markable development, commercial
and industrial, as well as agricultural, has been going on
in the Southwest. The progress made in Texas during the last
few years is simply astounding.

Unknown to the great mass of the people of the United States, a new empire
is being planted in the Southwest. Much is written about the thousands who
are crossing the Canadian frontier and settling in Manitoba, Assiniboia,
and Alberta; but very little is heard about the tens of thousands from the
Northwest and the Middle West, from the East and Europe, who are moving
into Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona.

The officials of the railways running into this latter region could tell a
little of this story if they wished to. Last year, from April to November,
something like a million dollars was paid into the treasuries of the
Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, the
Iron Mountain, the Missouri Pacific, the St. Louis and San Francisco, and
the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railways, for fares by seekers of homes in
the Southwest. About one-third of these prospectors become permanent
settlers. The money put into farms, into manufacturing industries, and
into business of various sorts in that region, according to the estimates
of railway officials and of immigration agents, has amounted during the
past twelve months to fully two hundred million dollars.

The Empire State of the Future.

Consider for a moment the State of Texas--as she was, as she is, and as
she will be. Admitted to the Union in 1845, newly baptized with blood in
her struggle against the Mexicans, she then contained little more than a
hundred thousand inhabitants. To-day she has three and a half millions,
and ranks fifth among the States, having passed Missouri since the last
census. Only New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio are now ahead of
her. If all these States continue to advance in population at the same
rate as in recent years, she will pass Ohio before 1920, Illinois by 1930,
and Pennsylvania by 1940. Before 1950 she will have outstripped New York
and will be the Empire State of the Union.

In spite of her more than twenty-fold increase during the past six
decades, Texas is still, comparatively speaking, a sparsely settled
region. She has as yet a mere fraction of the population her generous soil
could support. Remember that she is larger than France or Germany, larger
than two