Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1920 — Forecast of Supremacy of Chicago as Financial Metropolis of Nation [ARTICLE]

Forecast of Supremacy of Chicago as Financial Metropolis of Nation

By J. C. WOODHULL,

Formerly of War Trade Board

Chicago has tributary to it the domain of an empire. The area fl rained by the Mississippi river and its tributaries, with its navigable lakes and rivers, unlimited water power, fertile soil, inexhaustible mineral deposits and forest growth, coupled with the enterprise and energy of its people, has developed this region into the largest productive area of raw ZZ__— A summary shows that more than half of the population of the Unipod thia great valley. It contains 70 per cent of the farm acreage of the nation, 75 per cent of its manufacturing industries, and the combined rail toad systems in mileage and value represent 70 per cent of all its similar property. It produces 75 per cent of the wheat, 80 per cent of the hoga, 75 per cent of the cattle, 50 per cent of the sheep, 50 per cent of the wool, 70 per cent of the cotton, 70 per cent of the oil, 90 per cent of the iron ore, 50 per cent of the lumber, and 60 per cent of the bituminous coal. The position of Chicago, the financial center of this aggregation of potegtiri weslth and boundless possibilities, determines its destiny as the future headquarters of the export business of the United Xs a result of the war a famine of raw materials and manufactured products prevails the world over, and the supply available for export in any mnMderahle quantity is to be found only in the main producing territory of the United States, the basin of the Mississippi valleyl ipf .sjiintn no other equal area whose production exceeds this, and a inflow of wealth, can there be any question a* to the nf Uhicaw as the future metropolis of the United Jotaies/ i ) - •