The Forrest City times., 1899-07-14
NATIONAL PROGRESS
Nothing Like the Comme rcinl Growth of the United States in the
 History of Nations.

nual meeting recently, Mr. GeOrge Ii. Daniels. general passenger agent of the New York Central X 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:
 One of the remarkable statements of
 Mir. 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- gards the physical, mechanical and in- tellectual force of nations, we find noth-
 ing to compare with the United States,
 in this present year, 1895
 MT. Mulhall proved by his statistics that the working power of single per
 son in the United States was twice that of 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, it's wealth exceed ing that of Great Britain by 8 per
 cent, and added that in the history of the human race no nation ever before possessed forty-one millions of instruct ed citizens.
 Should Mir. 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- lecturers in every direction, and our ability to cope successfully with ques- tions which have heretofore been handled exclusively by the older na- tions is recognized by all the world 'The four years that have inter- vened between the time of your meet ing at Lake eGorge and to-day have been years of great events and achieve
 ments.
 ''I 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 un- known, perhaps the richest on the glObe,' and in urging the members of the New York Press association to do everything in their power to secure to the United States portion of the great commerce to be developed between the western nations and these two old coun iris of the world, 1 asked three ques- tions:
 "'Shall the grain in China and Japan be harvested by machines manufac- 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 and the interior of Japan and through the rich valley of China, be built at Sche- nectady or Dunkirk, or will our ori- ental friends and neighbors in the Pacific buy them of our English cous- ins?'
 II 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 l undoubtedly secure to the United States the blessings that come from great | and varied commerce, and 1 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 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 ican bridge builders would go into the open market and successfully compete
 for the building of a 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.
 .'In a letter from a friend in Tokio,
 Japan, written only short time ago,
 there was this significant sentence: |
 I have hanging on the wall of my of
 flee framed picture of your Empire
 State Express, and we expect in the
 aear future to be hauling a Japanese
 Empire Express with an American
 locomotive.' They have now in Japan
 nearly 100 locomotives that were 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.
 ''ln 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
 Best Friend. and from that day to this
 the locomotive has been one of the best
 friends of all our people.
 Prince Michel Hill<off, imperial min I