These empire builders bought railway lands in huge tracts; they got more from the government; they overcame every obstacle of canon, mountain, and stream with the aid of science; they built cities according to the plans made by the engineers.  Having the towns ready and railway and steamboat connections formed with the rest of the world, they carried out the people to use the railways, the steamships, the houses, and the land.  It was in this way that “the frontier speculator paved the way for the frontier agriculturalist who had to be near a market before he could farm.”  The spirit of this imaginative enterprise, which laid out railways and towns in advance of the people, is seen in an advertisement of that day:  “This extension will run 42 miles from York, northeast through the Island Lake country, and will have five good North Dakota towns.  The stations on the line will be well equipped with elevators and will be constructed and ready for operation at the commencement of the grain season.  Prospective merchants have been active in securing desirable locations at the different towns on the line.  There are still opportunities for hotels, general merchandise, hardware, furniture, and drug stores, etc.”

[Illustration:  Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y.

A TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE]

Among the railway promoters and builders in the West, James J. Hill, of the Great Northern and allied lines, was one of the most forceful figures.  He knew that tracks and trains were useless without passengers and freight; without a population of farmers and town dwellers.  He therefore organized publicity in the Virginias, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska especially.  He sent out agents to tell the story of Western opportunity in this vein:  “You see your children come out of school with no chance to get farms of their own because the cost of land in your older part of the country is so high that you can’t afford to buy land to start your sons out in life around you.  They have to go to the cities to make a living or become laborers in the mills or hire out as farm hands.  There is no future for them there.  If you are doing well where you are and can safeguard the future of your children and see them prosper around you, don’t leave here.  But if you want independence, if you are renting your land, if the money-lender is carrying you along and you are running behind year after year, you can do no worse by moving....  You farmers talk of free trade and protection and what this or that political party will do for you.  Why don’t you vote a homestead for yourself?  That is the only thing Uncle Sam will ever give you.  Jim Hill hasn’t an acre of land to sell you.  We are not in the real estate business.  We don’t want you to go out West and make a failure of it because the rates at which we haul you and your goods make the first transaction a loss....  We must have landless men for a manless land.”