read.delim("states.txt")

         state    capital pop_mill area_sqm
1 South Dakota     Pierre    0.853    77116
2     New York     Albany   19.746    54555
3       Oregon      Salem    3.970    98381
4      Vermont Montpelier    0.627     9616
5       Hawaii   Honolulu    1.420    10931

read_tsv("states.txt")

# A tibble: 5 × 4
         state    capital pop_mill area_sqm
         <chr>      <chr>    <dbl>    <int>
1 South Dakota     Pierre    0.853    77116
2     New York     Albany   19.746    54555
3       Oregon      Salem    3.970    98381
4      Vermont Montpelier    0.627     9616
5       Hawaii   Honolulu    1.420    10931