labor and every department she is rapidly advancing to a prominent rank in the industries of the country. She has contributed to the metallic circulation of the globe nearly a thousand and four hundred millions of dollars. Her commercial capital is adorned with massive edifices in finishing style of architectural taste. The number of vessels annually arriving is 3,400, with a million one hundred thousand tons. She is united by railway to the great railroad system of the Republic, and by the electric telegraph to all important points at home and on the globe. Splendid steamers run from San Francisco to all prominent points on the coast, to the Islands of the Pacific, to Japan, China, New Zealand, and Australia. In the near future this State will command the Asiatic commerce, will be the great mart of trade, distributing it over the wide surface of the Union, turning the tide of wealth to our shores, and placing us in enviable relations to our common country, with whose interests we are linked for all time, by an inevitable destiny.—From an Address by Hon. M. S. Latham of California.