HE two Connecticut brothers who swapped possessions with each other until both became rich, are fairly entitled to stand for Yankee thrift and shrewdness. These qualities in a century have enabled the United States to grow in wealth four times as rapidly as in population; so that today this nation of 75,000,000 people possesses $90,000,000,000 of wealth. Yet so intent have Americans been on conquering the problems at home, that they have hardly turned their attention to the world fields.

Now, however, a new era has dawned, and the United States are to take their place among the first nations of the world, not alone in bigness and in wealth, but in the competitive sale of the products of their hands and brains. Whatever else this war with Spain may do for us, it is bound to open new avenues of trade in her colonies of the East and West Indies. The islands of Cuba and Porto Rico on our eastern coast, and the Philippines, with the Carolines, the Ladrones, and other Spanish islands, on the west, together with our newly acquired Hawaiian possessions, furnish fields of unique trade opportunities. All these islands lie in the tropics, whither heretofore not an acre of our country has extended.

The natural avenues of trade are not with the sun, along parallels of longitude, but north and south, between zones of differing climate. Hence these island groups are most favorably located. They can send us the fruits of the tropics which our temperate climate produces too sparingly or not at all, and receive in return our grain and manufactures

an exchange mutually desirable and useful. Given these sources of trade, and there is scarcely a product in the world that could not be raised within our enlarged borders.

A NEW TERRITORY EQUAL TO NINE GOOD

STATES.

These islands have peculiar advantages of location for us. Just off our South Atlantic

coast lies Cuba. Nearly 800 miles long and from thirty to 125 miles wide, the island has an area of 42,000 square miles, or about that of the State of Ohio. Easily reached from the great harbors of the Atlantic is Porto Rico, equal to Long Island in length, but twice as broad. In the Pacific, in line with our rapidly expanding trade with Japan, China, and Australia, are the Philippines and other Spanish islands. Extending over a sea area of some 1,200 miles north and south, and double the distance along the equator, these islands number about 2,000. Many are too barren and insignificant, perhaps, ever to be of practical value. But the Philippine group itself is peculiarly fertile and surprisingly extensive. Luzon alone, upon which stands the city of Manila, has 47,000 square miles-equal in size to the State of New York. With Mindanao, scarcely inferior in size, the other islands would equal the six New Enlgand States, and bring the total up to 114,000 square miles.

Here, then, are Cuba and Porto Rico in the Atlantic, and the Hawaiian and Philippine groups in the Pacific, whose destiny has become intertwined with our own. Their combined area is 168,000 square miles, equaling New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Their population is about 10,000,000, or perhaps one-half that of these nine home States. The Philippines, with three-quarters of the entire population, and Porto Rico, with 800,000 people, alone approach our own Eastern States in density. Cuba, prior to the war, was about as well populated as Virginia, and the Hawaiian group is as well peopled as Kansas. What, then, can these islands do for us?

SUGAR AND COFFEE FOR NEARLY ALL THE

WORLD.

Americans use more sugar in proportion to population than any other nation of the world. The total consumption last year was not less than 2,500,000 tons. This is enough to make a pyramid that would overtop the tallest pyramid of Egyptian fame. Of this total, 2,200,000 tons came from foreign countries, the Spanish possessions and Hawaii

sending about twenty-five per cent. Five

ANY SMOKER.

But no one supposes that these islands have reached the limit of their production. Hawaii has doubled her sugar export within the past few years. Cuba, in the height of her former prosperity, had but a fraction of her sugar land under cultivation. Were all the land in use on that island that is suited to raising sugar, it is estimated that Cuba alone could supply the demand of the entire Western Hemisphere. Add to this the possibilities in the other islands, now only at the beginning of their development, and no American need fear a lack of material to supply his sweet tooth.

With sugar, Americans rank their coffee. The annual consumption of this berry reaches 700,000,000 pounds. Yet, until Hawaii became ours, not a pound could be grown for commerce within our borders. Of the coffee imported, scarcely a half million pounds comes from these islands east and west. Still the coffee product of Porto Rico reaches 50,000,000 pounds a year. Once Cuba far outstripped her sister island in this crop, raising in a single year 90,000,000 pounds. But that was early in the century, before the island had been devastated by frequent wars. To-day almost her last coffee plantation is destroyed. But what Cuba has done she can do again, and in richer abundance, under the stimulus of American energy and skill.

The Philippines produce a coffee not equal to the best Mocha to be sure, but with a flavor peculiarly its own, and so well appreciated by the Spaniards that most of the 600,000 pounds annually raised go to that country. The Hawaiian Islands are but at the beginning of their coffee raising. Within five years their exports have increased nearly forty fold. It may be many years before these island groups will be able to produce coffee enough for the entire nation, but in five years they will be sending us a quarter of our imports of this favorite berry, and in a decade that total can easily be doubled.

An important product of these islands which finds its way to the United States is tobacco. Our own tobacco crop averages 500,000,000 pounds, and of this, from 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 pounds goes to other countries. But the tobacco lover has a fondness for certain flavors that our own soil will not produce. The result is that no less than 25,000,000 pounds of leaf tobacco is imported, of which until recently Cuba supplied three-fourths. That island, in addition, sends out 200,000,000 cigars and 50,000,000 packages of cigarettes a year, of which forty per cent. enter the United States.

The Philippines also come in for a large place in tobacco cultivation. About 250,000,000 pounds of leaf tobacco and 150,000,000 cigars are exported. Little of this is sent directly to the United States. The Spaniard, however, is credited with a shrewdness truly Yankee in quality, since much of the "pure Havana" is said to be supplied to the Cuban factories from these East Indian islands. Under the fostering care of American enterprise and capital, this industry should develop into many fold its present value, and the time easily come when the laboring man, as well as the millionaire, enjoys his after-dinner "Havana" or "Philippine."

MANILA HEMP-TROPICAL FRUITS.

Famous the world over is the manila hemp of the Philippines. The United States import about 100,000,000 pounds a year, and of this, ninety per cent. comes directly from those islands. About twice this quantity is produced there, and hemp forms one of the chief sources of wealth to the islanders. With the demand for hemp ever increasing, and the opportunities for its culture meagerly used, there is no reason why this product may not be largely multiplied to the profit of all alike.

With the cocoa tree, the banana, the pineapple, the mango, and other tropical fruits, the islands offer an appetizing variety. But. rich as are the present Philippines, the country is scarcely at the beginning of its possibilities. Only one acre in fifteen of the soil is cultivated, and that in the wasteful and slovenly way characteristic of the native and Spanish races. Under American skill and thrift the products may be easily multi

plied ten fold their present volume, and be vastly improved in quality.

Very similar opportunities await the Americans in Cuba. Of the 26,000,000 acres, only 2,000,000 have ever been under the plow. Yet the fertile land is easily four fold the present cultivated area. There are besides some 15,000,000 acres of virgin for est, containing such valuable timber as mahogany, cedar, logwood, redwood, ebony, and lignum vitæ. So rich is the soil that fertilizers are seldom used except for tobacco, though the same crops have been grown for a hundred years.

UNTOLD RICHES IN IRON AND GOLD.

Cuba is rich in iron also-how rich no one can tell. About 140 mines have been located. Near Santiago are two mines worked by American capital, and producing from 30,000 to 50,000 tons of ore a month. This iron grades in quality with the richest in the world. Taken to our Bethlehem mills, some of it has been forged into Harveyized steel armor for the protection of American battleships in aid of Cuba libre." On the south coast are numerous deposits of manganese, and an American company has facilities for supplying 200 tons a day. Nearly all the manganese used in this country comes from the Black Sea regions and from the northern part of South America. With the copper, coal, asphalt, and other minerals known to be in that country, Cuba has resources which are bound to be of inestimable value when her industries are dominated by men of American brains and push.

Minerals are known to be in the other islands, notably the Philippine group. Copper is abundant in Luzon particularly. Lead is found in Cebu, while iron ore underlies wide sections of Luzon and Mindanao. Undoubtedly there are extensive coal measures also, but these are little explored. Most interesting of all to the American are the gold deposits. These extend over a wide area, though their value as yet is little known. Should they prove rich, the Philippines may become another California or Klondike for rapidity of settlement and increase in wealth.

THE NEED OF THE ISLANDS FOR AMERICAN BREADSTUFFS.

Not less important are the opportunities these islands of the Atlantic and Pacific offer

to our own export trade. If they can give us an abundance of the things we cannot raise at home at all, or only with difficulty, they can also take from us products that we can most easily supply. None of these islands are natural grain countries. Some of them raise a little corn, but that only with difficulty. For bread they must look to other countries, and particularly to the broad prairies of our own United States.

This is peculiarly true of Cuba. Yet so cunningly has the tariff been regulated at Madrid that it was cheaper to send our flour to Spain and thence transship it to Cuba than to send it to that island directly from our own ports. Of course the Cubans paid the freight both ways, as well as the tolls and the pilferings to which the grain was subjected by Spanish officers on the way. This abuse was no small factor in bringing about the revolt against the mother country. Up to the opening of the war, American exports to Cuba ran from $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 a year, or only about one-third as much as the imports from Cuba to this country.

The Philippines as a field for American exports are practically a new country. These islands have been taking about $20,000,000 from foreign countries, but of this scarcely $100,000 was from the United States. It is a question of only a few months when England, Germany, and Spain will be forced to share this rich field with us.

Our annual demand upon tropical products reaches $225,000,000, which is a third of our entire imports. Of this, these island groups five years ago were supplying $100,000,000. To-day, because of Spanish wars, the aggregate has dropped below $40,000,000. When peace again prevails they can easily return to their former standard, and under American protection perhaps more than double this trade. Put in the best years they have taken from us barely $30, 000,000, and now their imports from us are but half that value. They took $5,000,000 in breadstuffs, $3,000,000 of our meat, and $7,000,000 of iron and steel manufactures. Not less than 65,000,000 pounds of pork and beef have found their way to these islands in a single year. No wonder that the Spanish can understand the significance of American pigs.

Thus much does our foreign trade mean with thinly populated islands under a government that uses every effort to discourage intercourse with Americans. When the population is multiplied two fold in number and tar fold in ability to produce and to consume,

When the company settled with the ranchman for that night's work, they paid him for thirteen horses. McIvor had made a record that has never yet been broken; but a man with less "sand" might have made it thirteen human beings.

A few years ago a young man employed as a watchman at one of the division stations on that same railway, in a fit of anger, struck a conductor with a piece of plank, and killed him. The conductor was very popular in the town. His friends, assembling quickly, called it murder, and went at once to the jail where the young man had been locked up and murdered the murderer.

When it was all over and the men saw what had been done, they were alarmed. The good people of the town were shocked, and the whole community was sorely grieved over the tragic death of two respected citizens. Naturally, the grand jury inquired into the matter, and McIvor was one of the first men arrested. Two or three witnesses swore positively that they had heard McIvor's Virginia voice shouting at the head of the mob. Other men, equally reputable, offered to swear that McIvor was elsewhere at the moment of the hanging; but McIvor refused to let them testify in his behalf.

When, some time later, McIvor was brought from the jail to be tried, he said he was not guilty. He had a friend high in the Masonic order, as he was himself, and this man came and testified that McIvor was not in the mob, and proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and McIvor went free. Then some people accused him of "playing horse" with the State; but that was not true. McIvor had gone to jail to give another man, who had the same Southern accent, time to get out of the country, and he "got."

McIvor was an interesting combination of strength and weakness. As shown here, he was loyal to a friend and would suffer for him; but I don't think he ever wholly forgave an enemy. On his engine he would face death with a smile. On the ground he was as weak and erring as a village belle who has inherited her mother's beauty and a deep longing for the stage. He railroaded at all times and in all places, and used his engine or the time-card to illustrate what he had to say. Once his fireman fell in love with an interesting widow who kept a boarding-house, and he asked McIvor's consent.

me, Johnny, that it wud be bettah to get one just out o' the shop, an' break heh in to suit you. In that case, ye'd know all heh weak points."

Sitting the other day with Mr. John A. Hill, in his luxurious office on the fifteenth level of a big Broadway building, facing the little park just opposite the small-paned window at which Mr. Dana used to sit, we fell to talking of McIvor and his quaint sayings. Before he became known as the author of "John Alexander's Philosophy and as the chief owner of the "American Machinist," Hill used to double-head with McIvor over the hills of Colorado.

"I sent him a story the other day," I said, "that he will recall when he reads it.' Swinging his swivel chair until he faced. me squarely, Hill asked, with some surprise: "Why, don't you know that McIvor's dead?"

And now, coming back to my work after a few day's dissipation in the second city in the world, I find a letter from the little town where, for the past fifteen years, McIvor had stabled his iron horse. It was written by one of the foremen in the shops, I fancy, and was meant only to carry the news of the engineer's death and to say that his brother, who had come up from the South to settle the dead man's affairs, had expressed the wish that some acknowledgment might be made of the receipt of my story. The brother, as he read the story, had smiled through his tears, the letter said, for he had often heard McIvor himself tell the story. The two men had parted many years ago, and now the brother, coming to the little town where McIvor had lived, found four or five thousand dollars, some real estate, a few shares of mining stock-and a grave. steady hand that had held in it hundreds of lives almost every day for the past twelve years is resting there. Perhaps of the men and women who read this recital not a few have at some time slept down the steep mountain and through the dark cañon while McIvor kept watch in the engine cab. McIvor is dead; and, as he always said it would be, he died in bed, "with his boots off."

The

I have no right to print the foreman's letter, but I can give the story in my own way, which, however, can never impress you as this letter has impressed me:

McIvor had been ill for three or four years some trouble with the spine, a thing common enough among enginemen. He would lay off for a while, go up and down the coun