results within the lifetime of the generation born since we celebrated the Centennial of Independence. The manifestations now resulting and apparent to all are the natural outcome of the use of these modern appliances, become in our case everyday working tools in the hands of the most resourceful, adaptive, ingenious and energetic of communities, developing a virgin continent of undreamed-of wealth. Naturally, under such conditions, the advance has been not only general and continuous, but one of ever increasing celerity. So Protection and the Currency become flies on the fast revolving wheel!
But what has otherwise resulted?—An unrest, social, economical, political. Not contentment, but a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong! We hear it in the continual cry over what is known as the increased cost of living, and feel its pressure in the higher standard of living. What was considered wealth by our ancestors is to-day hardly competence. What sufficed for luxury in our childhood barely now supplies what are known as the comforts of life. Take, for instance, the motor,—the automobile. I speak within bounds, I think, when I say there are many fold more motors to-day racing over the streets, the highways and the byways of America than there were one-horse wagons thirty-five years ago. Six hundred, I am told, are to be found within the immediate neighborhood of Columbia; and, since I have been here I have seen in your streets just one man on horse-back! These figures and that statement tell the
