Thus at the close of the nineteenth century, the Greater United States assumes its appointed place among the foremost nations of the world, and stands on the threshold of achievements whose grandeur no man dare attempt to prophesy. We pause, awed, grateful, and profoundly impressed, when we recall the mighty events, the amazing progress, and the wonderful advancements in discovery, science, art, literature, and all that tends to the good of mankind that are certain to give the twentieth century a pre-eminence above all the years that have gone before.
The new era of our country has opened. The United States enters on the first stage of the transformation from an isolated commonwealth into an outreaching power with dependencies in both hemispheres. We can no longer hold an attitude of aloofness from the rest of the world. With vulnerable points in our outlying possessions, we must make ready to defend them not only by force of arms but by diplomatic skill. Entangling alliances as heretofore will be avoided, and the conditions, complications, and policies of foreign powers must in the future possess a practical importance for us.
The original thirteen States have expanded into forty-five, embracing the vast area between the two oceans and extending from the British possessions to the Gulf of Mexico. To them has now been added our colonial territory, so vast in extent that, like the British Empire, the sun never sets on our dominions. Where a hundred years ago were only a few scattered villages and towns, imperial cities now raise their heads. Thousands of square miles of forest and solitude have given place to cultivated farms, to factories, and workshops that hum with the wheels of industry. The Patent Office issues 40,000 patents each year. We have three cities with more than a million population apiece, and twenty-five with a population ranging from a hundred thousand to half a million. Greater New York is the second city in the world, and, if its present rate of growth continues, it will surpass London before the middle of the coming century. Our population has grown from 3,000,000 at the close of the Revolution to 75,000,000. When Andrew Jackson became President there was not a mile of railroad in the United States. To-day our mileage exceeds that of all the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, and the employes, connected directly or indirectly with railroads in the United States, number almost a million persons. The half-dozen crude newspapers of the Revolution have expanded into more than 20,000, whose daily news is gathered from every quarter of the globe. The total yearly issue is more than three billions.
No country can approach the advancements we have made in invention, in discovery, in science, in art, in education and in all the civilizing agencies of mankind. Volumes would be required to name our achievements in these lines. Our material property has been or is equally wonderful. When the Civil War closed, our public debt was nearly $3,000,000,000. On December 1, 1898, it was $1,036,000,000. Most of the leading nations have great debts, but the United States is the only one which is steadily decreasing its debt and at the same time enormously increasing its resources. The debt of Great Britain is now about $87 per capita, that of France $115, of Holland $100, of Italy $75, and of the United States less than $15, with the security increasing all the time.
Let the thoughtful reader note these striking facts. European nations generally, and some South American nations also, have been compelled to resort to various methods of taxation to supply the sums needed for ordinary governmental expenses, to meet the interest on the existing debt, to provide resources for new expenditures, buildings, armament, subsidies, and various public works. England has an income tax and many stamp taxes, a house tax, and collects some 20 per cent. of its revenue from direct taxation. France has a tobacco monopoly, registration taxes, stamp taxes, tax on windows, and innumerable local taxes, one being the octroi, or tax on goods entering cities. In addition to an income tax, and many stamp taxes, Austria derives a good deal of its public revenue from lotteries. Italy goes still further with her tobacco monopoly, house tax, income tax, salt tax, octroi duties, stamp taxes, and heavy legacy and registration taxes. In the United States, however, the public revenues have been provided for and all public expenses met, and the national debt reduced beside, without recourse to any direct taxation. We have no government monopolies, and the Treasury maintains a healthful condition from the receipts of customs and internal revenue payments.
Thus with the spirit of fraternity between all sections of the Union stronger than ever before, with the spirit of patriotism more deeply imbedded and all-pervading, with our moral, educational, and material prosperity and progress greater than any time in our past history, and never equaled by any nation, since the annals of mankind began—we face the future, bravely resolved to meet all requirements, responsibilities, and duties as become men whose motto is
IN GOD IS OUR TRUST.
The End.