The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-12-07

lheCl tOAC Will bnC SOluS ohO SOAhihS
of all the traffic of the worlds seas.
If nature did not foresee the need of
this great harbor for the final devel-
opment of cosmopolitan trade it is in
deed s. singular coincidence that here,
where it ie most needed, this fine har
Dor should have happened to be.
Note the significance of its situation:
450 miles nearer the Orient than the
harbor of San Francisco, and whole
days journey nearer New York and
Boston. The logic is conclusive.
There at the head of navigation on
Puget Sound the next fifty years
must see the building of a giant city.
And indeed the foundations are al
ready laid. On the shores of Com
mencement Bay, the farthest inland
navigable waters of the Sound, in 13
years time, magic city has arisen.
From little logging camp and trad
ing point in 1882 it has grown to
city of SO, 900 souls. A great trans
continental railway system has its ter
minals here and meets feet of five
trans-Paciic steamers engaged ex-
clusively in Oriental trade. A mag
nificent waterfront of over twenty
miles already has upwards of $10,-
100000 of permanent Improvements
upon it. Over its wharves an Orient
al traffic of $50,OOO,OOO per year is
being done, while vessels from all
parts of the world are arriving and
departing every week. As illustrat-
ing something of what the future of
Puget Sound must be it should be
known that $4,000 tons, or 85 per
cent of all the tea entering the United
States during the past season came
over the wharves of Tacoma and
reached the markets of the East and
West over the Northern Pacific Rail-
way. San Francisco already realizes
that the doom of her commercial su-
premacy on the Pacific Coast has
been sealed, and much to her chagrin
she receives teas, sugars, silks, ETC.,
from Japan and China via Puget
Sound and Tacoma. AS if adding to
the inevitableness of her future great
ness, contiguous to Puget Sound lie
the greatest mineral and timber re-
sources of our country. Gold, silver,
iron, lead and copper found in inesti-
mable abundance; millions of acres of
magnificent timber, which is already
being demanded in the ship yards of
England and Scotland; wheat fields
of Eastern Washington, surprising
in yields the famous Dakota acres,
and the rich farming lands of the
Yakima and Palouse valleys, are i'm
mediate resources which of themsel-
yes have built dozen Or more of our
Eastern and middle cities. But above
and beyond these considerations lies
the fact that at the head of naviga-
tion on the worlds greatest harbor,
on the line of least resistance around
the globe, with the resources of the
Occident behind it and the needs of
the Orient before it, there must be
great commercial distributing point,
a city in whose institutions the busi-
of the world will be cared for.
Seated in the palatial Pacific Ex-
press of the Northern Pacific Rail
way, ticketed to San Francisco via
Puget Sound with stop-over at Ia
coma, one is situated to see, not alone
some Of the grandest scenery of two
hemispheres, but the beginnings of
the most important commercial meet
ing points of the world. The East
erner will be ill-prepared to witness
the solidity and business enterprise
which have gone into the building of
this city of a dozen years. Accus-
toned to discount everything that
emanates from the West he has little
dreamed of what has already been
accomplished In the way of solid,
business development on the border
line between the two great commercial
hemispheres. America will always
have her Boston with her libra
ries, her culture and her priceless
historical associations, back to which
her sons will ever love to come. But
she has not yet built all her great
cities, one of which, by the trend Of
trade and the logic of situation,
must be on Puget Sound. Already
the call has gone forth for an Occi
dental Oriental Fair at Tacoma in
1900 1t is indeed fitting place to
hold such fair, and the beginning
of new century, in which immense
commercial relations will be built up
between our country and our Oriental
neighbors, is most auspicious time
for such gathering of mutual inter