Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/427

Rh or the State, or from every State in the Union, all who feel an interest in the subject or question fly upon the wings of steam to the appointed place of meeting and at the appointed hour. The hotels and boarding-houses of the city are rapidly filled; they come together in the great hall of assembly, they shake hands, they become acquainted with one another, they make speeches, they vote, they carry their resolutions. And forth, upon the wings of a thousand daily papers, flies that which the meeting or the convention has resolved. These resolutions may, sometimes also, be merely the expression of opinion,—as, for example, they hold “Indignation meetings,” on occasions when they wish to express their strong disapprobation either of public men, or of public transactions. It is always admirable with what readiness, with what savoir faire, this people advances onward in self-government, and how determinedly and rapidly it proceeds from “proposed” to “resolved.”

In the populous Free States, the meetings of the members of different trades and professions, as well as of agriculture, belong to the ordinary occurrences of the day. Thus one now hears of Industrial Congresses in New York State, where the trades-brethren of certain kindred occupations meet every month; and “agricultural fairs” are already held in the young States of Michigan and Illinois, where the agriculturists of the State exhibit the rich products of the country. Cincinnati as well as New York and the great trading towns which lie between them,