62 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION* 
will become manufacturing towns, and your beautiful streams in thii 
portion of the State will be utilized, and great mechanical industrie: 
will spring up all over this country, and you will have a market a 
your doors for your products, and your lands will, in a short time, bt 
doubled in value. 
The farmers’ interests are closely identified with all the great busi 
ness interests of the country. The people of this great country canno 
all engage in the same business and expect to prosper. They canno 
all raise corn or make butter and find a market for either. The world i: 
made up with all sorts of people, and they must carry forward all sort* 
of honest business if they would prosper and be happy, and the mai 
engaged in any one kind of business is, in some degree, interestec 
in every other. We have in this country the cotton, the wool, tht 
iron, the copper and lead, and, in fact, all the raw material in the great¬ 
est abundance, out of which to manufacture every article of use 
known to human life, and it is the policy of this country to encouragf 
our home industries. By so doing we develop our own resources, anc 
create a home market for our surplus products. Protection to Ameri¬ 
can industry does not mean protection to the mechanic and artisar 
alone, or to the capitalist engaged in manufacturing, but it means pro¬ 
tection to the common laborer, in fair wages, and to the agriculturist 
by giving him a home demand for his products. But diversified laboi 
and pursuits will not enable us to reach our highest possible plane of 
prosperity unless our facilities for transportation and the extension of 
our commercial relations are also perfected. It is now a conceded 
fact, in the discussion of the transportation question, that water navi¬ 
gation, in a measure, regulates and controls the rates for carrying 
freights, and therefore it is our duty to protect and improve our rivers, 
lakes and canals. They are of late claiming the attention of our best 
business men and ablest statesmen. 
The enlargement of the Illinois and Michigan canal into a ship 
canal, and the improvement of the Illinois river, and the building what 
is known as the Hennepin canal between and connecting the two 
rivers, all should claim the attention of the public as of the highest 
importance. The work is national in its character, uniting the waters 
leading to the gulf with the lakes. The work of enlarging the canal 
and building the one between the Mississipi and Illinois rivers should 
be undertaken and carried out by the national government. The 
present canal now belongs to the State. In my message to the Leg¬ 
islature last winter I called the attention of the people to the question 
of enlarging the canal, and advised that the Legislature, in pursuance 
of the constitution, should submit the question to the people, whether 
the canal should be turned over to the national government, on condi¬ 
tions. The Legislature failed, however, to provide for the submission. 
I have no question but that the government will make it a ship canal 
if we will permit it. The business of the country will force the build¬ 
ing of the Hennepin canal and the enlargement of the present one. 
The commerce of the country, not Illinois alone, demands that these 
works shall be begun, and that soon. When Congress gets to under¬ 
stand the facts thoroughly the work will begin. 
Of the millions of bushels of grain raised in the United States, 
