this American Union of ours. We have here a country consisting of fifty
local communities, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
tropical Porto Rico to glacial Alaska, representing every conceivable
phase of soil, climate and material conditions, with diverse industrial
systems. With a Union established on the principle of absolutely
unrestricted commercial intercourse, you here in South Carolina, and
more especially in Columbia, are to-day making it, so to speak,
uncomfortable for the cotton manufacturer in New England; and I am glad
of it! A sharp competition is a healthy incentive to effort and
ingenuity, and the brutal injunction, "Root hog or die!" is one from
which I in no way ask to have New England exempt. When Massachusetts is
no longer able to hold its own industrially in a free field, the time
will, in my judgment, have come for Massachusetts to go down. With
communities as with children, paternalism reads arrested development.
One of the great products of Massachusetts has been what is generically
known as "footwear." Yet I am told that under the operation of absolute
Free Trade, St. Louis possesses the largest boot and shoe factory in its
output in the entire world. That is, the law of industrial development,
as natural conditions warrant and demand, has worked out its results;
and those results are satisfactory. I am aware that the farmer of
Massachusetts has become practically extinct; he cannot face the
competition of the great West: but the Massachusetts consumer is greatly
advantaged thereby. So far as agricultural products are concerned,
Massachusetts is to-day reduced to what is known as dairy products and
garden truck; and it is well! Summer vegetables manufactured under glass
in winter prove profitable. So, turning his industrial efforts to that
which he can do best, even the Massachusetts agriculturalist has
prospered. On the other hand, wherever in this country protection has
been most completely applied, I insist that if its results are analyzed
in an unprejudiced spirit, it will be pronounced to have worked