But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West.True, the overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast regions to the north and the south.The rivers of the West could not alone take care of this commerce and for many years these great transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons into the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of communication to the nearest railway.On the south the cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the railways of Kansas.Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West with their network of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and competition by providing unmatched facilities for quick transportation.
In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into operation between St.
Joseph and San Francisco in 1860.By relays of horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the time was cut to nine days.The innovation was the new wonder of the world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of the enthusiastic editor of the St.Joseph Free Democrat that deserves reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant conquest:
"Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic animal: From St.Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the Golden Horn two thousand miles--more than half the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse--did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets.The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes.Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously.Take out your watch.We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London.The race is to the swift."** Quoted in Inman's "The Great Salt Lake Trail," p.171.
The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah.In point of time, those eighty-six years are as nothing;in point of accomplishment, they stand unparalleled.When Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms.
But overnight, so to sneak these limitations became no more than mere geometrical expressions."Pennamite," "Erie," and "Toledo"wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the cartoonist and the playwright.The ancient false pride in mock values, so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of the United States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through many States.Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled without turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing interest in our newspapers.
In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or provincial mind, a continental mind.But great is the debt of Americans to the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce.No antidote served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did their enthusiasm and their constructive energy.These men, dreamers and promoters, were building better than they knew.They thought to overcome mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true light.They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is honored and loved today.
