Original Document

In the manufacture of railroad cars, carriages and wagons, iron bridges, architectural iron work, and agricultural implements, hardware, hats and caps, paints, saws, edgetools and files, scales, sewing machines, chemicals, pottery, tobacco and cigars, and other manufactured products…Pennsylvania has made more or less progress, but in most of these branches of industry there remains much for her to accomplish. She has not utilized all her advantages as a manufacturing State. Does any good reason exist, for instance, why she should send to Ohio and other Western States for a large number of the agricultural implements she needs? Does any good reason exist why the manufacture of iron products within her borders should be so generally restricted to the coarser forms of iron and steel? New England diversifies her iron manufactures, and finds her profits in diversification. Pennsylvania might well manufacture more hardware and cutlery, and more finished iron products of all kinds, than she does….

It is not an empty boast to say that Pennsylvania is undoubtedly the richest state in the Union in natural resources, both in extent and variety. The iron and other ores; the coal, petroleum, salt, building stone, slate, potter's earths, silicious sand, etc., found under the ground; and the vast forests of pine and other timber; the fertile valleys and hillsides; the salubrious climate; the abundant and well-distributed water-power available for turning wheels of saw and grist mills, woolen factories, paper mills, blast furnaces, forges, and other manufacturing establishments; the large streams which facilitate and cheapen transportation; the magnificent outlet to the ocean in the East through the Delaware River, and the outlets to the Great West and South through the Ohio River and Lake Erie, form a combination of natural advantages which no other State possesses.

The utilization of these advantages, although that utilization falls short of possibilities that might be easily achieved, annually yields a larger revenue to the State than is derived by any other State from its natural resources, except New York. Pennsylvania produces almost one-half of all the iron manufactured in the Union; mines two-thirds of all the coal; builds nearly all the iron ships; ranks fourth among the States in agriculture; is the second state in general manufacturing activity, New York being the first when the last census was taken; second only to Michigan in the production of lumber; is the second state in the production of leather; produces nearly all the petroleum that is produced in the country; is the leading state in the manufacture of carpets, the second in the manufacture of woolen goods, and the third in the manufacture of cotton goods; is the leading State in the manufacture of machinery; is surpassed only by New York in the manufacture of stoves and castings; is the leading state in the manufacture of glass; is the third state in the manufacture of paper; holds the same rank in the manufacture of boots and shoes; and the same in the manufacture of furniture and woodenware; and is the second State in the manufacture of flouring and mill products. It has more miles or railroad than any other State except Illinois.

It is neither the first nor even the second State in foreign or internal commerce, but its position among the States as a common carrier and an exchanger of products is nevertheless very prominent. But neither foreign nor internal commerce is, strictly speaking in these days of railroads and steamships, an outgrowth of the natural resources of a State. They are rather the result of commercial enterprise and fortuitous accidents than of natural advantages. Illinois has more miles of railroad than Pennsylvania, because the General Government greatly aided her to develop her railway system but gave to Pennsylvania nothing. Fire and life insurance companies flourish in Connecticut and bring great gain to her people, but, while such organizations undoubtedly show remarkable enterprise and thrift, it would obviously be a blunder to class them among the products derived from the natural resources of the State: they are the product of the moneychanger's art, which flourishes everywhere. New York city wrested from Philadelphia her leadership in foreign commerce mainly because New York State had the wisdom to build the Erie Canal years before Pennsylvania began her system of internal improvements….

The secret and growth of [Pennsylvania's] growth and prosperity in the past lies partly in the enterprise and courage of her people, but it is mainly found in the diversity of her natural resources. From this cause her future must become brighter and brighter as the years roll on. Her place eventually was the unchallenged leader of all the States is secure. When once the tide of Western emigration is checked because prairie farms can no longer be bought with small savings; when the mania for deserting the farm and rushing to the town or city shall have been turned into a more healthy desire to till the soil, and thousands of new farms shall be opened in Pennsylvania in its wilderness places; and when many minor manufacturing industries that now do not exist in the State, or have only imperfect development, shall have been planted and firmly established, as they are surely destined to be, then Pennsylvania will know no rival among her sisters. Her present prosperity and future greatness rest upon an enduring foundation.