184 [Senatk 



no fear in cottons of cheap labor, why should we have any in silk. 

 In Europe and Asia labor is not united with intelligence — in Ameri- 

 ca intelligence is united to labor ; and in this lies all the difterence. 

 (Cheers.) The indomitable spirit of the Anglo-Saxon character is 

 fully developed under our civil and religious institutions, (Cheers.) 

 We stand on this ground with a climate equal to the best, superior 

 to most, in the culture of silk. Our soil is virgin, our sky is blue, 

 and our people are Protestant. (Loud cheers.) Labor is valuable, 

 as before stated, not from what it costs, but from what it produces. 

 Our countrymen are intelligent, thinking, working people, and who 

 are our competitors 1 Go to European and Asiatic countries for 

 your answer. (Cheers.) A free, Protestant community will ever 

 bean active, improving, elevating community. (Cheers.) England 

 may compete with vfs in the manufacture of silk, but she can never 

 grow a pound. (Loud cheers.) We! Wei are the only free Pro- 

 testant nation on the face of the globe, which can be at the same lime 

 a silk growing, and a silk manufacturing people. I refer here to our 

 national Protestanisra, merely as one of the essential elements of our 

 national enterprise, without going at all into any theological discus- 

 sions. (Loud cheers.) But I find I have gone beyond my allotted 

 time. (No, no, go on, go on.) 



I have one or two observations, and then I have finished. The 

 silk growlers have much more to contend with than is generally ima- 

 gined. It cannot progress so fast as other products. We require 

 the growth of the foliage, and it takes two or three years to bring 

 this to perfection. Silk culture resembles fruit-growing — we must 

 plant the tree and await its budding time. It was a different case 

 from the crops of corn, and grain, and so on. It was a gradual busi- 

 ness, and required patience. But all these obstacles had been met, 

 and happily overcome. It was recollected that the first implantation 

 of the silk culture in Italy, France, &c., took longer than it had done 

 here. (Applause.) And so had there been many adventitious difficulties in 

 the way — the over zeal of friends in pressing the enterprise too ra- 

 pidly, and without reflection and juilgment. These things had, how- 

 ever, he was happy to say, been all met and overcome. The friends 

 of this cause now breathed more freely. (Applause.) Public opin- 

 ion instead of opposing it, was fast setting in its favor. No longer 

 weri' 'multicaulis speculations' the theme of general ridicule, (a laugh,) 

 and the newspapers no longer amused themselves with cracking their 

 jokes at our Utopian schemes. Now, there were papers devoted to 

 the enterprise; — all agricultural papers in the country treated it with 

 approval, and, indeed, the press generally, it may be said, were either 

 in favor of it, or were fair, and open to the consideration of its merits. 

 (Loud and long applause.) 



The speaker (who was listened to with great interest throughout,) 

 then adverted to the fact which American silk growers had fully de- 

 monstrated; — that all that was wanted to produce the article in per- 

 fection was the simplest kind of shelter for the worms, the openshedj 

 or tentj and the pure, free, unadulterated air of heaven. Give but 



