National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-10-12
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
THE NEED OF MANUFACTURERS

THE NEED OF MANUFACTURES.
As Washington continues to advance in
prosperity, the necessity becomes more and
more felt by our most thoughtful citizens
that to insure its growth and progress in the
future we must have some other source of
dependence than the General Government
A large number of our people, we know,
are opposed to all manufactures in Wash
ingtOn, maintaining that it cannot and ought
not to become a manufacturing centre.
Their idea of the capital of the country is
that it ought TO be place from which the
din and hustle Of trade and commerce are
excluded; city of art and science and Gull
ture of academies and schools and colleges,
the home of the literary men of the Repub
lie the centre of the culture and civiliZa-
ton of the nation. This is a sweet picture
in theory, but all experience goes to show
that it is impossible. 1t may seem strange
and contradictory. but it is nevertheless a
fact that commerce and art and literature
&C hand in hand together, and that where
we do not find the one we shall be certain
not to find the other.
Compare, for instance, the two cities,
New York and Washington. To-day the
one is the commercial and the other the
political centre of the Republic. The one
is the great clearing house of the Republic,
through which its products are sent abroad
and its importatiOns entered. In the other
its laws are made and its political destinies
shaped. In the one the commercial wisdom
and genius of the country is gathered, and
in the other what is supposed to be its in
tellectual classes-in word, its statesmen.
Here we have the great leaders of parties,
contending year after year as to the way
the country shall be governed. There we
have the merchants and bankers, the ship
owners and railroad kings. In which of
the two are the great sculptors and paint
ers, the eminent writers and thinkers, the
distinguished divines, the leading publish
ers, the colleges and academies of renown
and strength? The answer to the question
only proves the truth of what we have said,
that the graces and adornments of life can
not be separated from the utilities-that the
mysterious ties which unite Trade and Art
and Literature cannot be sundered. They
have existed from the beginning, and they
will exist to the end of the world, so that
it is absurd to think or dream of divorcing
them. To suppose that because Washing
ton is the political capital of the nation it
must therefore, become the literary and
aesthetic capital, is, therefore, all nonsense.
London is the political capital of England,
the home of nearly all that is distinguished
in. science, art and literature within her
borders, but it is so, not because the Parlia-
mcnt meets there, and the battles of the
Ministry and the opposition are fought in
St. Stephens, but because it is at the same
time the great commercial centre of the
kingdom, the home of her millionaires and
her merchant princes, whose names are
known in all the world.
This sentimental scheme of the destiny
of Washington can never be achieved, be-
cause, as we said, all the conditions are
against it. 1t is true that in proportion to
our population we possess larger number
of educated men and women than any other
city in the country, but they are all in one
way or another connected with the Gov
eminent, and if that connection should
come TO an end tomorrow, the majority of
them would leave US. They are here be-
cause the Government requires their ser
vices here and pays fortbem. Their mum
Der will probably increase as the necessities
Of the Government increase; but that will
be all. We scarcely have a score of gen
tlemeD devoted 10 the studies of science
and art who are not officials of the
Government, because we lack the one
prime condition which the commercial
towns possess. There can be no solid, en-
during prosperity here or anywhere else
without trade and commerce. We need
more producers as well as more consumers
some utilization of the Potomac waters
running idle to the sea-Of the magnificent
resources which surround us on every hand.
Washington has obtained a strong impetus
in the right direction, but to make her all
that we hope and expect to see her become,
she must do what every great city has done,
lay her foundations deep and solid in the
great industries of the ages, and stand upon
her own feet rather than lean upon the
shoulders of her sister communities. Bet
ter one cotton factory than a whole session