The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-05-01
DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI
Continued from First Page.)

7 am glad to be in this commercial city,
to be the guest of its business and rep
resentative men in a city whose com
mercial integrity has never been CUES
toned, whose business prudence and
Sagaclty guided it through the storm Of
panic in 1885, and in the years follow
ing, without business collapse or the
failure OF a bank
i am glad to live in country that
produces three-fourrhs of all the cotton
that is produced in the world and to be
guest of the city that has the greatest
inland cotton market anywhere under
the sun. i congratulate this city on its
marvellous progress and development in
the last decade No city in the union
of its size has made greater advance.
From $4,000 in 1890 you have leaped to
more than 100000 in 1900. But / will not
call attention to the fact that some Of
that addition may be accounted for by
an extension of your limits. by an act
Of the legislature, and without the con-
sent of the governed.
This city, with its magnificent river
with its early history and environ
ments, could not fail to have the true
instinct of commerce. You were born
to commerce here in the city of Mem
phis. 1t was your early training. You
saw the ships go with your products
and the ships return with the products
of other countries for your use and
comfort You early discerned the pos
sibility Of this great republic and you
have been in the vanguard of advance
ment and progress and expansion from
the earliest years oil your history. You
early learned that naxims were not as
profitable as markets. and that the only
way to get markets was to encOurag e
commerce and transportation by sea
and by land. The state of Tennessee
shares in the sentiment and spirit of the
people of Men phis, and on the first of
December, 1877. the legislature of this
state, by joint resolution instructed its
senators and members in the congress
aflae TO rraf, Fr.-~~
transcontinenta line to the Pacific
coast to be aided by the government of
the United States. In the preamble of
that resolution is the spirit and the pur-
pose of the American people today. It
has been nowhere better explained and
let me read it to YOU
Whereas, the construction of a rail-
road across the continent of North
America would make the United States
the greatest highway between Europe
and the populOuS and wealthy empire of
ASIA would greatly facilitate our inter
course with those regions, would tend to
consolidate our union; would connect
and. bind Oregon and the Pacific coast
70 us; and would give a fresh impulse to
cur great agricultural, manufacture and
commercial interests; and whereas. this
stupendous undertaking can be accom-
pished and the public lands constitute
a fund appropriate for defrayine the ex-
penses Of such an undertaking. as q
small part of them would furnish the
means. and the value Of the remainder
would be greatly enhanced thereby, and
whereas. the plan OF Asa Whitney of
New York, in its great outlines is in
our opinion the only practicable scheme
for the accomplishment of this great
undertaking, which should be com
uenced as soon as practicable
- Therefore. resolved by the general
assembly of the state of Tennessee that
they approve OF Mr.. Whitney's plans as
explained by himself to them of con-
structing a railway from Michigan to
the Pacific coast
That was on the first day of Deem
bar, 1847, flfty-fOur years ago Three
years af&erWard the legislature then as
Hemh1ed, not approving OF this particu-