This common condition has in all cases had an important bearing not only on economic development, but on the whole texture of the social fabric which was created; it affected not only the frontier itself, but its reflex influence on the sections from which the labor and capital were drawn set at work influences which at times became leading factors in their existence. So important have their influences been, that where the study is confined to any one frontier, they seem to dominate development, and make history their creature. When we extend our study, however, we find that in spite of the fundamental resemblance, each has followed its separate course; that the different balance of other factors, and even such secondary considerations as laws and constitutions, have radically altered the actual operation of these powerful natural resemblances. The control of the frontier’s natural resources, the distribution of proceeds, the very content of politics have varied with every frontier. The problem has been one, the methods and results have been as varied as the fields in which it occurred.
In the United States the larger part of the capital came from or through another section of the same country. That is, the East furnished nearly all that was supplied, although to do so it had to borrow somewhat from Europe. The direct loans from Europe to the West were comparatively unimportant. Consequently the interests of the debtor and creditor sections conflicted in the arena of national politics. Two unique features made the working out of the problem different in this country from any other. The first was the division of the country into a large number of states, sovereign within a restricted range of powers, some controlled by the debtor element, some by the creditor. The other was that at one time, and that the most critical, the frontier was strong enough at least to veto the action of the national government.
The result of these conditions was a struggle unusually complex. The control of banking, of the currency, of natural resources, such as lands, minerals, and oil, and of transportation or, as it is phrased in our politics, internal improvements, were the bone of contention. The desire to have these controlled by national or state governments varied with the political situation. The frontier wished banks that would not be too particular, a currency that would be easy to get; it wished, and wishes, control of its own systems of transportation and its natural resources.