INDUSTRIES OF THE WEST 369 



other ports, or how much it contributes to swell the enormous 

 aggregate that goes hence from the Atlantic seaboard. The 

 banks within the same territory hold a billion and a half 

 deposits, and their clearings exceed $15,000,000,000. In 1892, 

 for the first time in our history, individual deposits in national 

 banks within the grain growing states exceeded the value of 

 wheat and corn sold from the farm. Now, individual deposits 

 in the same class of banks exceed by one hundred per cent the 

 value of these cereals disposed of by the producers thereof. 

 Manifestly the banks of the eastern metropolis hold more 

 western money than they have on deposit in western banks, 

 but it is equally true that the east has contributed generously 

 to western industries and enterprises; another evidence 

 that our country is too small, or people too few, and have too 

 much in common to permit even imaginary lines to divide our 

 commercial and industrial interests. 



It is easy to predict great things. It would be, indeed, 

 pleasant pastime to picture the states that now produce the 

 iron, manufacturing the same ; the states that cut the lumber, 

 consuming it; and the states that grow the wool, having as 

 they do the purest water for its cleaning, coal in abundance, 

 and power in literal torrents, weaving the finest cloths, as well 

 as flannels, for the clothing of a hundred million of our own 

 people and for the comfort of many nations beyond. But I 

 am not so much interested in the particular location where 

 this work shall be done, as I am in the inauguration of such 

 means and policies as shall open the way for yet increased 

 American activities. The Pacific ocean is ours, and the gulf 

 is ours. Let those join hands, not across, nor over, but 

 through the isthmus, and the Atlantic shall be ours.^ Dis- 

 cover means for informing our people what distant portions of 

 the world require, and it will be produced. With the same 

 fostering that other nations afford, American ships will carry 

 the product of our mines, and of our farms, our fields, our 

 folds, and our factories, beneath all skies and into all ports, 

 and America will become the workshop of the world, where he 

 who seeks to sell his labor shall find abundant employment, 

 and he who employs labor shall find abundant market, thereby 

 contributing to the comfort and contentment of all. 



Vol. 3-24. 



