The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-07-06
UNDER CILDED DOMES.
Gath Tells Of Wonderful Sights at
the Worlds Fair.
Some of tho Interesting Things in Ma
chinery HalI-The Progress of Recent
Years-A Glance in the Trarspor-
tation Building.
COPYRIGHT, 1898. ]

standing amidst the worlds machinery
at Chicago I try to meet popular
skepticism, which may be partly in my
own mind, namely, that we do not
stick at anything long; that we resort
and improving things, and that the
quality of our goods is not up to the
foreign standard.
We probably are the only people who
make that complaint against ourselves.
1t is partly the result of college educa-
ton and foreign travel, which give a
smoker to the unworthy receiver of the
same, and this impaired to his father,
who having got rich in some way or
other feels that the world holds him
not at his own value. Mere wealth ac-
complishes but little in this country
There is too much of it, but wherever
it is helpful, kind and genuine, wealth
goes longer in this land than any
where.
AS rove among the American ma
chineries find that nearly every one
of them has a respectable origin in
time.
Looking around among the shipbuild-
ers who appear here from every coun-
try, I see Cramps, who have built SO
many Of our ships of war. They date
back to the first quarter of the CEN
fury, and built the first propeller tug
boat in this country, those little
things you see flying around our har-
bors with the strength of giants tow
ing the big steamships.
Many things we used to have in per-
lection we see no more. For instance,
paper collars in 1858 were being manu-
featured by the million. Bismarck
says that as late as the war of 1870
Burnside came to camp with another
American, who wore a paper collar.
But cellu1oid has replaced paper, and
linen and cotton have become SO cheap
that it hardly pays to wear the poor
article.
Here I see Disston's great saw ex-
hibit and am reminded of the time
when Disston sold his common saws
for profit of only seven cents on the
dozen in order to underbid the Eng
1ish, who then controlled our market.
Out of that manufacture the Disston
boys have erected from the everglades
of Florida a substantial empire upon
which they find fbers which are woven
into American carpets and other
things. That single saw industry has
built up a whole town, and no man in
Australia or the British colonies would
not prefer the American saw to for
eign one.
In point of fact, the cheap hardware
Of the present day is German and not
American. The German hardware is
made to undersell the English, while
we are going on in our own lines, keep
ing up the standard.
I look around among the machines
and think of Morris & Tasker, who
began their factory in Philadelphia in
1891, making gas pipes and other cast
ings. They also went down to old
Newcastle In course of time and made
it into something like city.
You know very well that the cotton
and calico mills of Providence grow
stronger and stronger every year, and
that nobody here thinks of buying for
eign cottons and prints. Well, they
were established by Samuel Slater,
who was born in 1893, and he was a
clerk of Arkwright, the inventor of the
cotton spinning machine, and saw
through their business from end to
end. In 1889, just after we had a ma
tional government, he saw a notice Of
grant of 800 for a man who would
introduce machine for carding cotton
So Slater started for America from
Derbyshire at the age of twenty-one.
He was unable to bring with him any
model or machine, as it was against
the English law, and he did not inform
his family of his destination for fear
he would be arrested on the ship as a
man taking out of the country valu-
able things.
Sitting down in New York in a mis-
cradle mill Moses Brown, of Provi-
dence, advertised for a manager.
Slater constructed the Arkwright set
of machines for the Browns at Paw
tuclxet, and cotton began to be manu-
featured by Amy, Brown and Slater
in 1898.
WSSo LII IIOp1OCaC0 SOul6 ClI10 ago
and found the foreman of the Gorham
works there to be fine old Birming-
ham Enghahnan, who had been in
this country since had been-that is
to say, more than half century.
English who come to this country al
most invariably set their faces against
the British laws, for they have cast
their lot in with the new condition of
things.
Here in the worlds fair are the
Jenkses, whom we used to hear of at
Holmesburg, Pa, and whose ancestor
was governor of Rhode Island prom
inent in the manufactures. These peo-
pie go back to colonial times, and have
been manufacturing ever since, both
in New England and Philadelphia.
Here is Robert Patterson's production.
He was an Irishman whose folks got
into the rebellion of 179S and he came
to America He had better have stuck
to his factories, for he made a bad
general in the civil war when he was