The Saint Paul globe., 1904-01-14
THURSDAY, JAN. IA, 1904.
THE MASTERY OF MARKETS.

The mastery address delivered yes
terday by President James J. Hill, of
the Great Northern, before the State
Agricultural society, is a complete
and comprehensive survey of the mar
ket situation as it confronts the people
of the whole country today, with spe
cial application to the people of the
Northwest. 1t has immense value as
the conclusion of a man to whom the
problems presented have been life
study, and who combines the power
to grasp them in their most abstruse
and intricate relations and then to link
them to and interpret them by the
common facts Of life as they are known
to the man who must wrest his living
from the SOIL
The question for the nation and the
question for the Northwest is one of
industry at home and an adequate
market abroad. We must rely for all
time upon the product of the field. That
is the great resource of the Northwest,
the elemental resource Of nearly the
whole industrial world. But this prod
uct is valuable only as it can meet
demand by finding a market. Long
ago the home demand became INSULT
cient, and today we are racing for life
and death with the other nations for
trade that will absorb our surplus
products Within a few years, when
some of our best customers will be
turned over to our most dangerous
rivals by the adoption of a scheme Of
reciprocal tariffs between Great Brit
ain and her colonies, the problem will
be a stern one.
The one opening for extension, the
one market for our products in which
lies a hope that might become a re-
The elimination of foresight, Of years
of patient planning and labor, of the
upbuilding of gigantic system Of
transportation, is the capture and con-
troll of that new market. If they who
conceive of this as a controlling fact
are "dreamers," they at least, as Mr..
Hill puts it, dream true" 1t has been
the crowning labor of his life, as it will
remain his monument, that he antici-
pated the emergency and prepared the
mighty machinery that will direct a
worlds commerce responsive to our
will.
All this IS set forth in the address in
words so clear that the simplest farmer
in the audience could not fail to un-
derstand them or miss a link in the
mighty chain that finds its completion
in low freight rate, an expanded
trade, market of unmeasured possi-
bilities and an outlook upon prosper
ity which, if not closed, may be for
generations instead Of years. It is for
today to determine whether the agen-
cies that have been prepared shall be
permitted to do the work that called
them into being, or shall be vexed,
hampered, thwarted- and turned from
their benign purpose. 1t is the interest
and the future of the people as a whole,
of the nations trade, of every tfller of
the soil and every child now growing
up on the prairie, not that of any cor
poration or of any capitalist that is at
stake.
The time has surely come for the
people to shake themselves free from
the trammels of prejudice, to turn a
deaf ear to the interested appeals of
the demagogue and to judge this mat
ter for themselves. Already, as we may
gather from some of the statistics con-
tanned in this address, Minnesota has
suffered somewhat in comparison with
her neighbor from too much devotion