The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-01
SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 1870.
A YEAR OF PROGRESSION.


A YEAR OF PROGRESSION
THE year which has just closed has been
emphatically one of progression. Whether
we look at home or abroad, we find abundant
evidences that ''the world moves All inn
portant affairs have been steadily borne for
ward by controlling undercurrent of ad-
vanoement. Two of the most gigantic pub
lie works of any age or time have been COM
pleted, and the driving of the last spike in
the last rail of the Pacific Railway and the
fiaal excavations of the Suez Canal are only
the browning triumphs of period which is
signalized by the construction of innumera-
BILE other public improvements of great mag
nitude and universal importance. The steps
taken during 1869 to give prominence to the
Darien Ship Canal project indicate that that
scheme, too, will soon be placed on practi-
cal footing, and, like the contemplated new
Pacific Railway lines, it is already ranked
among the inevitable future conquests of the
skill of engineers and the combinations of
capitalists.
The political PROCESS achieved in 1869 is
not less marked than the physical advance
ment of the year. Even the ancient Asiatic
powers, China and Japan, have given new
proofs of their infection with the modern
spirit which is vivifying all mankind New
guarantees of freedom have been granted in
nearly all parts of Europe. In France the
powers of the immediate representatives of
the people have been greatly enlarged; in
Spain, many reforms, including the establish
ment of religious liberty, have been decreed
by the Cortes; in Austria, retrogression has
been steadily resisted; and one of the most
odious forms of British oppression of down.
trodden Ireland has been abrogated. In the
United States the constitutional amendment
which will forever prevent oppression based
on race or colof has been ratified by so many
States that its final incorporation in the
fundamental law has been placed beyond all
reasonable doubt, and the doctrines of the
Fathers ofthe Republic will therefore soon be
irrevocably established throughout the length
and breadth of the land.
In the details of the administration of ma
tional affairs a change has been wrought by
the substitution of Grant for Johnson in the
Presidential Chair, which is intensely gratify-
ing to every patriot. Once more the people
rejoice that the ship of state is guided by IN
tegrity, vigor, and intelligence. The laws
are enforced, the public credit is rapidly ad-
vancing. and the broken limbs of the Union
are being so firmly reknitted that the angry
passions of the war already seem to belong to
past age while loyalist and Rebel slave
holder and freedman, fraternize, in thousands
of instances as cordially as if they had never
been torn by bloody dissensions.
The growth of this city is best illustrated
by the statement that the number of new
buildings erected here in 1869 is about equal
to the new structures in New York, Boston,
and Chicago combined. More than five
thousand dwellings have been added to those
previously erected, and any community less
unostentatious than our own wouldloudly pro-
claim such a fact to the world as an undeni-
able evidence of wondrous progress. 1t un-
doubtedly affords unmistakable evidence of
solid and steady growth which has rarely or
never been paralleled, and it gives new
proof that Philadelphia is unquestionably
destined to acquire and maintain the leading
position among the cities of this continent.
Those who are inclined to take gloomy
view of the future, or to exaggerate the i'm
portance of existing pecuniary pressures, will
gain heart and hope from retrospective view
of the near past. All that remains to be ac-
&omplished seems but light task when COM
pared with what has been already achieved.
Wise legislation, the faith of the people in
their Government, and in the individual and
combined energies of their fellow-citizens,
steady work, and the exercise of reasonable
degree of American gumption all around, will
pull the nation, the State, the city, and the
whole body polite through every present and
fhreatened dificultv