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 PREFACE

11

Vice-Presidents of the United States



every

member

of all

the cabinets every United States Senator and Speaker of the House every United States Congressman every member of the Supreme Court; ever signer of the Declaration of Independence; the Governors of the States and Territories; all the Authors, Poets and Composers; all the eminent Clergymen, Judges, Lawyers; all the Admirals and distinguished naval officers all the Generals and distinguished army officers while no name eminent in Literature, Art, Music, Science or Invention has been









omitted.

As

the failure to consider the lives of

as of historical

importance

is

men

of affairs

a defective feature of all

biographical works heretofore published, a special feature of this

work has been

to include the lives of the great pio-

neers, merchants, manufacturers, railroad builders,

and

men who have developed the mines, forests and farms, built the railroads, steamboat lines and canals, set afloat and managed the shipping, organized the cor-

other practical

porations, and introduced the

new

processes in science and

mechanics, which have so greatly reduced the cost and

promoted the comfort of living, while contributing to the power and prestige of the nation itself. They have founded the great museums, erected statues, libraries and reading rooms; and it is by them that the colleges, schools and philanthropic institutions are built and maintained; and

it

surely

served for

all

is

befitting that their records should be pre-

time in

this national

work

of representative

Americans.

That

the achievements of such persons should have

their public record

edge of

is

men whose

peculiarly proper, because a knowl-

substantial

fame

rests

upon

their at-