358 
PARIS UNIVERSAL 
Office of the Wisconsin Commission to the Paris Exposition, 
Madison, December 5, 1866. 
To the People of Wisconsin : 
The Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations,to be held at Paris in the 
year 1867, is to be a competitive showing of the resources, progress and pre¬ 
sent industrial and social condition of all the nations of the earth. _ Although 
this will be the fourth in the grand series since the inauguration of the 
scheme at London in 1861, America has yet to make her first creditable ap¬ 
pearance. And yet nothing is plainer that that, by taking her legitimate 
place as the peer of the strongest and most enlightened nations of the world 
in these great gatherings of the thinkers, workers and products of all 
lands, she would not only more worthily do her part in the diffusion 
of the blessings of civilization and the uniting all peoples more firmly 
in the bonds of mutual interest and friendly association, but also derive a di¬ 
rect and incalculable advantage to her future growth in wealth and power by 
the demonstration thus made before the world of the variety of her resources 
and the .inducements she is able to offer the industrious but cramped and 
dissatisfied populations of the Old World for settlement in the New. 
But it is now patent everywhere that America is a competitor for the 
honors to be conferred by the juries of all nations at Paris next year. And 
though slow in moving, and hardly just to herself in her'preliminary arrange¬ 
ments and appropriations of monet^, now that she has entered the lists, and 
is certain either to be crowned with laurel or dismissed in disgrace, every 
American citizen should feel it his duty as such to do everything in his power 
to assure the glory of the Great Republic. 
The General Government has provided free transportation for all approved 
articles that may be sent, as well as for faithful and valuable reports by a Na¬ 
tional Commission composed of eminent practical and scientific men, and 
has urgently asked each of the States to acquit itself honorably. 
Throughout the East and all about us in the West, state governments and 
people have for months been spiritedly at work, and are now very sure to do 
themselves credit bythe varied and extensive display they will make of the 
products of nature and of the industry and genius of their people. 
What then of Wisconsin ? As yet nothing. She has numerous commis¬ 
sioners, with the privilege of representing the State at their own expense ; 
but thus far she has made provision for showing little else ! We have in our 
barns, mills and warehouses, samples of wheat, corn, rye, barley, sorghum, 
flax and flax seed, linseed oil, flour, cheese, maple sugar and syrups, tobacco, 
wool, &c., equal to any in the country. We have cider, wines, whiskeys, 
brandies and malt liquors of our own manufacture. In the department of 
natural history we could make a fine show of building and ornamental stones, 
brick and fire clays and brick, lime, sand for glass, kaolin, peats, marls; of 
metallic ores, especially of lead, iron, copper and zinc; of every valuable 
variety of timber growing in the temperate latitudes; of indigenous plants; 
and a most interesting display of mounted specimens of game and fur-bearing 
quadrupeds, with specimens of the fishes of our lakes and streams. 
Ill the way of machinery, manufactures, &c., we cannot expect to compete 
with the older and more exclusively manufacturing States. But we do 
possess the requisite material and the finest water-powers in the world, and 
should spare no pains to prove our natural advantages, and thus attract the 
capital, which is all that we lack to make us equal to Massachusetts or Con¬ 
necticut. Besides, we are able to-day to send to Paris superior threshing 
machines, reapers and mowers, sorghum mills, rotary diggers, plows, harrows, 
cultivators, bog-cutters, wrought iron, steel, zinc and copper, white lead and 
zinc paint ; fanning mills, washing-machines, wringers, wagons, hubs, spokes 
and felloes ; furniture, buckets, bowls, barrels, spinning wheels, shoe-lasts, 
boots and shoes, harness, leather ; doeskins and cassimeres, flannels, knit 
hoisery, and a thousand other things too numerous to mention, but all of 
them made In this State, and many of them indebted to the inventive genius 
of Wisconsin men. 
And then we have many worthy examples of architecture. These cannot 
be sent, but photographic views of them can, and, by all means, should be 
