commission of some of
the powers that, it was thought, had been given to it, but during the
next nineteen years the Interstate Commerce Commission was a central
figure in the solution of the railroad problem. The work of this
commission, like the work of irrigation and agriculture, was technical,
calling for expert service, and aiding in the process that was changing
the character of the National Administration as one function after
another was called into service for the first time.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

In 1893 F.J. Turner called attention to the _Significance of the
Frontier in American History_ (in American Historical Association,
Annual Report, 1893). His theory has been elaborated by F.L. Paxson,
_The Last American Frontier_ (1910), and K. Coman, _Economic Beginnings
of the Far West_ (1912). There is no good account of the public lands.
T. Donaldson, _The Public Domain_ (1881), is inaccurate, antiquated, and
clumsy, but has not been supplanted. Many useful tables are in the
report of the Public Lands Commission created by President Roosevelt (in
58th Congress, 3d session, Senate Document, No. 189, Serial No. 4766).
The general spirit of the frontier in the eighties has been appreciated
by Owen Wister, in _The Virginian_ (1902), and _Members of the Family_
(1911), and by E. Talbot, in _My People of the Plains_ (1906). J.A.
Lomax has preserved some of its folklore in _Cowboy Songs and Other
Frontier Ballads_ (1910). The best narratives on the continental
railways are J.P. Davis, _Union Pacific Railway_ (1894), and E.V.
Smalley, _The Northern Pacific Railroad_ (1883). Many contributory
details are in H. Villard, _Memoirs_ (2 vols., 1904), E.P. Oberholtzer,
_Jay Cooke_ (2 vols., 1907), and in the appropriate volumes of H.H.
Bancroft, _Works_. L.H. Haney has compiled the formal documents in his
_Congressional History of Railroads_ (in Bulletins of the University of
Wisconsin, Nos. 211 and 342). The debate over the Isthmian Canal may be
read in J.D. Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_; the
Foreign relations Reports, 1879-83; L.M. Keasbey, _The Nicaragua Canal
and the Monroe Doctrine_ (1896); J.B. Henderson, _American Diplomatic
Questions_ (1901); and J. Latane, _Diplomatic Relations of the United
States and Spanish America_ (1900).

CHAPTER X

NATIONAL BUSINESS

Transportation was a fundamental factor in the two greatest problems of
the eighties. In the case of the disappearance of free