Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-05-06


commissions under our feet. We rev.
erently return thanks to Almighty
/ God for the past, and with confiden-
tial and hopeful promise march upon
sure ground toward the future. These
simple facts of these hundred years
paralyze the imagination, and we
contemplate the vast accumulations
of the century with awe and pride.
Our population has grown from four
to sixty-five millions. It's center
moving westward five hundred miles
since 1889, is eloquent with the found
/ ing of cities and the birth of states.
New settlements, clearing the forests
and subduing the prairies, and add
ing four millions to the few thous-
ands of farms which were the sup
port of Washington's republic, create
one of the great granaries of the
world and open exhaustless reservoirs
of national wealth.
The infant industries, which the
! first act of our first administration
sought to encourage, now give re-
munerative employment to more peo-
pie than inhabited the republic at the
beginning of Washington's presiden-
cy. The grand total of their annual
output of seven thousand millions Of
dollars in value places the United
States first among the manufacturing
countries of the earth. These hun
dred years Of development under ia
voring political conditions have bro't
the sum of our national wealth to
figure which has passed the results
of a thousand years for the mother
land herself, otherwise the richest Of
modern empires.
During this generation, a civil war
of unequalIed magnitude caused the
expenditure and loss of eight thous-
and millions of dollars, and killed
six hundred thousand and permanent
ly disabled over a million young men,
and yet the impetuous progress of
the North and the marvellous indus
trial development of the new and free
South have obliterated the evidence
of destruction, and made the war a
memory, and have stimulated produc-
tion until our annual surplus nearly
equals that of England, France and
Germany combined.
This realism Of material prosperity,
surprising the widest creation of the
romancers who have astonished and
delighted mankind, would be full of
danger for the present and menace
for the future, if the virtue, intelli-
gence and independence of the peo-
pie were not equal to the wise regu-
lation of its uses and the stern pre-
vention of its abuses. But following
the growth and power of the great
factors whose aggregation of capital
made possible the tremendous pace
of the settlement of our national do
main, the building of our great cities
and the opening of the lines of COM
munication which have unified our
country and created our resources,
have come national and state legisla-
ton and supervision. Twenty mill
ions, vast majority of our people of
intelligent age, acknowledging the
authority of their several churches,
twelve millions of children in COM
mon schools, 345 universities and col
leges for the higher education of men
and 200 for women, 40 institutions
of learning for science, law medicine
and theology, are the despair of the
scoffer and the demagogue, and the
firm support of civilization and liber-
ty. The constitution during all this
time has been amended only upon
the lines laid down in the original
instrument.
THE PRESIDENT 5 SPEECH.
F'ellOl0 Citizens My task to-day
is of very eXacting character, and
makes it quite impossible that I
should deliver an address upon this
occasion. Foreseeing this, l early
notified your committee that the pro-
gram must contain no address by me-
The selection of Mr.. Depew as orator
of this occasion made further speech
not only difficult but super1uous.
Applause. He has met the demand
of this great occasion on its own high
level. He has brought before us in
cidents and lessons of the first inaug-
uration of Washington. We seem to
have been a part of that admiring and
almost worshiping throng that filled
these streets one hundred years ago.
We have come into the serious, but
inspiring presence of Washington.
Applause. He was the incarnation
of duty, and he teaches us to-day the
great lessons that those who would
associate their names with events that
shall outlive the century can only do
so by high conservation to duty.
Applause. Self-seeking has no
public observance or anniversary.
Washington seemed to come to the
discharge of his high place impressed
with a sense of his unfamiliaritv with
these new calls upon him, modestly
doubtful of his own ability and trust
ing implicitly in the sustaining help
fulness and grace of that God who
rules the world, presides in the coun-
ellis of nations and is able to supply
every human demand. We have made
marvellous progress in material things,
huf tbo arI anIupipn Sbaf af