250 ELLIS H. ROBERTS 



of the farm shall be exported depends on the crops in all lands 

 and on the purchasing power of our foreign customers. But 

 we invade the old world with our manufactures by reason 

 of the skill and energy of American labor and the methods 

 devised by American genius. We run electric roads beside 

 the pyramids; we furnish harvesters for Russia; we build 

 bridges in the Soudan and in Burmah; send locomotives to 

 farthest Manchuria, help Germany to load coal, sell shoes 

 to Austria, scatter sewing machines everywhere, and our 

 watches keep time on the Danube, the Nile and the Orinoco. 

 Our high wages have not yet checked our invasion of the 

 markets of Europe and Asia. Increasing home consumption 

 affects to some degree the exports of our merchandise, for we 

 ship only what our own people do not use, but the more we 

 make the more we shall sell. 



Upon the marvelous golden inflow, American mechanism 

 moves in triumph. Our agriculture is still dominant in 

 our wheat and meats and fruit and cotton. The remarkable 

 growth is in our manufactures, now constituting nearly a third 

 of our exports, and rock ribbed are our material and 

 financial conditions. Predictions can prudently be based 

 upon them. But the minds of men are a shoreless and chart- 

 less sea, and no one can tell when or why pallid fear may 

 brood horribly upon its waves. The nerves of the multi- 

 tude are a vast electric system which some accident may start 

 into sparks or even flame and shock and far reaching utter- 

 ances. Into this mystic region our theme does not lead us, 

 even if we had the courage to enter there. We have been 

 studying what can be weighed and measured, a stream whose 

 course and force can be quite clearly mapped. This golden 

 flood is without peer in its magnitude. It has brought to 

 our people and our government treasures richer than any 

 before recorded in human annals. It has covered the con- 

 tinent and blessed all the inhabitants. Its sources and its 

 current are not exhausted. It continues to spread itself 

 over every valley and plain, fructifying as the waters of the 

 Nile. Bankers may do much to direct it into right and bene- 

 ficent channels. They can prevent its diversion for sinister 

 and harmful purposes. The strippings of the surface of the 



