Opexixg Address. 131 



loom are European iii origin: but the genius ot Bigelow and other 

 Americans has greatly increased their capacity. It was hard to find 

 one who could add to the masterly invention of Jacquard, but 

 our Bigelow did it. The railroad and locomotive did not originate 

 with us, but our people have made a larger and better use of them 

 than any other on the globe. The steel of Bessemer is a great 

 stride; but give us a few j-ears of prosperity and we will surpass it. 

 The Pacific railroad is about to revolutionize the world's com- 

 merce — to make Xew York and San Francisco only halting-places 

 on the shortened line of transportation from Shanghai to London 

 and Amsterdam. We are yet onl}'- in the beginning of that great 

 enterprise, the grandest the world ever saw. Xo man here, no man 

 anywhere, comprehends full}'' now what that railroad is to do for 

 our country and for mankind. Eight years ago, I traversed the line 

 of it, mainly with reference to what it was to do for us; and although 

 I believed that enormous wealth was to be developed by it — not 

 merely of gold and silver, but also of the more valuable metals, tin, 

 iron, lead and copper — yet far more than I dreamed ha.s already 

 been realized; and I say now that the Pacific railroad cannot be 

 built without uncovering wealth which will more than repay the 

 entire cost of its construction. 



The American Institute stands, and has stood, the advocate of 

 protection to American industry, wherever it stands exposed to 

 unfair and withering injury from foreign competition. It is just as 

 unreasonable and unfair to complain that a particular interest needs 

 protection, as it is to complain that a particular citizen who stands 

 on the frontier of our country, defending it against savage or civil- 

 ized foes, needs to be clad and fed while he stands there a soldier 

 for the defence of the whole country. Ever}' branch of industry 

 sympathizes with every other. If we were to-day to blot out our 

 iron-works, do \o\i not see that we would at the same time blot out 

 an enormous demand for our cattle, pork, hay — for evei'3i;hing which 

 enters into the profits of the mechanic and the farmer — while seve. 

 ral hundred thousand men who are now profitably employed in that 

 industry would be thrown back to glut other pm'suits, thus dimin- 

 ishing the rewards of labor in every field. And so would it be if 

 any other branch of manufacturing industry should suddenly cease. 

 We demand that protection shall be the policy, not of this nation 

 alone, but of every nation, and especially of new nations. The 

 nations of South America and of the West Indies, as they become 

 independent, shall encom-age the development of new kinds of 



