"I understand," said the President, "that you have taught us how to spin so as to rival Great Britain and that it is you who have set all these thousands of spindles at work, which I have been so delighted to see, and which are making so many people happy by giving them employment."
"Yes sir," said Mr. Slater," I suppose that I gave out the Psalm, and they have been singing the tune ever since."
PRESIDENT JACKSON AND MR. SLATER.
Samuel Slater died in 1835, leaving a large fortune to his family. John Slater died a few years after the death of his brother. It was his son, John F. Slater, who in 1882 placed $1,000,000 in the hands of a board of trustees, the interest of which was to be used for the education of the freedmen of the South and their descendants. The great Rhode Island orator, Tristam Burgess, said in Congress on one occasion: "If manufacturing establishments are a benefit and a blessing to the Union, the name of Slater must ever be held in grateful remembrance by the American people."
It would be next to impossible to give any adequate account of the improvements which have been made in American machinery for the manufacture of cotton cloth. Beginning with the cotton gin and the introduction of the carding machine and the spinning frame by Slater, we should have to record the great success of the double speeder, the modern drawing-frame, the Crompton and the Whitin looms, and especially the ring traveler spinning frame and the self-operating cotton mule.
THE INTERIOR OF A MODERN COTTON MILL.