From the nature of their work the men who built railways
first became aware of the riches of nature, and aided by an enormous
public sympathy with their efforts, monopolized all the natural
opportunities of value. Coupled with industrial development was the
gradual appropriation of the land. The time soon arrived when the
late comers either stayed in the manufacturing centers at the
railways terminals or were pushed farther and farther away from the
centers. As the landowning families multiplied, the young men were
confined to the same choice. Forced off the land, the tendency has
been to crowd the brainiest blood of America into the cities. In
addition, the competition of the new Western lands, brought into use
by railway development, has exiled the youth of New England, who
found in their rocky acres no incentive to toil. They, too, joined
the ever-increasing flow to the cities, and entered into the savage
competition of our great towns.
In our time the pendulum has swung to its extreme. At every
depression of business, armies of the unemployed perish in sight of
the land they abandoned in the hope of a brighter future.
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