10 New YtTEK at the Woeld's Columbian Exposition. 



life of the State. New York was the first capital of the United States 

 and continued so for many years. 



The South and the West fiercely contended for a change, and of course 

 as the result of the controversy New York lost. Nevertheless it still remains 

 the first city of the continent and the center of its enterprise and financial 

 strength. Its size and grandeur always have and always will unite all 

 places to dispose of it as the most dangerous competitor before indulging 

 in their own rivalries. But since Washington became the capital, New 

 York has been proud to be represented there by its ablest statesmen and 

 to do its part to promote the glory and grandeur of the republic. The 

 great West, beyond the AUeghenies, which had made such marvelous 

 growth in the last half century in population and agricultural and indus- 

 trial wealth, demanded and received the World's Fair for Chicago, which 

 city is in itself the most phenomenal exhibit of American enterprise, 

 energy and civilization. Whether the exhibition had been at New York, 

 Chicago, St.' Louis or San Francisco, it would have been, as it is now, the 

 plain duty of each State to do its best to promote an enterprise which 

 means so much for the industrial, agricultural and educational interet-ts of 

 our country. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 was a worthy celebra- 

 tion of the completion of the first one hundred years of our independence. 

 The country was still staggering under the bankruptcy of the fearful 

 panic of 1873, but the exhibition placed our business upon its feet and 

 infused life and health into our credit. It distributed to the remotest 

 corners of our country that instruction which materialized into new sources 

 of employment and development and brought into circulation $100,000,000 

 which otherwise would have lain dormant or idle. 



The exhibition two years ago at Paris saved the French republic from 

 political destruction by turning the commercial distress which was preva- 

 lent throughout France into happy and prosperous times. Three hundred 

 millions of dollars or more was in that instance released from savings 

 banks and stockings or brought in from other nations to swell the tide of 

 French profit and progress. 



Our Columbian Exposition comes at a most opportune time. The 

 unprecedented crop which our fields have produced this year and the 

 equally unprecedented demand for our food products abroad will give us 

 for twelve months an exhilarating period of prosperity. Farm mortgages 

 will be paid off, new enterprises will be started, old railroads will be 

 extended, and new ones will be constructed, values will rise in market 

 price, everybody will be richer and in accord with the temper and spirit 

 of our people, credit will be strained to the utmost to realize the largest 

 returns from these phenomenal commercial opportunities. In the ordinary 



