Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/602

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are almost as many men from the North as from the South. The Indian Territory, which for years has stood as a Chinese wall upon the State's western border, cutting it off from all participation in the great movement of transcontinental traffic, and retarding its progress to an extent that is almost inconceivable, is now opening, and railroads are penetrating the new field. Commerce is flourishing, factories springing up, and everywhere the schoolmaster is abroad in the land. The decrees of the future are inscrutable, but, so far as mortal eye can discern, the twentieth century will be for Little Rock one of constant growth and advancement, material and intellectual, and the wisdom of the men who planted the State's capital upon this rock when it stood alone in the pathless wilderness will be more than justified.