95 



crowded cities would find constant work and fair compensation, or 

 would themselves become farmers, cultivating their own soil, sup- 

 porting themselves and their families, and gradually but surely 

 accumulating wealth, and surrounding themselves with all the com- 

 forts and blessings of a refined civilization. The owners of small 

 farms, who generally labor themselves, pay no rent, so that nearly 

 the whole of their products remain to themselves as the reward of 

 their labor. This class of farmers can afford to pay high wages to 

 farm hands, because they are more than repaid by their increased 

 products. The high wages, if land could be obtained at cheap rates, 

 would soon enable the laborer himself to become a proprietor and a 

 competitor in the labor market, and this competition would force 

 the rate of wages to a high figure, for then abundant crops would 

 warrant increase in expenditure. 



Our young, happy, prosperous commonwealth, robed in republican 

 simplicity, modest and unpretending, cherishing the arts and sci- 

 ences, gradually growing in wealth, honor, and prosperity, cultivating 

 a pure, enlightened, Christian civilization, has attained a proud posi- 

 tion among the sister States of the American Union. 



With all her elements of greatness and grandeur, her gallant sons, 

 her lovely women, her working men, her cosy cottages, her stately 

 mansions, her happy homes, her lovely daughters, her comely mat- 

 rons, her churches, her colleges and public schools, her looms and 

 anvils, her mechanics and artizans, her thrifty, intelligent, enter- 

 prising farmers, all speak in eloquent and thrilling tones of her 

 present importance and her future greatness. Her swift coursers of 

 internal trade whizzing through valley and canon, over hill-top and 

 mountain, rousing dreamy nature and awakening glad echoes all 

 over the land, annihilating space and bringing us in daily inter- 

 course with the most remote sections of tha^State. The vivid light- 

 ning, pinned to the iron cord, marks its fiery track along the wires, 

 flashing intelligence from ocean to ocean, plunging through the briny 

 waves and speaking to millions beyond the sea. Her lowing herds 

 and bleating flocks ; her vine-clad hills ; her vine-yards, orchards, and 

 her golden grain, waving in rich luxuriance to gladden the heart of 

 the husbandman; staunch merchantmen, that skim the waves of 

 every sea, fold their broad, white wings within the Golden Gate; 

 the keen ring of the hammer, the roar of the forge, and the buzz of 

 the saw, the stalwart arm of enterprise delving in the mountain side, 

 yielding up the precious ores, rewarding the hardy sons of toil; her 

 statesmen faithfully guarding her rights, her liberties, and her Con- 

 stitution ; her citizen-soldiery, ever read}' to defend her honors ; a 

 fearless, independent press, the faithful sentinel on the watch-tower 

 of liberty, ever ready to sound the alarm and to arrest aggression 

 upon the rights and liberties of the people — all attest her glory and 

 her enterprise, her prosperity and safety, and proclaim her the 

 " Queen " of States, the nursery of the arts and sciences, the pro- 

 moter of industries, the home of luxury and refinement, and the 

 cornucopia of the world. 



