The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1911-02-03
[To BE Continued
Uncle Sans Material Wealth.

Two hundred and ninety-nine years
ago this month on the cold, bleak
shores Of Cape Cod Bay, Mass, the in
treped little band OF passengers who
reverently diembarked there from the
Mayfiower two months before were bat
Ting against the pangs OF hunger and
tormented by the menace of ultimate
starvation.
Out of that same harbor for the last
three months half a hundred huge
sips weighed down with grain have
gone forth to feed and nourish the
world.
There are now 81, 900 900 Of us where
there were but 103 in 1920. Out OF the
virgin soil of the wilderness that once
stretched westward from Cape Cod to
the Pacific seaboard have sprung this
year agricultural products worth S.
000,000,000 record never before at
tanned by any single nation in the
world in any one year.
Our national wealth has grown from
$3.50 100000 in 1871 to the prodigious
sum OF $125, 00O, 00O, 900 on January LIST
last-twfce that of the United Kingdom
OF Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland
and three times that of either France
or Germany, our three closest competi-
tors Despite our enormous growth in
population we now have a per capita
Of ST. 1853 where we had but $183 in
1871. We are the worlds greatest
manufacturers as we'll as its most ex-
tensive and richest agriculturists. We
mine more coal and extract more gold,
silver, copper, and iron out of the
ground than any two countries in the
universe. We are prosperous beyond
the most extrayagant picture ever
painted in fancy by fertile human i'm
agination. Unable to prOfitably en-
ploy all our own capital at home, we
use our surplus millions to finance
tobacco plantations in Portico Rico and
Philippines, sugar plantations in Cuba,
coffee plantations in Brazil and rubber
plantations in British Guiana and thus
add to our rapidly accommodating rev.
enues.
Favored by nature. blessed by Provi-
dence, admired by the. world, every
body's friend and nobody's vowed en-
envy, endowed with marvellous physi-
cal vigor, animated with such enter
prises as no other nation has ever
shown, fiattered and toasted the world
over, we should be supremacy happy,
But we amt.
We fret and fume because dys-
peptic railroad president talks pessi-
mistically of the future, as If he was
inspired or had any better opportunity
of foreseeing things in advance of their
advent than the rest of the community
who make no pretense to being pre-
scient
Pessimism never declared dividend
or built two houses where there was
one before. Like the flea on the dog
the pessimist is inevitable. While his
persistent propensity Of reminding us
OF his presence may internationally an
noy and harrass, when all is said and
done, he cuts little ice. How literally
true this is was never before more
forcibly or Interestingly emphasized
than in the figures of our national ma
terial pre-eminence now available. He
indeed must be queer American who
i'm the contemplation of the stupendous
development OF his country and its
epochal achievements does not feel a
sense of patriotic exaltation as he reads
and studies the significance of the
record of it's growth and transcending
accomplishments since that intrepid
little band of pilgrims braved the ter
rors Of the sea to plant their standard
on our then inhOspitable shores.