Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1875-12-09
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
GRANTS CENTENNIAL COMMUNICA.
TION TO CONGRESS-.
Progress Made in a Century-Advance-
ment i'm the Arts, Sciences. Manufac-
lures. etc. - Educational Measures
Strongly Urged-A Tax ON Church Pro-
perty RecOmmended-FOre Rela-
ii0us-RecOSnitfOn of Cuban Indepen.
dence or Bellegerency not a Wise
Decentralization or Intervention the
only End to the StruSsle-Ocean Tele-
graphy-RecOmmenda Regarding
Naturalization and Repatriation
Specie Resumption AdUOcated-COndi-
ton of the Various Branches of the
Public Service-The Centennial Exhi-
billion and the Benefits TO be Derived
from 1t.
To the Senate and House Of Representa-
tires.
In submitting my seventh annual mes
sage to Congress in this centennial year of
our national existence as free and indie
pendent people. it affords me great pleas
ure to recur to the advancement that has
been made from the time of the colonies
one hundred years ago. We were then a
people numbering only three millions !;
now we number more than forty millions.
Then, industries were confined almost ex-
clusively to the tillage of the soil;
now, manufactures absorb much of
the labor of the country. Our lib
critics remain unimpaired. The bonds
men have been freed from slavery.
We have become possessed of the respect,
if not the friendship, of all civilized ma
tons. Our progress has been great in all
the arts. In science, agriculture, COM
merce, navigation, mining, mechanics, law,
medicine, ETC., and in general education
the progress is likewise encouraging. Our
thirteen States have become thirty-eight,
including Colorado, which has taken the
initiatory steps to become State, and
eight Territories, including the Indian
Territory and excluding Colorado; max
ing territory extending from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. On the south we have ex-
tended to the Gulf of Mexico, and on the
west from the Mississippi to the Pacific. One
hundred years ago the cotton gin. the steam
ship, the railroad, the telegraph, the reap
ing, sewing and modern printing machines
and numerous other inventions of scarcely
less value to our business and happiness
were entirely unknown. In 1776 manu-
factories scarcely existed even in name
in all this vast territory. In 1870 more
than two millions Of persons were en-
ployed in manufactures. producing more
than 81, 100000 of products in amount
annually nearly equal to our national
debt. From nearly the whole of the pop
ulation of 1776 being engaged in the one
occupation of agriculture, in 1870 so nu-
merous and diversified had become the oc-
cupation of our people that less than six
millions out of more than forty millions
were so engaged. The extraordinary eff
feet produced in our country by a resort to
diversified occupations has built market
for the products of fertile lands distant
from the seaboard and the markets of the
world.
PROGRESS IN MANUFACTURES, ETC.
The American system of locating various
and extensive manufactures next to the
pillow and the pasture, and adding connect
ing railroads and steamboats,, has produced
in our distant interior country result
noticeable by the intelligent portions of all
COIumGTCldl udIlOuS. Liz iuSGuutIy duQ
skill of American mechanics have been de-
monstrated at home and abroad in man.
ner most f1attering to their pride. But for
the extraordinary genius and ability of our
mechanics, the achievements of our agri-
cUlturists, manufacturers and trans
porters throughout the country would
have been impossible of attainment.
The progress of the miner has also
been great. Of coal, our production
was small; now, many millions of tons
are mined annually. So with iron, which
formed scarcely an appreciable part of our
products half century ago. We now
produce more than the world consumed at
the beginning of our national existence.
Lead, zinc and copper. from being articles
of import, we may expect to be large ex-
porters of in the near future. The deveI-
opment of gold and silver mines in the
United States and territories has not only
been remarkable but has had large infiu-
ence upon the business of all commercial
nations. Our merchants in the last hun
dred years have had success and have
established a reputation for enterprise,
sagacity, progress and integrity. unsur-
passed by peoples of older nationalities.
This ''good name" is not confined to their
homes, but goes out upon every sea and
into every port where commerce enters.
With equal pride we can point to our pro-
gress in all of the learned professions. r
GENERAL EDUCATIONAL MEASURES
URGED.
As we are now about to enter upon our
second centennial, commencing our man
hood as a nation, it is well to look back
upon tie past and study what will be best
to preserve and advance our future great
ness. From the fall of Adam for his
transgresslon to the present day, no ma
ton has ever been free from threatened
danger to its prosperity and happiness.
We should look to the dangers threatening
us and remedy them so far as lies in our
power. We are Republic whereof one
man is as good as another before the law.
the greatest importance that all should be
possessed of education and intelligence
enough to cast vote with right under
standing of its meaning. A large
association of ignorant men can
not for any considerable period oppose
successful resistance to tyranny and OPP
preston from the educated few, but will
inevitably sink into acquiescence to the
will of intelligence whether directed by
the demagogue or by priestcraft; hence
the education of the masses becomes of
the first necessity for the preservation Of
our institutions. They are worth pre-
serving because they have secured the
greatest good to the greatest portion of
the population of any form of government
yet devised. All other forms of govern
ment approach it just in proportion to the
general diffusion of education and indie
pendence of thought and action AS che
primary step, therefore, to our advance
ment in all that has marked our progress