46 



say that no event would compare with it in its import- 

 ance to the people and to the interests of civilization. 

 I am gratified that Americans have done so much to 

 highten the effect of this rivalry of industry of the peo- 

 ples among the nations of the earth. I did what I could 

 to enlist the Government in its favor, and to promote 

 among the people a larger desire for participation in it 

 than they enjoyed, but I did not expect, when I did 

 this, that we should be justified in the expectation of 

 achieving a triumph like that we have accomplished. A 

 recent letter from Mr. Beckwith, the American Commis- 

 sioner, states that out of five hundred American exhibit- 

 ors, three hundred prizes of awards have been given — a 

 half larger proportion than has been attained by an}^ 

 other nation, not excepting even England or France. 

 And this is nothing at all compared with what might 

 have been gained by our citizens, if our country had 

 been properly and fully represented. But it is not in 

 the power of awards that we find the testimony of the 

 world in behalf of the superiority of American intellect 

 as devoted to industry. In those great powers that di- 

 rect and shape the future we have been first, if not 

 without a rival : in the locomotive that extends civiliza- 

 tion throughout the world ; in the electric telegraph that 

 annihilates space and time ; in the sewing machines that 

 give comfort to every family in the land ; in the piano 

 forte that makes harmony and household pleasure, and 

 extends to all the children of our country and of the 

 world, the participation in this divine inspiration and 

 power ; in the agricultural implements that suppl}'^ the 

 place of exhaustive and inefficient labor — in these we 

 have been the first and received the first prizes at this 

 exhibition. But there is one point Avhich touches me 



