The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-11-29

for this country-over one hundred and
eighty thousand miles of railroad III the
United States; in one year over billion
dollars received from passengers and
freight; White mountains, Allegheny
mountains, Rocky Mountains, Sierra Ne
vadas, bowling to the iron yoke; all the
rolling stock of New York Central,
Erie, Pennsylvania, Michigan Central,
Georgia, Great Southern, Union Pacific
and all the other wheels of the tens Of
thousands Of freight cars, wrecking cars,
cabooses, drawing room cars, sleeping
cars, passenger cars, of all the accommO-
dation, express and special trains, started
by the wheel Of the grotesque locomotive
that l saw at Doncaster. For what it
has done for all Christendom l calculate
in the language Of the text, 20 wheel"
The Miracle of the Age.
While the world has been rolling on
the eight wheels of the rail car or the
four wheels of the carriage or the two
wheels of the gig it was not until 1876,
at the Centennial exposition at Philadel-
phia, that the miracle of the nineteenth
century rolled in-the bicycle. The world
could not believe it's own eyes, and not
until quite far on in the eighties were
the continents enchanted with the whirl
ing, flashing, dominating spectacle of a
machine that was to do so much for the
pleasure, the business, the health and the
profit of nations. The world had needed
it for 5000 years. Mans slowness Of
locomotion was mystery. Was it Of
| more Importance that the reindeer or the
eagle rapidly exchanged jungles or crags
than that man should get swiftly from
place to place? Was the business of the
bird or the roebuck more urgent than
that of the incarnated immortal? No.
At last we have the Obliteration Of dis
tances by pneumatic tire. At last we
have wings. And what has this inven-
ton done for woman? The cynics and
constitutional GROWERS would deny her
this emancipation and say, "What better
| exercise can she have than a broom or a
| buster or a chnrn or rocking a cradle or
| running up and down stairs or a walk to
church with a prayer book under her
arm = And they rather rejoice to find
| her disabled with broken pedal or pune
tured tire. But all sensible people who
know the tonic of fresh air and the
health in deep respiration and the awak-
ening Of disused muscles and the exhil-
aration Of velocity will rejoice that wife
and mother and daughter may have this
new recreation.
| The Printing Press.
Fourthly, look into the literary world
and see what the wheel has accomplish
4 ed. am more astounded with this than
anything that has preceded. Behold the
almost miraculous printing press! Do
you not feel the ground shake with the
machinery Of the New York, Brooklyn,
Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and
western papers? Some of us remember
when the hand ink roller was run over
the cylinder and by great haste 800
copies of the village newspaper were is
sued in one day and no lives lost. But
invention has crowded invention, and
wheel jostled wheel, stereotyping, cleo
trotyping, taking their places. Benja-
min Franklin's press giving way to the
Lord Stanhope press, and the Washing
ton press and the Victory press and the
Hoe perfecting press have been set up.
| Together with the newspapers comes the
publication of innumerable books of his
tory of poetry, of romance, Of art, of
travel, of biography. Of religion, diction-
aries, encyclopedias and Bibles. Some
of these presses send forth the most &C
cursed stuff, but the good predominates.
| Turn on with wider sweep and greater
velocity, o wheel-wheel of light, wheel
of civilization, wheel of Christianity,
wheel of divine momentum!
On those four wheels-that of the sew
ing machine, that of the reaper that of
the railroad locomotive, that of the print
ing press-the world has moved up to its
present prosperity. ] call on you to thank
| God for the triumphs of machinery as
seen in our home comforts and added
national grandeur.
Products of the Mines.
This is iron, this is coal, the iron rep
resenting a vast yield, our country send
ing forth one year 100000 tons of it. the
coal representing 100000 square miles of
it, the iron prying out the coal, the coal
smelling the iron. This is silver, silver
from Colorado and Nevada, those places
able yet to yield silver napkin rings and
silver knives and silver casters and sill
yer platters for all our people. Here is
mica from the quarries of New Hamp-
shire. How beautiful it looks in the sun
light! Here is copper from Lake Supe-
rior, so heavy l dare not lift it. Here
is gold from Virginia and Georgia. Here
dpplcS, yOu lIluh VI tIc lOuS
winter nights of your boyhood, when the
neighbors came in, and you had apples
and hickory nuts and cider. Here is
corn from New Jersey, State of Theo-
dore Frelinghuysen and William L. Day
ton and Samuel l.. Southard-the State
of New Jersey, sometimes caricatured by
people who are mad because they were
not fortunate enough to have been born
there. Here are lemons and oranges.
Here are bananas from Florida. What
magnificent growth this isl What a
leaf, implying shadow, comfort and ref
/ uge!
I look around me on the imaginary
platform, and it seems as if the waves Of
agricultural, meteorological, genealogical
wealth dash to the platform, and there
are four beautiful beings that walk in,
and they are all garlanded, and one is
garlanded with wheat and blossoms of
snow, and / find she is the North. And
another comes in, and her brow is gar
landed with rice and blossoms of magno-
liza, and l find she is the South, and an
other comes in, and | find she is gar