tunes of those who owned land or had
established themselves in trade.

[Footnote 8: This comparison is based on the Census Reports for 1860. It
does not vary materially from the estimates given for 1860 in Executive
Documents of the Senate, no. 38, 52d Cong., 2d Sess.]

[Illustration: Railroads in Operation 1850]

[Illustration: Railroads in Operation 1860]

Naturally this concentration of industry and the economic resources of
the country in the East led to the rapid extension of railways into the
West and South. The New York Central, the Erie, the Pennsylvania, and
the Baltimore and Ohio systems had already been founded, and they made
connections in 1850-53 with the canals and railways of the Middle West.
The Illinois Central, which connected the lower South with Chicago, was
affiliated by means of interlocking directorates with the New York
Central before 1856. John M. Forbes, the Boston capitalist, was
president of the Michigan Central during the decade, and laying the
foundations of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. Commodore Vanderbilt
was organizing his steamboat and railroad properties and expanding the
area of his activities till it reached, before 1860, the rich grain belt
of the West, the cotton lands of the South, the Far Eastern trade _via_
his Panama Railroad and Pacific steamers, and the great markets of
Europe. During the decade under consideration the capitalists of the
East built 4000 miles of railway east of Pittsburg, 7500 miles in the
Northwest, and 5000 miles in the South. But the work was not all done at
the expense of the capitalists. The Federal Government donated
20,000,000 acres of the most valuable lands in the country to the
companies which built the roads; States, counties, and towns in the West
and South voted many millions for the same purpose; and European
capitalists loaned $450,000,000 secured by first mortgage bonds on the
vast properties.

Thus the industrial belt of the East was reaching out toward Chicago,
St. Louis, and New Orleans and beyond for a commerce that was already
richer than the gold mines of California; and New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, the canal towns, and Pittsburg were becoming centers of
wealth and economic power which attracted the attention of the world.
Great merchants, like the Lawrences of Boston and the Astors of New
York, became the objects of emulation everywhere, and they in turn set
the fashion of giving liberally of their means to the cause of edu