268 W. C. DODGE 



that this small number of settlers had the whole continent to 

 subdue^ the forests to clear, farms to open, houses, roads, 

 bridges, schools^ churches to build — in fact, everything to 

 create from the ground up, with the savages to contest every 

 foot of advance; and that they had neither the accumulated 

 capital nor the surplus labor of the old world with which to 

 accomplish this gigantic task. 



Their condition was well described by Senator Thomas 

 C. Piatt at the United States patent centennial, when he said 

 that ''manufactures were practically unknown; that there 

 were no mechanics, as we now understand the term; that 

 men knew how to plow and sow, hoe and chop, reap, mow 

 and cradle, break flax and hackle it, thresh with the flail, 

 winnow with the blanket or fan, and to shell corn by hand. 

 The women knew how to spin, card, weave, and knit. Me- 

 chanical knowledge was monopolized by the blacksmith, the 

 carpenter, the millwright, and the village tinker. Production 

 was a toilsome, weary task, limited by the capacity for mus- 

 cular endurance." 



It should also be remembered that such things as steam- 

 boats, railways, electric power and light, reapers, mowers, 

 cultivators, threshing machines, and the thousand and one 

 appliances which, of late years, have contributed so much 

 to prosperity, were then unknown; and that when Fulton 

 built his steamboat the engine had to be brought from Eng- 

 land, there being no means for making it in the United 

 States. 



But that was not all, for, in order to get a clear idea of the 

 conditions under which the United States began their ex- 

 istence as a nation, one must also consider the restrictions 

 placed upon the colonists by the mother country. Her 

 policy was well expressed b}^ Sir William Pitt, who said : 



"It is the destiny of America to feed Great Britain, and 

 the destiny of Great Britain to clothe America." 



In other words, America was to remain for all time an 

 agricultural country, furnishing the people of Great Britain 

 with food and the raw material for her manufacturers, while 

 she was to do the manufacturing. Her policy as to manufac- 

 tures in the colonies was well expressed by Lord Chatham, 



