I can see to-day something beyond the wildest dream of any patriot who lived fifty years ago. The United States to-day is the richest nation on the face of the earth. The old nations of the world, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, every one of them, when compared with this great Republic, must be regarded as paupers.
How much do you suppose this Nation is worth to-day? I am talking about land and cattle, products, manufactured articles and railways. Over seventy thousand million dollars. Just think of it.
Take a thousand dollars and then take nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand; so you will have one thousand piles of one thousand each. That makes only a million, and yet the United States today is worth seventy thousand millions. This is thirty-five percent, more than Great Britain is worth.
We are a great Nation. We have got the land. This land was being made for many millions of years. Its soil was being made by the great lakes and rivers, and being brought down from the mountains for countless ages.
This continent was standing like a vast pan of milk, with the cream rising for millions of years, and we were the chaps that got there when the skimming commenced.
We are rich, and we ought to be rich. It is our own fault if we are not. In every department of human endeavor, along every path and highway, the progress of the Republic has been marvelous, beyond the power of language to express.
Let me show you: In 1860 the horse-power of all the engines, the locomotives and the steamboats that traversed the lakes and rivers—the entire power—was three million five hundred thousand. In 1890 the horse-power of engines and locomotives and steamboats was over seventeen million.
Think of that and what it means! Think of the forces at work for the benefit of the United States, the machines doing the work of thousands and millions of men!
And remember that every engine that puffs is puffing for you; every road that runs is running for you. I want you to know that the average man and woman in the United States to-day has more of the conveniences of life than kings and queens had one hundred years ago.
Yes, we are getting along.