The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1899-08-10
NATIONAL PROGRESS.
Nothing Like the Commercial Growth
of the United States in the
History of Nations.

In an address before the New York
Press association, at its forty-third an
nual meeting recently, Mr.. George H.
Daniels, general passenger agent of the
New York Central & Hudson River rail-
road, touched upon the effects of the
late war with Spain upon our commerce
| and industries in the following impress
sive words:
Zone of the remarkable statements of
| Mr.. Mulhall, the British statistician, in
his work on The Wealth of Nations,
was this: If we take a survey of man
kind, in ancient or modern times, as re-
CARDS the physical, mechanical and in
tellectual force of nations, we find moth
ing to compare with the United States,
in this present year, 1885,
Mr.. MulhaIl proved by his statistics
that the working power of single per-
son in the United States was twice that
| of a German or Frenchman, more than
three times that of an Austrian and
| five times that of an Italian. He said
| the United States was then the richest
country in the world, its wealth exceed
ing that of Great Britain by IS per
cent, and added that in the history of
the human race no nation ever+&efore
possessed forty-one millions OF instruct
ed citizens.
should Mr. Mulhall revise his fig
ures to-day, the differences would all be
in favor of the United States, for in
The past twelve months we have dem.
onstrated the superiority of our manu-
facturers in every direction, and our
ability to cope successfully with ques-
tons which have heretofore been
handled exclusively by the older ma
tons is recognized by all the world.
1.-The four years that have inter
vened between the time of your meet
ing at Lake George and to-day have
been years of great events and achieve
ments.
Il said at the Lake George meeting
that one of the inevitable results OF
the war between Japan and China
would be the opening to the commerce
of the world of fields heretofore I'm.
known, perhaps the richest on the
globe and in urging the members OF
the New York Press association to dc
everything in their power to secure tc
the United States portion of the great
commerce to be developed between the
western nations and these twooldcou
iris of the world, l asked three ques.
tions:
shall the grain in China and Japan
| I. l ii /, ,f,,,
| tured along the lines of the New York
| Central, or will the manufacturers OF
England and Germany supply them?
Shall the fires in Yokohama and
| Tientsin be eXtinguished with engines
built at Seneca Falls, or will France
and England send their fire engines to
| Japan and China?
will the locomotives, TO haul the
fast mail trains between Yokohama aud
the interior of Japan and through the
rich valley of China, be built CT AS.ehe-
nectady or Dunkirk, or will our Nori-
entail friends and neighbors in the
Pacific buy them of our English cous-
| ins?'
Il predicted that active efforts to-
ward the extension of American COM
merce by commercial bodies, supported
| by a liberal and broad-minded policy
on the part of our government, would
| undoubtedly secure to the United States
the blessings that come from a great
and varied commerce, and | said that
| the New York Press association, and
similar associations all over the coun-
try, could stimulate public spirit that
would insure the important results out
| lined.
at that time we had no idea that a
war between one of the old nations of
the earth and our young republic would
| be fought; at that time we had no idea
| that American manufacturers would be
furnishing locomotives TO the English
railroads, as well as japanese, and no
one thought four years ago that Amer
lean bridge builders would go into the
open market and successfully compete
| for the building of great steel bridge
in Egypt; nor that in so brief a time
American engineers would be building
railroads into the interior of China from
the most important seaports and fur
nishing locomotives by the score to
nearly every country on the globe.
sin letter from a friend in Toxic,
Japan, written only short time ago,
there was this significant sentence:
| You will be interested in knowing that
l have hanging on the wall of my Of
flee a framed picture of your Empire
State Express, and we expect in the
near future to be hauling Japanese
Empire Express with an American
locomotive They have now in Japan
nearly 100 locomotives that asSre built
in the United States. In Russia they
have over 400 of our locomotives, and
nearly every railroad in Great Britain
has ordered locomotives from this coun-
try since the beginning of the war with
| Spain.
| I'm this connection it will be interest
ing to note in passing that the second
American locomotive was built at the
| West Point foundry near Cold Spring,
on the Hudson river, and was called the
/ Pest Friend, and from that day to this
the locomotive has been one of the best
| friends of all our people.