FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48  
49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   >>   >|  
ask me to point you to greatness I do not direct your minds to historic heights, but that you may win your share of greatness I close this address by saying, wherever your lot in life be cast, "In the name of God advancing, Plow, sow and labor now; Let there be when evening cometh, Honest sweat upon thy brow. Then will come the Master, When work stops at set of sun, Saying, as He pays the wages, 'Good and faithful one, well done.'" II A SEARCHLIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. But a little more than a century ago, the old world laughed at the new. Writers of the old world called our American eagle, "a paper bird, brooding over a barren waste;" yet in what they then called a barren waste, railroads now carry more of the products of the earth, than all the railroads of all the lands, of all the peoples on the face of the earth. When New England people believed there would never be anything worth having west of the Connecticut River, what if some seer had prophesied that in nineteen hundred there would be a city on Manhattan Island named New York that would rival London, two southwest, Baltimore and Washington to equal Venice, Philadelphia to match Liverpool, Pittsburg and Buffalo to surpass Birmingham, and beyond these a city called Chicago, which in grit and growth would beat anything the old world ever dreamt of; while on still farther west, would be a State named Iowa, in which in nineteen hundred and fourteen, would be produced enough cattle to beef England, enough potatoes to feed Ireland and hogs to "beat the Jews." What if he had continued; that in the libraries of the barren waste, there would be ten million more books, than in the combined libraries of Europe; that its college students would outnumber the college students of England, France and Germany combined; that its wealth would be great enough to purchase the empires of Russia and Turkey, the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, with South Africa and all her diamond mines thrown in, and then have enough left to buy a dozen archipelagoes at twenty millions each, and still have the wealth of the republic growing at the rate of five millions of dollars every twenty-four hours. What a land in which to live! Think of it; less than a century and a half ago, Liberty and England's runaway daughter, Columbia, took each other "for better or for worse, forever and for aye" and started down time's rugged s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48  
49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

England

 

called

 

barren

 

century

 

railroads

 
students
 

college

 

combined

 

wealth

 

millions


twenty
 

libraries

 

nineteen

 

hundred

 

greatness

 

Europe

 

historic

 
continued
 

heights

 

million


direct

 

outnumber

 

empires

 

Russia

 

Turkey

 

kingdoms

 
purchase
 
France
 

Germany

 
dreamt

farther

 

growth

 

Chicago

 
Ireland
 

potatoes

 

fourteen

 

produced

 

cattle

 
Norway
 

Switzerland


runaway

 

daughter

 

Columbia

 

Liberty

 

started

 

rugged

 
forever
 
diamond
 

thrown

 

Africa