Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/500

 480 should be in but sorry shape indeed had we to go back to the limits of the thirteen original British Colonies, or even to these with Florida, purchased from the Spaniards, and Louisiana, purchased from the French, added. The Mexican acquisition gave us one-third of our domain that which is now most open to the teeming millions of Europe and that which avails us our repute for essential Americanism abroad. It gave us the field of the Bret Harte school in literature, our chief marvels and wonders, our mines of the precious metals, and the command of the Pacific Ocean.

The lower belt of Arizona was not even comprised in this. An area of 460 miles by 130, below the Gila River, was not obtained till "the Gadsden Purchase," in 1853. By the payment of the sum of $10,000,000 under this treaty we obtained a number of decided advantages. We rectified our boundary line, confused through the inaccuracy of the map of one Dwindle, on which it was based. We got rid of an embarrassing engagement, of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to protect the Mexican frontier from Apaches—leaving them to regulate this service for themselves. We secured the right of way for a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepee, which was thought desirable for speedier communication with our new possessions of California.

But above all we acquired, in the easy levels below the Gila, the natural route for a Southern Pacific transcontinental railway. The files of the Congressional Globe of that date are full of the necessity of binding our Pacific acquisitions securely to the rest of the country, and the most effectual of all the means proposed was considered to be a transcontinental railway.

Well, we are bowling at last along that now actually constructed Southern Pacific Railroad, once discussed