Weekly Trinity journal., 1873-10-04
SENATOR SARGENT'S ADDRESS.
Delivered before the State Agricul-
furaI Society. of California, at
Sacramento, Thursday, Sep
tember 18th, 1878.

cred at the Fair Of the State Agricultur-
al Society, is mainly devoted to the dis
cussion of question in which not only
the farmers but the entire community
has profound interest. The speaker
shows that he has made himself famil.
lar with his subject, and has the moral
courage to speak the truth plainly and
fearlessly, setting the facts squarely be-
fore those in whose pretended interest
the great fight against the railway COM
panies has been carried on. 1t is so re
pete with sound argument, so terse in
expression, so different in style from the
noisy vapcrings of the demagogues who
talk to court popular favor by joining in
with the strongest side regardless Of right
or wrong, that we lay it before our read
ers, and ask of them an unprejudiced per-
usal.
Mr.. President, Ladies a,d Gentlemen !:
The object OF your annual ,.ir, upon the
great success of which congratulate you,
is primarily the promotion of farming
interests. This you seek to accomplish
by the exchange of practical ideas, by
encouraging the development of new in
dustries and by the discovery of improved
modes of performing old processes. You
seek to enhance the intrinsic value of ar
ticles produced, by rewards from com
mon fund for exceptional excellence ; and
you benefit yourselves and the State by
raising the worth, while lessening the
cost, of the vast range of agricultural pro-
ductions. The motive here operative is
the principal cause OF the progress which
the civilized world has gained since the
middle ages in the improvement Of the
arts of life and in human comfort. Hal
lam draws picture of tn farmers house
in England, in the time Of Henry VIII,
with its one room and one story, without
chimney, the fire was kindled in the CEN
ter. the smoke finding its way out, as in
an Indian wigwam, through hole in the
roof, or through the unglazed openings
left at the side for light and air. The do
mestic animals of all kinds were housed
under the same roof While this was the
condition of the farmer, the noble and
wealthy had none of the comforts that
to-day are indispensable to the poorest
classes. Wainscoted or plastered rooms
were unknown as were carpets, window
glass, or even beds and chairs, except as
|
ard of all mechanics, were few in number
and of the rudest description. The labor
saving machinery that now almost thinks
and that multiplies by many million fold
the productive capacity of man, had not
even rudimentary existence. The en-
ergcs Of steam were unsuspected. The
intelligence that lives in the lightning
flash had made no sign. From then to
now how vast the interval-not Of time,
merely, but of the condition of the pro-
ducing classes. From the shrouded past
peer forth ignorance and incapacity, fam
inc and misery and s9ualor, unwholesome
as the exhalations of tomb. Need L
compare with all this the condition OF the
farmer or artisan Of the present day, and
especially in this favored land Look
around you for evidences of comfort and
material prosperity excelling the visions
of prophetic days for ingenious inven-
tions that would have sent their construct
or to wizards stake in the olden time
for beauty and perfection that no poet
could have depicted from Elysian fields
What has wrought all these changes in
favor of mankind? 1t is the spirit of
doubt and investigation of encourage
ment to enterprise; of bounty to we'll
doing. 1t is the ascendency and associa-
ton of practical, inventive men an
ascendency gradually acquired as they
fathomed the secrets of nature, and gained
power by arming themselves from its
arsenal. Each generation, now that the
true path has been found, advances beyond
the point reached by its predecessors, until
the horizon of human skill and knowledge
and achievement is unlimited. What can
nationally be declared impossible in the
light of the discoveries of the nineteenth
century ? The apparent and admitted
laws of nature have been reversed by
results attained by truer insight into
those laws. A statement Of the facts
now elementary would have been declared
absurd ten years before the discovery of
the electric telegraph. An able scientist
discouraged the project to propel vessel
by steam across the Atlantic upon philo-
sophcal principles that only experiment
and success could answer. Forty years
ago it was admitted that in the rarified
air on the summit of the Rocky Mount
aims water would boil at SO low temper
ature that not enough steam could be
made to propel locomotive. The lesson
we learn is that there is an unlimited field
for investigation, enterprise and inven-
tion and that practical men in every de-
partment of life are those who enrich the
world with an accumulated wealth of
ideas, tending to equalize the condition of
mankind, diffuse the comforts of life, and
build up material prosperity.
THE GAIN THE WORLD MAKES
in each generation by such agencies is
the higher average of the means of indi-
vidual comfort, education and independ-
ence. Favored by equal laws, that are
the offspring of our civilization, the poor
man of to-day may be the rich man of
tomorrow and, pressed by competition
or misled into ruinous investment, the
rich man of to-day may be poor to-mor-
row. No law conserves the colossal for
tune no law prevents its honest acqusi-
ton. The ancient antagonism between
the producing and the accumulating
classes is measurably stilled, because by
the exchange of his surplus products the
producer becomes the accumulator The
world is becoming rich enough to spare
from accumulated boards the means to
test new inventions, to create new indus
tries, to provide broader bases both for
production and for commerce, which
effects exchanges. This capital Is not
left to rust, or 10 be expended only in
vicious pleasures, while those who have
it not perish in want; but is turned to ac
count for human improvement and hap
piness, by fostering those arts and enter
prises which create, combine and perpet-
uate the powers and agencies by which
the wants of mankind are supplied
Dissolve all associations of capital and
nearly every spindle in the world would
cease to revolve, every steamship cease
TO ply the ocean and railroad to cross the
land the telegraph would no longer fash
intelligence to the uttermost parts of the
earth, and the general industries that en-
rich some, and feed and clothe all, would
fall into disuse or be neffectively pursued.
The genius and necessities OF the age