Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/645

Rh open arms and basking in the bright gleam of their smiles for thirty years, and still they spread their arms to welcome more.

The genii of the streams make the hills and valleys ring with their wild mirth as they bid the manufacturers come and string their furnaces and looms along their banks.

The genii of the forest and the quarries bid the architect come and rear the palaces and temples that are to decorate the emporiums of commerce and fashion that are to dot the wide expanse.

The genii of the Pacific Coast spread out expansive harbors sufficient for the shipping of the world, and bid the storm-beaten mariner enter their broad portals and rest secure on their rippling waves, and the merchantman of foreign climes to come and traffic in their marts.

It was the dawning of a new epoch in the annals of time. Science, art, genius, commerce, wealth, statesmanship, all seem at-that time to have crept from their cradles, thrown off their swaddling clothes, and stood erect in the full stature and proud strength of manhood.

The genius of the age is manifested in the grand strides of invention to meet the demands of the times. Jackson, while President, never saw a railroad; and at least one member of our National Council at that time wended his weary way to the halls of Congress on foot, in his buckskin hunting shirt and leggings. In the days of Buchanan, members of Congress plodded along to the national capital in the old slow coach, and none hailed from west of the Missouri. Even Lincoln never heard of the telephone and electric lights.

The spirit of the age is exemplified by the supplanting of the canal-packet and old Troy coach by the railroad, express, the telegraph, and telephone.

What was the great important factor in bringing about this change? I answer, the Mexican war. "Necessity is the mother of invention." The necessity for these advances did not exist until the wonders of this newly acquired territory were spread to the view of the world; and yet some of our