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wonderful development, speculation and profit that have- 

 characterized some portions of the country, and have 

 thereby escaped the terrible reactions of prostration and 

 loss that have followed in their wake. The traveller today 

 through parts of the country may see new villages and 

 projected cities deserted, palatial hotels, gorgeous opera 

 houses and massive warehouses standing silent and tenant- 

 less, mere wreckage upon the commercial sea, telling v^^here 

 the hopes of individuals and communities have gone 

 down. 



Wherever men have sought to accomplish in a day the 

 work of generations, inevitable failure has been the result. 

 The cities, the counties, the states where these lamentable 

 failures occur often become hotbeds where spring up all 

 sorts of political heresies and noxious financial theories. 

 Railings against existing laws and established government 

 are indulged in, and threats of violent remedies are ut- 

 tered by bombastic local officials. All this is foreign to 

 our history. Boom towns and deserted villages have been 

 rarer in Essex than abandoned farms. And disappoint- 

 ment and disaster as foundations for political belief and 

 activities we have never known. Thus do our present 

 conditions and past history furnish fit surroundings for 

 the abode both of freedom and her chosen and inseparable 

 companion, progress. Thus through a varied industry and 

 ordinary and peaceful pursuits has civilization kept on its 

 unswerving march. The sturdiness of character, the thrift 

 and patience of the Essex farmer, have here been supple- 

 mented by the boldness and enterprise of the merchant 

 and manufacturer ; together they have permeated the 

 whole body of our citizenship, producing a resultant of 

 public character to which the anchor of our liberties may 

 hold sure and steadfast, and upon which the structure of 

 our progress may be erected as upon a rock. It is a part 

 of the hope and promise of the future that the important 

 questions remaining to be settled in this country are in- 

 dustrial and practical. The day of sensationalism in 



