Western development sometimes seemed more like a runaway train than an engine powering lasting growth. The Republicans had subsidized railroads the West did not need. These roads carried more wheat than the country wanted or export markets could absorb, more cattle than the country needed, and minerals that it often did not need at all. Instead of a pastoral paradise of small producers, the West became a region of bankrupt railroads, wasted capital, and angry workers and farmers. Since much of what the West produced in the 1880s could be produced elsewhere, overproduction and competition put
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