The San Francisco call., 1910-03-13

Andrew Carnegie IN his address at
the banquet at the st. Francis hotel
last night said: -
Gentlemen: My first words must be
those OF thanks for the great honor
you have conferred upon me; the sec
ond must express my astonishment AT
the marvellous restoration or your CITY
which / have this day beheld. You
have broken all records. History has
nothing to compare with the task you
have performed in restoring a great
city by erecting a greater upon its
ruins.
We fortunately live in this, the
most stirring of all the ages of change
and progress. Never has the world
experienced a century of such prog
ress, and among all the changes in the
conditions of human life 1t may, we'll
be doubted whether any be greater
than that which is at work in the In
dustrial world today, to which most
place In manufactures and commerce
in our day equal to that which oc-
CURED in the days OF our fathers, by
which the few power looms owned by
the workers were superseded by the
steam loom, thousands concentrated
in one factory. Commerce also was
then IN its rudfmentary form. What
you would now regard as whole
sale order was unknown. Political
economists then believed that cost OF
transportation would prevent con-
centration OF production and compel
preservation of the day of small
things. creating small populations in
numerous villages and small towns.
This was thought the foreordained
condition of human life. Even Adam
Smith believed that the cost Of trans
portation would afford protection to
many small scattered producers-in-
ternational commerce upon a great
scale was unthought of; that Britain
could ever be dependent upon America
-x,6 A.-cT 20 @f4n IA Ar-7n fra ~,
republics for the most of its food
never entered into the minds of men
until the discovery by Black of Gias-
gov university of the expansive power
of heated water changed the condi-
tions of human life when utilized by
Watts in his steam engine-the great
est of all revolutionists Under the
magic of steam the world, hitherto SO
vast unexplored and disconnected as
far as exchange Of weighty products
was concerned, has in our day already
shrunk into a neighborhood. and
yearly shrinks more and more. Civ
ilized nations the world round are to-
day in instantaneous Communication,
and exchange of products is constant
ly increasing, teaching US the brother
hood of man and that we are all parts
of one great whole.
This interdependence of nations
must soon awaken men to the folly
of war and warships built to repel
imaginary foes. A league Of nations
others who persist In standing a1oof.
If any prove so foolish, that one or
two nations can no longer be allowed
to disturb the peace Of the world. in
which oil nations are so deeply in
terested. They must settle disputes. IL
international disputes they have, by
has come this concentration of pro-
duction and the international ex
change Of products, and there Is rap
idly coming, also in our day, second
development, as resistless as its. pre-
decessor, and also as certain to be
salutarv for'fhe race as a whole; that
is combination. and hence govern
mental regulation of industrials, of
which we already see the beginning in
the agreements and understandings
and common rates between competing
railways aud steamship lines. as also
in many branches of manufacture and
commerce. This movement alarms the
timid, but the wise men of our day
may be trusted TO see that out of this
nettle danger" we are to pluck the
flower safety" and that the new era
will prove to be another step in ad-
vance, regulated. as 1t must be, by laws
such as are found necessary for the