runs a
huge movement of iron from mine to factory. This industry is basal in
American life, and it has revolutionized the industry of the world. The
United States produces pig iron and steel in amount equal to her two
greatest competitors combined, and the iron ores for this product are
chiefly in the Mississippi Valley. It is the chief producer of coal,
thereby enabling the United States almost to equal the combined
production of Germany and Great Britain; and great oil fields of the
nation are in its midst. Its huge crops of wheat and corn and its cattle
are the main resources for the United States and are drawn upon by
Europe. Its cotton furnishes two-thirds of the world's factory supply.
Its railroad system constitutes the greatest transportation network in
the world. Again it is seeking industrial consolidation by demanding
improvement of its vast water system as a unit. If this design, favored
by Roosevelt, shall at some time be accomplished, again the bulk of the
commerce of the Valley may flow along the old routes to New Orleans; and
to Galveston by the development of southern railroad outlets after the
building of the Panama Canal. For the development and exploitation of
these and of the transportation and trade interests of the Middle West,
Eastern capital has been consolidated into huge corporations, trusts,
and combinations. With the influx of capital, and the rise of cities and
manufactures, portions of the Mississippi Valley have become assimilated
with the East. With the end of the era of free lands the basis of its
democratic society is passing away.

The final topic on which I shall briefly comment in this discussion of
the significance of the Mississippi Valley in American history is a
corollary of this condition. Has the Mississippi Valley a permanent
contribution to make to American society, or is it to be adjusted into a
type characteristically Eastern and European? In other words, has the
United States itself an original contribution to make to the history of
society? This is what it comes to. The most significant fact in the
Mississippi Valley is its ideals. Here has been developed, not by
revolutionary theory, but by growth among free opportunities, the
conception of a vast democracy made up of mobile ascending individuals,
conscious of their power and their responsibilities. Can these ideals of
individualism and democracy be reconciled and applied to the twentieth
century type of civilization?