closely approaches today than almost any other commonwealth 

 of the Union. One born on the banks of the Mississippi in Iowa 

 and who has worked much on the banks of the lower river in 

 the commonwealth bearing its name may be pardoned for pointing 

 out a similarity and a difference. In these two commonwealths 

 of the interior every white male child born on any day or in any 

 year has an equal chance with all others to become Governor of 

 his State or President of the Union, while in the commonwealth 

 of coal and iron not one male white child in a hundred born on 

 a given day or in a given year has the slightest chance of 

 even seeing the inside of gubernatorial or presidential offices. 

 Such is an effect of industrial dependence, with the social differ- 

 entiation rooting within it. Nor is this all; the effect goes on 

 to personal character, to conscience, to the springs of patriotism. 

 Here in the State of farms dwells uprightness; there amid the 

 smoke of manufacture the seeds of corruption spring easily as 

 amid the tyrannies under which Rome fell of old. Now a single 

 further straw : Your State of farms and the State of factories 

 about the same time began the erection of new State Houses; 

 this stately edifice was constructed at a total cost of a million hon- 

 est dollars; in the other, no more fit and hardly more com- 

 modious or elaborate, the graft in the furnishing alone amounted 

 to fully five times the cost of your capitol. Truly the farmer 

 State has no reason for repining! 



Another and more agreeable comparison may be made : Two 

 generations ago a tale of gold came out of the West ; it reached 

 this State, among others, and inspired the strongest and most 

 ambitious among the sons of South and North alike. As in the 

 search for the Golden Fleece long ago, so the later argonauts 

 went forth on a pilgrimage one of the hardest ever made by men. 

 The picked offspring of strongest sires and dames, they faced 

 harsh nature and treacherous foe, and with unsurpassed effort 

 wrested richer treasure from the rocks than was known before. 

 So California arose as a golden State, conspicuous among our 



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