THE GROWTH AND FUTURE OF THE NATION.- We talk of New England as the hive of manufactures. I put this prediction on record, and I won't wait ten years to see it fulfilled, that California and Oregon are going to almost rival New England in manufactures. I believe it. With all the hundreds of millions in the land fronting the Pacific sea, stretching out their hands, as they will, towards this country for those articles that can be manufactured here, you will see the infant manufactures of the Pacific states leaping forward with the gigantic stride with which our country has illustrated its entire history in the annals of the world. Have you thought how we are swelling in population? Going, as I did two or three weeks ago, and looking back on ancient and modern history, I found no parallel to it. The advance of this country, not alone in its wealth, which has more than doubled every ten years, but in the increase of its population, which is even more valuable than gold and silver, has been six times more than Great Britain, nine times more than Austria, ten times more than France, and is destined to give us a hundred millions at the end of the century; and beyond it our nation is to be, in its power, in its grandeur, in its territorial area, in its resources, in its capabilities, and in its opportunities, what I dare not attempt to predict to you. It is to come, if we are faithful; it is to come, if we are just; it is to come, if we are true to ourselves; from Orient to Occident, from mountain to mountain, from Atlantic to Pacific, from hundred-harbored Maine to the Golden Gate, the future of this great country, if only prudence, wisdom, justice, and right and peace, shall guide it, shall be beyond the portrayal of language, beyond any words that my heart could devise, or that my tongue can express to you upon this joyful night, the opening of the new history of the American Republic.- Schuyler Colfax.
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Schuyler Colfax was the Vice President of the United States under President Ulysses S. Grant. He writes about the increase in the United States population in the glowing terms of being worth more than gold and silver. The United States population was increasing very quickly having grown from more than five million in 1800 to more than 23 million by mid-century. The cause of this growth was from both a high birth-rate and immigration. His prediction is that in less than ten years, the West Coast will rival New England in the number of manufacturing companies and that America will gain more power, resources and opportunities than any other country. The Gazette & Courier was the newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, from July 20, 1841 until June 24, 1932. Before 1841 the newspaper's name changed quite frequently, with Gazette a frequent part of the title.

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