272 W. C. DODGE 



merchant vessels of Great Britain ; and, according to Mulhall, 

 the amount of merchandise carried by the railways of the 

 United States is double that of all other railways collectively. 

 And, as has been said, 'Hhe railroad, from the steel rail to 

 the top of its smokestack, from its headlight to the signal hght 

 on the platform of the last car, is but one aggregation of 

 patented inventions." 



The internal and coastwise commerce of the United 

 States by water and rail amounts to more than the foreign 

 commerce of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Belgium 

 combined. Every year there are over 60,000 passages of 

 vessels through the Detroit river, carrying over 40,000,000 

 tons of freight, and over 80,000 passengers, or nearly fifteen 

 times as many as through the Suez canal. 



The American people write 40 per cent of all the letters 

 in the world, and the American postal service is the greatest 

 in the world, the travel on all the routes being enough to 

 reach 17,000 times around the globe each year; and there are 

 more miles of telegraph and telephone wires than in all other 

 countries. 



The annual gain in wealth is about $2,000,000,000; and 

 in one year the earnings amounted to $14,500,000,000, one 

 half of which was paid to labor. Each working day adds 

 $6,000,000 to the nation's wealth. The capital has been 

 multiplied more than threefold since 1870, and at that rate 

 there will be added in the next ten years as much as the entire 

 capital was in 1870. 



These facts are mentioned not by way of boasting, but 

 as showing the marvelous growth of the country during its 

 first century. Now what has done all this? What force, 

 what power has been at work? In the words of Senator Piatt, 

 the writer answers, ''it is the spirit of invention, the creative 

 faculty in our people, that hath wrought these wonders." It 

 is the result of American inventions fostered by the American 

 patent system — the best in the world. 



As illustrating the part that patented inventions have 

 had in the growth and prosperity of the country, let me men- 

 tion a few: Take the cotton gin, invented in 1793. When 

 eight bales of cotton were first sent from Georgia to Liver- 



