Year: 1876

HAVING DecH IHNlIch WI NcIy o""'u nv


tice to deliver the opening address OF


this Snohomish county exhibition | shall
be compelled to limit my remarks to
such facts as am most familiar with,
leaving other kindred questions for the
learned gentlemen who shall follow me.


Permit me to congratulate you upon
the success which has attended your
present effort to display the capabilities
of your large and fertile county-a sue
cess which would doubtless have been
more marked had your resolution to hold
this fair been arrived at earlier than it
was. There is no more certain way to
develop the resources of any country
than such exhibitions as this which has
called us.togcther to-day; no more effect
i've mode of calling out the skill, inge-
nuity and ability of men than the emula-
ton which results from displaying their
productions side by side that all the
world may Judge of their comparative
merits The famous English exhibition


fifteen years ago gave an impulse to in
dustry and art which resulted first in the
Paris Exposition of 1867; next in the
great exhibition of Vienna in 1878, and
has eliminated during this centennial
year of our national history, in grand
gathering together of the productions OF
all the civilized and many of the half
civilized and barbarous nations of the
world. There may be found the tur-
baned Turk and the dark brOwed Afri-
can, the Mongolan fl ON distant China
and Japan, the proud Hindoo and the
restless grandson of the sea.girt isles
from the new continent of Oceana, the
Arab and the Russian, the men of all
European lands, our colonial neighbors
from over the northern boundary line,
and representatives of our sister repub-
lies of South America and Mexico. They
have each been caught by the all cnl-
bracing spirit of peaceful emulation and
are determined to out do each other in
the art and sciences which produce, or are
productions of the present state Of civil
ization. We live in an age of progress,
of restless mental and physical activity,
which is full of promise for the future of
our race. of this fact one of the strong
est proofs is found in those world re-
nowned exhibitions which distinguish
this epoch of human history. County
fairs, like this which has been inaugu-
rated here, unpretentious as they are,
and insignificant compared with that
which to-day fills every Philadelphians
heart with pride and has made all the
world do homage to our national prowess
in the struggle of harmony and good
will, are the feeders of the great worlds
exhibitions. AS in the domains of fnat-
ural law the springs make up the stream
lets, the streamlets feed the rivers,
and the rivers all run into the sea, to be
absorbed by the evaporation which forms
the clouds; then carried back to the hill
tops and plains, there to fall in snow
flake, and hail and rain, and supply once
more the springs whence the waters
again return through streamlet and river
to the sea; 50 these county exhibitions
feed the state fairs, they in turn produce
the national, and these culminate in eX-
hibitions Of more world wide renown
than the Olympic gatherings Of olden
times. Thence flows back an influence
which vibrates through state and county
fairs. Thus they oil act and react upon
each other, all being inter-dependent and
none being independent of the other.
If it be true that the great exhibitions of
London, Paris, Vienna and Philadelphia
have been mighty auxillaries in the
worlds progress in science, art and relig-
ion, it Is not less true that all other more
modest efforts in the same direction are
equally important according to their
magnitude. Hence we may congratulate
ourselves in view of the fact that this is
no mere no liday, good time in which
we are taking part, but q portion of
mighty movement whose power is felt all
over the world; that we are not only
helping to develop the resources of this
county of snohomish, but we are contrib.
uting our share towards the development
Of the world, that we are not building up
aittle corner of the Temple of Progress
for our own benefit alone but erecting q