Opening Address. ■ 129 



What have been the leading results of the planting and growth of 

 the mechanical arts and manufactures on this shore of the Atlantic? 

 In the first place, I call attention to the fact that the naturaliza- 

 tion here of the industrial arts has been the occasion, I may say 

 the cause, of enormous and beneficent developments of invention, 

 of economic labor-saving construction, and of applied science. The 

 Old World is to-day more than $1,000,000,000 richer for the 

 inventions and adaptations which have had their birth in this 

 country, and which, had there been no American manufactures, 

 would, in all human probability, have remained to this day unde- 

 veloped. The cut-nail, an immensely labor-saving device, which has 

 made cheaper the building of houses all over the world, is a result 

 of the planting of the industrial arts in America. I have been told 

 that the screw-auger, by which a quadruple power has been given 

 to mechanic art in one important department, was the invention of 

 a Coimecticut Yankee, who never even patented it. 



It is a common complaint, often reiterated, that American manu- 

 facturing industry never gets out of the stage of infancy, that it 

 is always crying for protection, as if it had made no progress, and 

 was not likely to make any. Now this misstatement is founded on 

 a truth. In the development of industry, there are always new 

 branches which require encouragement ; but in this country the 

 old established branches of manufactures and mechanics do not 

 require any protection. There are no countries on earth where 

 plain cotton and woolen fabrics are made cheaper than they are ia 

 the United States to-day. There is no country where the relatiom 

 between the prices of wool and cotton on the one hand, and of 

 plain substantial Avoolen and cotton fabrics on the other, is closer 

 than it is here. There are branches of our cotton and woolen 

 manufactures which do require protection, but those old fabrics 

 which we began to make first, and which w^c have learned to make 

 best, if you give our American manufacturers their wool and. their 

 labor as cheaply as they are supplied in the Old World, they can 

 make and sell as cheaply as any people on the face of the earth. 

 Our manufacturers challenge fair competition; but, being called 

 upon to pay taxes on every yard they make, and on eveiy element 

 that enters into their production, and being compelled to pay a 

 double or triple price for labor, is it fair or just to complain that 

 they cannot make and sell goods subject to all these taxes as cheaply 

 as they may sometimes be made and sold in Europe? But take 

 another and very large class of American manufactures, our edge- 



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