was an army of migratory laborers wandering
from camp to camp, from town to town, and from ranch to ranch, without
fixed homes or established habits of life. From this extraordinary
condition there issued many a long and lawless conflict between capital
and labor, giving a distinct color to the labor movement in whole
sections of the mountain and coast states.

THE ADMISSION OF NEW STATES

=The Spirit of Self-Government.=--The instinct of self-government was
strong in the western communities. In the very beginning, it led to the
organization of volunteer committees, known as "vigilantes," to suppress
crime and punish criminals. As soon as enough people were settled
permanently in a region, they took care to form a more stable kind of
government. An illustration of this process is found in the Oregon
compact made by the pioneers in 1843, the spirit of which is reflected
in an editorial in an old copy of the _Rocky Mountain News_: "We claim
that any body or community of American citizens which from any cause or
under any circumstances is cut off from or from isolation is so situated
as not to be under any active and protecting branch of the central
government, have a right, if on American soil, to frame a government and
enact such laws and regulations as may be necessary for their own
safety, protection, and happiness, always with the condition precedent,
that they shall, at the earliest moment when the central government
shall extend an effective organization and laws over them, give it their
unqualified support and obedience."

People who turned so naturally to the organization of local
administration were equally eager for admission to the union as soon as
any shadow of a claim to statehood could be advanced. As long as a
region was merely one of the territories of the United States, the
appointment of the governor and other officers was controlled by
politics at Washington. Moreover the disposition of land, mineral
rights, forests, and water power was also in the hands of national
leaders. Thus practical considerations were united with the spirit of
independence in the quest for local autonomy.

=Nebraska and Colorado.=--Two states, Nebraska and Colorado, had little
difficulty in securing admission to the union. The first, Nebraska, had
been organized as a territory by the famous Kansas-Nebraska bill which
did so much to precipitate the Civil War. Lying to the north of Kansas,
which had been admitted in 1861, i