And State Papers 359 



most of our problems will be solved. And I can 

 imagine no way more likely to hurry forward such 

 a favorable solution than to encourage the building 

 up of just such institutions as this. 



Therefore, I congratulate you with all my heart 

 upon this meeting to-day. Therefore I esteem my 

 self most fortunate in having the chance of address 

 ing you. It is a very good thing to attend to the 

 material side of life. We must in the first instance 

 attend to our material prosperity. Unless we have 

 that as a foundation we can not build up any higher 

 kind of life. But we shall lead a miserable and 

 sordid life if we spend our whole time in doing 

 nothing but attending to our material needs. If the 

 building up of the railroads, of the farms, of the 

 factories, of the industrial centres, means nothing 

 whatever but an increase in the instruments of pro 

 duction and an increase in the fevered haste with 

 which those instruments are used, progress amounts 

 to but a little thing. If, however, the developing 

 of our material prosperity is to serve as a founda 

 tion upon which we raise a higher, a purer, a fuller, 

 a better life, then indeed things are well with the 

 Republic. If as our wealth increases the wisdom 

 of our use of the wealth increases in even greater 

 proportion, then the wealth has justified its existence 

 many times over. If with the industry, the skill, 

 the hardihood, of those whom I am addressing and 

 their fellows, nothing comes beyond a selfish desire 

 each to grasp for himself whatever he can of ma 

 terial enjoyment, then the outlook for the future 



