Indiana Past and Present

A Monthly Magazine of Hoosier Progress

Vol. I.

APRIL 1914

No. 1

THE MAKING OF A STATE

By GEORGE S. COTTMAN

(Copyright Applied for by George S. Cottman)

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

721883 A

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

1994

The section marks (§) refer the reader to a fuller exposition of the particular subject n R the department "Indiana in Brief." Fundamental Factors: Soil, Climate, Stock and National Policy-A study of the influences that have given direction, shape and character to the history of Indiana carries the inquirer back not only to the beginnings of American history in the Mississippi valley, but to more remote causes. For example, what is the explanation of the phenomenal swiftness (as history goes) with which this valley, which, but a little more than a century ago, was one primeval wilderness, has progressed to the high tide of twentieth century civilization? Obviously, soil, climate, configuration and natural features of the country, stock and national policy are all factors which, collectively, have wrought results that for expedite

race, a congeries of minor nations that seem forever on the border of anarchy. Briefly, the history of South America and that of the United States since the settlement of the two continents largely illustrates the difference in stock.

ness and inherent energy hardly find an analogy in the history of the world. A comparison with other continental portions of the globe presents some interesting contrasts. The most striking, perhaps, as presenting differences imposed by the physical basis, is Africa. That vast continent, with its more. than 10,000,000 square miles, lying contiguous to the older centers of civilization and itself the seat of the

most ancient ones, has, until recent times, remained

the "dark continent," and the invasions of the domi

nant nations have to the present day resulted only in a polyglot group of colonies that are practically negligible in an estimate of the world's growth. Insufficient water supply and vast wastes, tropic heat, fell diseases and ineradicable pests have been effective deterrents to the successful reign of the Caucasian.

If we consider South America, with its zones of climate ranging all the way from the tropics of Brazil to the Antarctic sterility of southern Argentine, and its fertile soils, capable of supporting a teeming multitude, we find it, beneath the rule of a Latin

Australia, with an area almost equal to that of the United States, is little more than one vast barren waste, with a fringe of isolated civilization strung along part of its coasts.

Of Asia, we are told by an authority, "owing to its great extent from east to west the central parts, deprived of moisture, are almost everywhere deserts, shores comprises nearly all that contributes to the

and a belt around the western, southern and eastern

support of man."

This same writer (Charles Maclaren) pointing out the superior natural advantages of the Americas as a seat of civilization, maintains that "the new continent, though less than half the size of the old, contains at least an equal quantity of useful soil and much more than an equal amount of productive power"; and he adds that “America is indebted for this advantage to its comparatively small breadth, which brings nearly all its interior within reach of the fertilizing exhalations of the ocean." This means that the rain supply, which is evaporated from the ocean, reaches these interior parts; the rain supply, in turn, means a system of well-supplied supply, in turn, means streams, and they mean, in the first instance, irrigation, vegetation and soil, and in the second, natural routes of travel and transportation that are a great determining factor in the distribution of settlers in a new country. Apropos to this, if we study a hydrographic chart of the Mississippi valley showing the numerous streams that ramify far and wide from the great "father of waters" and its larger affluents, "

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