The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-28

plies, the iron takes nobler properties upon
that would lately have staggered
mems thoughts, It becomes the kngliest instru
ment of peoples for snbduing the earth. Things
dainty and things mighty are fashioned from 1t
in equal abundance-gun-carriage and cannon,
with the solid castings on which they restItne
largest castings and heaviest plates as well us
wheel and axle and rail, as well az screw or ME
or saw. 1T is shaped INTO the hulls OF snips. IL
Ia built alike into column and truss and balcony,
and the press, and the boiler from
whose fierce and uutIriEg heart their force
Is supplied it is equally apt; while as
drawn into delicate wires, 1t is coiled into
springs, woven into gauze, sharpened into nee
dies, twisted into ropes it is made to yield mu-
sic in all our homes; electric currents are sent
upon it along our streets, around the world; 1t
enables us to talk with correspondents afar or
1t Is built, as before our eyes, into the new ana
noble causeways of pleasure ana ommerce:
hardly think that we yet appreciate the signlnca-
ton of this change which has passed upon iron.
It Is the industrial victory of the century not to
have heaped the extracted gold in higher piles,
Or'to have crowded the bursting vaults with accu-
mulating silver, but to have conferred, by the
sovereign touch Of scientific inv entiOn he&lDlty,
grace, variety of use. almost ethereal and
spiritual virtue on this stubbornest of metals.
the Indications of physical achievement In the
future, thus inaugurated, outrun the compass OF
human thought.
After referring to the marvellous growth of
New York and Brooklyn, DR.. Storrs went on
to say
The child watches, in happy wonder, the
swelling film OF soapy water into whose ride
scent globe he has blown the speck from the
bowl OF the pipe But this amazing develop
ment around us Is not OF airy and vanishing
films. IL is solidly constructed, in marble and
brick, in stone aud iron, while the proportions
to which iJ has sweled surpass precedent aud
reDuke the timidity of the bodest prediction.
But that which has bnit iJ has been simply the
industry, manifold, constant, going on in these
cities, TO which peace offers incentive and room.
Their future advancement is to come in like
manner; not through prestige derived from
their history; not by the gradual increments OF
their wealth. already collected; not by the riches
which they pull to themselves from other cities
and distant coasts not even from their beautiful
fortune of location; but by prosperous manu-
lectures prosecuted in them; by the traffic which
radiates over the country; by the foreign COM
seeks this harbOr. Each railway whose rapid
wheels roll hither from East West,
from North South, from the rocks
of Newfoundland or the copper deposits of Lake
Superior, from the orange groves of Florida, the
Louisiana bayOus, the silver ridges of the West,
the Golden Gate, gives Its guarantee OF growth
to the still young metropolis. On tho cotton
fields OF the South and lis sugar plantations; on
coal mines and iron mines; on the lakes which
winter roofs with ice, and from which drips
freshing GOODNESS through our summer; on fish
cries, factories, wheat-fields, pine forests; on
meadows wealthy with grains or grass, and
orchards bending beneath their burdens this en-
larginE prosperity must be mamtained and on
the steamships, and the telegraph lines which
Intervene us with all the world. The swart
miner must do his part for 1t; the ingenious
workman, in whatever departments; the plOw
man in the field, and the fisherman on the banks;
the man of science, putting nature to the Ques-
tiOn; the labOrer with no other capital than his
MUSCLE the sailor on the sea, wherever COM
merce opens IT'S wings. Our arch of triumph
ia therefore fifty this bridge of peace. Our
BradenhHrg Gate, bearing on its summit
car of military victory. is this great work of in
dustrial skill. IL stands not like the arch famous
at Milan, outside the city, but in the midst of
these united and busy populations. And il the
tranquil public order winch it celebrates and
prefigures shall continue years proceed, not
London itself century hence Will surnass the
compass of this united city by the sea, in which
all civilized nations OF mankind have already
their many representatives, and TO which the
world shall pay an increasing annual tribute.
And so the last suggestion comes which the
hour presents and of which time allows the ex-
preston. 1t was not to an American mind that
owed the monitor of which have spoken,
Swedish army, and representing that brave ma
tiOnallty. 1t is not to an American mind that
the scheme of construction carried out in This
bridge Is to be ascrI0ed, but to one representing
the German peoples, who in such enrichng and
fruitful multitudes have found here their
home. American enterprise, American money,
devised, and much no doubt, of the labor which
wrought them came from afar. Local and par
ticular as is the work, therefore, it represents
that fellowship of the nations which is more and
more prominently q fact of our times, and which
gives to these cities incessant augmentation.
When, by and by on yOnder island, the majestic
French statue of Liberty shall stand, holding in
its hand the radiant crown of electric flames,
and answering by them to those brilliant
along this cauSeway, our beautiful bay will have
taken what specially illuminated and adorns it
from central and from western Europe. The
distant lands from which oceans divide us,
though we touch them each moment with the
fingers of the telegraph, will have set their CON
spicuous double crown on the head OF our har-
Dor. The alliances of nations, the peace of the
world, will seem to find llustrious prediction In
such superb and novel regalia.