CHAPTER XXXIX

GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST, AND THE PANIC OF 1873

1869-1877

368. Election of President Grant. General Grant had been so successful in the war that at the close of the conflict he was the popular hero of the North, and the people elected him the eighteenth President of the United States. He was inaugurated in the spring of 1869 and in 1872 was reëlected for a second term.1

369. Reconstruction completed. By 1870 the last of the eleven seceding States had promised to obey the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The next year every State was for the first time since 1860 fully represented in both houses of Congress. Not until then was the reconstruction of the Union complete.2

370. The Alabama Claims. The United States was much displeased at the conduct of Great Britain during the Civil War. The Alabama and several other Confederate cruisers had been openly bought, fitted out, and sheltered in English ports. It was the duty of the British Government, as a neu

1 Ulysses S. Grant was a native of Ohio, born in 1822. He graduated from West Point and won distinction in the Mexican War. He left the army, however, and joined his father in the leather business at Galena, Illinois. At the opening of the Civil War he became colonel of an Illinois regiment of volunteers. He soon was promoted to be a brigadier-general of volunteers and was put in charge of the forces at Cairo. He later became a major-general, first of volunteers and then in the regular army, and after that was in command of all the armies of the Union. His title was lieutenant-general, since, under the Constitution, the President is the commander-in-chief.

2 In 1872 Congress granted amnesty to all Southerners who had taken part in the war, except from three to five hundred of their leaders. The pardoned men now had all the rights of Federal citizenship the same as Northerners. Complete and final amnesty to those heretofore unpardoned was granted by the Federal Government in 1898.

tral nation, to have prevented this assistance on the part of its citizens. Yet it had not lifted a hand to stop such proceedings, and these cruisers had captured and destroyed hundreds of Union ships and their valuable cargoes. When the war closed, the United States asked Great Britain to recompense the owners of these lost merchant ships and their cargoes. A demand like this might easily have led to another war. But in 1871 the two powers sensibly agreed to the Treaty of Washington. Under this, the “ Alabama Claims," as they were called, were- together with several other disputes between America and Great Britain — submitted to a Tribunal of Arbitration, which met the same year at Geneva, Switzerland. This tribunal decided that Great Britain should pay the American owners $15,500,000 in damages, which amount was promptly handed over to them, and the two nations continued at peace.1 Thus was set a splendid example of international arbitration that has since often been followed by our own and by other countries.

371. The development of the West. The West, particularly the Mississippi Valley, developed rapidly during and just after the war. The spread of population westward was greatly aided by the introduction of labor-saving farm machinery. These inventions made it easy for settlers from the Eastern States and Europe to open and operate farms on the prairies and in the forests of the great valley. Congress also helped this expansion in two important ways:

(a) By the Homestead Act, in 1862. Under this law a man and his family might "preëmpt" one hundred and sixty acres of Western land belonging to the Federal Government. If he continued to live upon it and cultivate it for five years, the land became his property free of charge,

1 Other questions settled by the Treaty of Washington were: (a) An adjustment of our northwest boundary, between the United States and Canada. The German Emperor was asked to decide as to the correct line through the Straits of Fuca. His decision was in favor of the Americans, but was satisfactory to both sides. (b) A commission was appointed to settle disputes between Canadian and American fishermen, as to their rights along the Atlantic Coast and the shores of Newfoundland.

except for a small fee.1 This generous law brought throngs of enterprising pioneers into the West.

(b) By the gift (1862-64) of large tracts of land and the loan of millions of dollars in money to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific transcontinental railways to induce them to build across the thinly settled plains.2

At that time railway lines extended from the Atlantic Coast as far west as Omaha. If a traveler wanted to go beyond that city he must do so by the overland stages along the California and Oregon wagon-trails. But the growth of Western popu

lation had now

made it neces

sary to give the people better means of transportation to and from the region beyond the Missouri River. The Union Pacific began its line at Omaha and built westward. most places it closely followed the old wagon-trail as far as the mountains. At the same time the Central Pacific was being built eastward from San Francisco, which is nearly two thousand miles from Omaha. In May, 1869, the two construction parties met each other near Ogden, Utah, and there, in the presence of a large crowd of spectators, con

In

A contemporary lithograph

1 Between 1830 and 1862 any man who actually settled on government land might buy one hundred and sixty acres of it for $1.25 an acre. The new law gave the land free to such settlers.

2 In later years Congress also aided in this manner the Atlantic and Pacific, Northern Pacific, Texas Pacific, and Southern Pacific lines; and from time to time it gave Federal lands very freely to several shorter lines in the West. The Government has, altogether, given more public land to aid the builders of wagon-roads, canals, and railways than was contained in the thirteen original States of the Union.

nected their tracks by the driving of a golden spike.1 Thus was completed the laying of the first continuous railway line across the North American continent.

East and West were now more effectually united than ever before. The most immediate effect was greatly to hasten the settlement of the Pacific Coast and of the broad plains lying to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Pioneers from the Atlantic Coast with their families, farm utensils, and live stock might hereafter reach the Far Western country, the trip requiring about a week, much more easily and quickly than their fathers and grandfathers, fifty years before, could have reached Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin by means of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, or by the Ohio River. Tens of thousands of earnest, hard-working men and women now poured into the country beyond the Missouri River and divided it into farms. Others discovered there new mines of gold, silver, and coal. Frontier hamlets, such as Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, grew into flourishing cities with almost the speed of mushrooms. Factories were opened. New and rich States were formed2 where only a few years before were Indian camps, villages of prairie dogs, and roving herds of buffalo and antelope feeding on the grasses of the plains. Within a single generation, or about thirty years, a large part of the once-dreaded "American Desert " was transformed into a land of peace, industry, and plenty.

One of the most important methods of developing this vast region has been artificial irrigation of large areas where there is not enough rainfall to moisten the ground for crops. This has been done on a large scale by individuals and corporations; but in 1902 the Federal Government itself began to aid in the work. Its engineers are now building and operating for the settlers enormous dams, tunnels, canals, and pumping-works. The time is soon coming when large por

1 The spike is now in the museum of Leland Stanford Junior University at Palo Alto, California.

2 Kansas in 1861, Nevada in 1864, Nebraska in 1867, and Colorado in 1876. 3 In 1910, the Federal Government opened at Cody, Wyoming, the Shoshone Dam, said to be the highest in the world. The Roosevelt Dam, in Arizona, an

tions of this so-called desert will be among the best farming districts known to mankind.

Four millions of prosperous people now inhabit the Pacific Slope. For a long time gold and silver were thought to be its chief products. But

now there are other and

quite as profitable outputs lumber, wheat,

and apples in the north, and lemons, oranges, grapes, and nuts in the south. Together with these industries, the delightful climate of that region each year attracts from the Eastern States hundreds of thou

sands of persons seeking The water stored in the basin formed by this dam irri

health and pleasure.1

Los Angeles and San
Diego are fast-growing

gates 270,000 acres of arid land in Arizona. The supply is secured from the Verde and Salt Rivers. Dimensions of dam: height, 284 feet (in this view 100 feet are below the water); length, bottom, 235 feet, top, 1080; thickness, bottom, 175 feet, top, 16

and beautiful cities in the midst of the "climate and fruit belt"; and Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and San Francisco have become important ports for a growing commerce with other lands bordering on the Pacific Ocean - South America, Asia, and Australia.

372. Panics and labor troubles, 1873-1877. The quick growth of the West led to much speculation in that region during the years just following the war. A great deal of this speculation was in farming lands and city lots. Many people made money from the rapid advance in the values of land; but thousands of others paid more for their farms and lots than they could sell them for. There were also more mines

other Federal undertaking, was opened by ex-President Roosevelt in 1911. It is claimed that this is the second largest dam ever built.

1 The Pacific Slope has several varieties of climate, ranging from the Englishlike weather of Washington and Oregon to the almost tropical conditions of Southern California.