TWEXTY-NIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



123 



there is some spring, or some house, or big hotel, something of that 

 kind, the party who makes money out of that must pay money for the 

 slide. 



Before the Merchants' Association last night, however, there were 

 speeches on different subjects. First, why San Francisco should 

 exhibit, and I thought that was almost answered in one sentence by the 

 speaker who replied to the toast. "For the same reason," he says, 

 "that a man answers a girl, when she looks in his eye and says: 'Why 

 do you love me ?' ' Because I would be a darn fool if I didn't.' " And 

 when you say: Why should San Francisco exhibit, the reply would 

 be: Because it would be a darn fool if it didn't. The scope of the 

 next speaker's remarks was, what San Francisco could exhibit, and how 

 it ought to do it. My remarks, as accredited to me in the program, 

 were on the general scope of the Exposition and the state of prepara- 

 tion. I remember that I premised what I had to say by referring, first, 

 briefly to the reason for the Exposition. I said, if I remember rightly, 

 that it had been the custom of mankind, since the beginning of time, to 

 celebrate great events affecting their welfare, and I said, and repeat it 

 here to-night, that the purchase of the Louisiana territory was one of 

 the greatest events in the history of the United States. Prior to that 

 time, Spain hampered us on the south. It was not until sixteen years 

 later that we acquired the territory of Florida and the strip of country 

 along the Gulf to the mouth of the Mississippi River. W^est of the 

 Mississippi River we ran into Louisiana. Therefore, the mouth of 

 the Mississippi River and key to the commerce of the greatest valley in 

 the world was cut off from the United States, as all the western border 

 of that country was owned by France, and I said and now repeat it that 

 it seems as though it was a providential occurrence, designed for the 

 greatness of this country, that Napoleon, hampered at that time by the 

 threats of England, was in a position where he needed money worse 

 than he needed territory in a far-off country, and was willing to relin- 

 quish his right to that empire for what seems to-day the paltry sum of 

 $15,000,000. By that purchase, negotiated by the American minister, 

 Robert R. Livingston, on the one side, and Napoleon's minister on the 

 other, we secured an empire, and we opened then and forever to this 

 country the commerce of the Mississippi River and the great valley 

 adjacent thereto. This empire extended from the Mississippi west to 

 the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and at the suggestion of the French 

 minister, Beaupre, the western boundary was left undetermined. France 

 claimed positively to the summit of the mountains. She had a shadow 

 of a claim to the country lying farther west, and was then disputing 

 the right to the northwest with Spain on the one side and England on 

 the other. Immediately the Lewis and Clark expedition started from 

 St. Louis — and it is an interesting fact that it happened to be St. Louis 



