126 WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. 



and wholly inoperative on through freights. It is utterly impracti 

 cable for the several States to act in concert through the different 

 legislatures. I see, then, no solution of this question, but for the 

 people of the several States, through their representatives to the 

 General Government, to stretch out their strong arm between the 

 people and those corporations. I know I speak the sentiments of 

 the people, when I say we would do no wrong to the capital nomi 

 nally invested in railroads. We fully recognize their capacity for 

 good, and all their just claims, but we demand justice and protec 

 tion for the people. 



But even if railroads do carry at fair rates, still the fact stares us 

 in the face, that transportation of heavy commodities is at least an 

 expensive luxury, and our true policy is to bring producer and con 

 sumer nearer together, and so lessen the transporting. We, of the 

 South and West especially, should spare no pains to introduce and 

 foster manufactures in our midst, that we be not obliged to trans 

 port our raw material out and the manufactured article in. We of 

 the East, w r here manufactures are many and strong, should, with 

 equal assiduity, promote the cultivation of the raw material, that 

 the terrible strain on transportation be lessened. 



I have long ago said that the history of the world or its present 

 condition does not afford a single example of a country which has 

 remained permanently prosperous by the production and exporta 

 tion of the raw material,, but their tendency is all the time toward a 

 condition of dependence and poverty. This position has not been 

 disputed, and I believe cannot be. How important, then, that we 

 cultivate the most amicable relations between all the productive 

 industries, as only by mutual development can we be mutually 

 prosperous, and the whole body politic be maintained in vigorous 

 health. 



A . thousand years ago learned and thoughtful chemists devoted 

 the energies of a lifetime to a vain search for the wonderful philos 

 opher s stone, whose magic touch should convert the baser metals 

 into purest gold, and thus fill the whole world at once with wealth 

 and luxury. To-day we have numerous citizens who are eagerly 

 pursuing the same phantom. They are torturing their poor brains 

 to devise some plan whose talismanic power will transmute bits of 

 printed paper into countless millions of actual money of such a sub 

 tle nature that true as the needle to the pole, it shall go straight to 

 the pockets of the poor, and like a subtle &quot; Will-o -the-wisp,&quot; for 

 ever evade the clutches of the rich. 



It is an indisputable fact that our country is now seriously suffer 

 ing from a derangement of finances. We need not to be at a loss 

 to know the cause. It is a solemn reality that our country has 

 passed through a most wasting civil war. It cost us in money, time 

 lost, industry disturbed, material destroyed, production stopped, 

 more than ten billions of dollars. That immense sum was in four 

 years subtracted from the wealth of the country. It was consumed, 

 and is forever gone. It made us comparatively poor. To bridge 

 over the emergency of the hour, the government issued great vol 

 umes of irredeemable paper currency, which we used as money, and 

 thus for a time disguised and hid our poverty. By using tins cur 

 rency our judgment of values became more and more confused as 



