"Droop not, brother, as we go Over the mountains, westward ho, Log huts we'll rear, While herds of deer and buffalo Furnish the cheer; File over the mountains, steady, boys; For game afar We have our rifles ready, boys, Cheer up, brothers, as we go We'll reign like Kings in fairyland, Then westward ho in legions, boys, Points to her sunset regions, boys, 1 A chant for overland westward movers. CHAPTER XI UNIVERSAL TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES, RATHER THAN POLITICS OR WARS, THE COMPELLING FORCE OF A REAL NATIONAL UNITY INTRODUCTION OF REGULARITY AND PERIODICITY IN TRAVEL ITS CAUSES AND CIRCUMSTANCES UNHEEDED GROWTH OF THE PRINCIPLE AND ITS FINAL EFFECT REGULAR STAGECOACHES APPEAR THE FOUR-WHEELED FLYING MACHINE TRAVEL CONDITIONS BETWEEN PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK, BOSTON AND BALTIMOREDESCRIPTIONS BY TRAVELLERS THE "STEP-LIVELY" ERA BEGINS WHILE HILE the activities just traced were prevailing in the South an altogether different state of affairs existed in the northern colonies. Three-quarters of a century had been required to produce the movement toward the interior from North Carolina and Virginia, and that phenomenon was destined to be the chief contribution of the South toward the development of a future national transportation system. All her energy and restlessness were gathered into one tremendous effort along a path of progress that the North could not tread. The surge of the southern white people across the mountains was a logical and perhaps inevitable outgrowth of the social and natural conditions that existed in the region whence it started. Those conditions, as has been noted, were in no way similar to the ones which had pre vailed from the first in the settled sections to the northward. The people of New England and the middle colonies had always showed a tendency to gather into or near compact communities, instead of adopting the plantation and cabin system that chiefly distinguished the lower commonwealths.1 And just as the southern mode of life found its expression in the exodus to the unknown West, so also did the northern habits of living control the methods by which its advancement toward better facilities of travel was made. The natures of the two sorts of progress that distinguished the two sections were radically variant. One was an outburst of supremely important action founded on a deep-seated impulse that called for wide, free, pioneer movement. The other The other that of the North-was a slow, long-continued, almost automatic process which had for its purpose the improvement of short paths from one spot to another spot near by. It, in turn, was based on the highly developed gregarious instinct that has always characterized the American man of the North; a dependence on the mass rather than on self; a craving for crowds and to be part of the crowd, no matter what discomfort his desire inflicted on him." There were two results of those northern habits of living in groups and constantly treading the same path, and in time they came to shape the entire transportation system of the country and dictate every detail of its operation. One effect was the speedy transformation of a few original primitive routes into successively better arteries of travel as increasing popula According to the census of 1910 more than forty per cent. of the population of the northern states is concentrated in cities of 25,000 or more. In the South the correspondi g ratio is about twelve per cent. These figures fairly indicate the relative intensities of the gregarious habit in the two sections during every period of their history. The quality in question is as pronounced to day as it ever was, and its effect on present travel conditions in congested localities is well known. tion cried out for such improvement. The other result was the establishment of periodicity and regularity as the primary features of every sort of traffic that moves from one place to another throughout the continent. Those 45.-Advertisement of a stage wagon such as ran regularly between Philadelphia and New York about 1750. Both passengers and goods were carried. Periodicity in the movement of travel conveyances in America had been introduced in 1732, over the same route. were the things that came to pass because the people of the North originally gathered together in towns and forever trotted back and forth over the same old trails. Such consequences, though slower of ultimate realization and unforeseen by those who brought them about, were to be no less important to the country's future than was the eruption that conquered the wilderness. Each in its own way, did the thing it could best do at a time when there was no coördination of action between them. North and South had not yet united their conflicting and inharmonious methods and characters into one organ 46.-Mercereau's stage wagon, in 1771, reduced the time between Philadelphia and New York to a day and a half. In celebration of the achievement he advertised his conveyance as "The Flying Machine." ism, and even when they did so the principal bond of national union, being at first political and arbitrary in character, lacked for a long time the elements that are necessary for the welding of a country into a nation. The day of a real unity in aspiration and action was only to be |