THAT CAN PLEASE OR PROSPER HUMANKIND. A PERFECT CLIMATE ABOVE a
fertile soil_ yields to the husbandman every product of the
temperate zone.

There, by night _the cotton whitens beneath the stars,_ and by
day _THE WHEAT LOCKS THE SUNSHINE IN ITS BEARDED SHEAF._ In the
same field the clover steals the fragrance of the wind, and
tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains. _THERE ARE
MOUNTAINS STORED WITH EXHAUSTLESS TREASURES: forests--vast and
primeval;_ and rivers that, _tumbling or loitering, run wanton to
the sea._ Of the three essential items of all industries--cotton,
iron and wood--that region has easy control. _IN COTTON, a fixed
monopoly--IN IRON, proven supremacy--IN TIMBER, the
reserve supply of the Republic._ From this assured and
permanent advantage, against which artificial conditions cannot
much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of industries.
Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar
off from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting
in divine assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest--not
set amid costly farms from which competition has driven the
farmer in despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands, rich with
agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set a limit--this
system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle
and illumine the world. _THAT, SIR, is the picture and the promise
of my home--A LAND BETTER AND FAIRER THAN I HAVE TOLD YOU, and
yet but fit setting in its material excellence for the loyal and
gentle quality of its citizenship._

This hour little needs the _LOYALTY THAT IS LOYAL TO ONE SECTION
and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement._