s. In this happiest of all countries, and under this best of all
governments, which had been preserved at such an awful cost, the good
American was entitled to give his undivided attention to the great work
of molding and equipping the continent for human habitation, and
incidentally to the minor task of securing his share of the rewards. A
lively, even a frenzied, outburst of industrial, commercial, and
speculative activity followed hard upon the restoration of peace. This
activity and its effects have been the most important fact in American
life during the forty years which have supervened; and it has assumed
very different characteristics from those which it had assumed previous
to the War. We must now consider the circumstances, the consequences,
and the meaning of this economic revolution.

Although nobody in 1870 suspected it, the United States was entering
upon a new phase of its economic career; and the new economy was
bringing with it radical social changes. Even before the outbreak of the
Civil War the rich and fertile states of the Middle West had become well
populated. They had passed from an almost exclusively agricultural
economy to one which was much more largely urban and industrial. The
farms had become well-equipped; large cities were being built up;
factories of various kinds were being established; and most important of
all, the whole industrial organization of the country was being adjusted
to transportation by means of the railroad. An industrial community,
which was, comparatively speaking, well-organized and well-furnished
with machinery, was taking the place of the agricultural community of
1830-1840, which was incoherent and scattered and which lacked
everything except energy and opportunity. Such an increase of
organization, capital, and equipment necessarily modified the outlook
and interests of the people of the Middle West. While still retaining
many of their local traits, their point of view had been approaching in
certain respects that of the inhabitants of the East. They had ceased to
be pioneers.

During the two decades after the Civil War, the territory, which was
still in the early stage of agricultural development, was the first and
second tier of states west of the Mississippi River. Missouri, Iowa, and
Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and finally the Dakotas were being opened
for settlement; but in their case the effect and symptoms of this
condition were not the same as they had bee