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Page 24 text:
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Hbr Smutty of tbr JJrnituhmt T H K next era will mark the most wonderful advancement in invention that the world has ever known or hoped for. so vast will the advance he that we can now have scarcely any conception of its scope. Thomas A. Kdison predicts that towns and cities will he built that will make Turners pictures of ancient Home and Carthage pale into nothingness; the locomotive will pass out of use. and all our railroads will l e operated l v electricity; a new fertilizer containing a large per cent of nitrogen will l e drawn from the air by electricity, and will wonderfully in¬ crease the arabilitv of our lands; there will lie a successful aerial navigation with a practical working basis; a greater realization of our coal supplies so that ninety per cent of the efficiency will not be thrown away as it is today; and, finally, all machinery, which is today only ten per cent perfect, will lie tremendously improved so that articles of luxury will be produced in enormous numtiers at such small cost, that all classes will lie able to enjoy the benefits of them. Because of Mr. Kdison ' s wonderful accomplishments we are forced to believe what he predicts, and expect the next era to bring forth advantages that will make those of today seem as nothing. I.et us glance at the progress in the United States during three periods, the first from the founding of our government to the close of the civil war; the second from the period immediately following the civil war up to the present time; the third the era following the present. In the first per, ' ] our people were iust beginning the attack on chaos; just beginning to build what we see today—a government, one in speech, character, and idea. Work was diversified, man was engaged in obtaining the personal necessities of life, in supplying the immediate needs of his country, he was everything in one from a blacksmith to a senator, hence the investigations along scientific lines were scattered, some here, some there, with no great concentration, and the inventions came almost by accident in many cases. They call for more genius, however, than those following, because they were the beginning, they sprang from so much less. The second period marks the settling of our foreign relations, peace with our¬ selves and the turning of all efforts and energies to the unravelling of the mysteries of our three million square miles. The inventions were perfected in one way, then another, then another, until the results were amazing, all the world was startled at what it saw. Steam began to dot ouf waters with vessels, railroads began to make our hills echo the advance of man. they stretched their arms further and furlher into the wilderness, they scattered people over our productive regions, who in their (24)
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Page 25 text:
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turn set the wheels of industry moving, until all was one great buzz in the line of whirling advance. Science was turned everywhere to the effecting of a great com¬ mercial nation. We had no war of 1812, no Civil War. to turn the thoughts of our people from the material, to arouse their patriotism and high ideals, all was the material in every line or path of life. We do not hear a voice denouncing the maxim of worldly wisdom, which bids men “(Jet all they can and keep all they get. We do not hear Renjamin Franklin saying. I am old and good for nothing, hut as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth. I am hut a fag end and you may have me for what you please.” We do not hear a proud John Adams say to his wife. “I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin and the ruin of our children.” Nor do we hear the voice of a Roliert Morris saving. The United States may command all 1 have except my integrity.” Or a Samuel Adams, impoverished, living on a pittance, hardly able to provide a decent coat for his hack, rejecting with scorn the offer of a profitable office, wealth, a title even, to win him from his allegiance to the cause of America. No. this kind of a man is not prominent, hut in the third period, which as far as commerce and science are concerned, will lie a continuation and perfecting to the present, he will reappear. t ur public men are a result of the thoughts, conditions and ideals of the people. As a result of the great wave of commercialism that has swept over our country, tve find our statesmen thinking, working, legislating, always from a commercial stand¬ point. and as a natural consequence the almighty dollar lias become the supreme force. Public life means a full grasp of the laws of our country, of the material and economic welfare of the people, these qualifications t eing the important ones, and the deeper finer qualities, that go to make up the truer statesman lieittg of a smaller force. The result is that public men act not because they think something is right hut because it affects their immediate prosperity in some way. I do not wish to |xause with the criminal public man. the one who exploits uthers to add to his own vast fortune, he has always existed and always will. Nor is it my purpose to praise the great exceptions, those beautiful characters that our country has reared, whose very names make us thrill with admiration, who have won the affection and allegiance of their nation F-verv country has them to boast of, Kngland lias her Gladstone; France her Mirahcau; Germany her Bismarck: Greece her Pericles; and we, second to none, our Lincoln. It is. then, neither the criminal public man nor the ideal public man of whom l wish to speak, hut the representative public man. e have seen the swing of the pendulum towards commercialism. 1 hope we may see why this was and why our statesmen became commercialized, if wc do see ( 25 )
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