18 THE STORY OF BREAD 



hundred people were kept busy raising enough to 

 eat — were this true today, I repeat, how many sky- 

 scrapers, and railroads, and factories, and business 

 houses do you think the remaining three people 

 could operate? Broad way in New York, and State 

 street in Chicago, and Market street in San Fran- 

 cisco would be little more than cow paths, along 

 which a few traders played the game of barter and 

 sell. 



We owe everything to something else. Life is 

 one long evolution, in the process of which none 

 escape with their lives. But when we are really 

 ready for a thing, we open our hands and there it is. 



Follow a bit. An Italian, Columbus by name, 

 sailing from Spain, found millions of new acres. 

 Freedom, which exists only with the well-fed, hur- 

 ried an old world people into a world that was new. 

 McCormick, an American, put his reaper onto these 

 acres. About the same time Stephenson, in England, 

 got up steam in the "Rocket;" and Faraday, also an 

 Englishman, harnessed electricity ready for work. 

 There was the line-up. The world was ready. A 

 shout— and progress was off! 



The business of railroads is to carry things from 

 where they are to where they are not. And the 

 business of the reaper was to give something worth 

 the carrying. Railroads have been called " empire 

 builders " — they carry settlers and the things they 

 need and use into a new country, and then carry 



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