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I. The Annual Address

Some Agencies for the Extension of our Domestic and Foreign Trade

By Honorable George Bruce Cortelyou, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C.

SOME AGENCIES FOR THE EXTENSION OF OUR DOMESTIC

AND FOREIGN TRADE

BY HONORABle George Bruce CorteLYOU

Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C.

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:

I am particularly fortunate in having the privilege of meeting you this evening, for, in addition to the pleasure of seeing so many old friends, it is an interesting and gratifying experience for a speaker to address a gathering peculiarly concerned with the subject he has to discuss.

Your organization has had a rapid and healthful growth since its foundation in 1889. I am glad it is international in its scope and that its influence for good has been so marked. As announced when

it was organized, the desire was to establish an association which, "renouncing all attempts at propaganda and demanding no confession of faith, should yet aim to keep its members in close touch with the practical social questions of the time." You are living up to this standard; you are doing something worth while in the life of the nation, and that should be a source of pride and congratulation to any association.

I greatly appreciate your kindness and consideration in arranging for me to meet not only the members of this Academy, but the members of the Manufacturers' Club, honored so long and so justly among the great organizations of its kind, and I am glad also to meet the representatives of the University of Pennsylvania, the foundation of which was laid in colonial days, nearly fifty years before Pennsylvania became a State."

Philadelphia has many claims upon those of us who are trying to contribute to a better understanding of commercial and industrial conditions. As the metropolis of a manufacturing Commonwealth, as the seat of one of the great universities of the country and other institutions of learning having a deservedly high standing in their respective classes, as the home of influential organizations such as yours, and as the abiding place of many who represent the best ten

dencies of our citizenship, it is peculiarly a city in which it is opportune to dwell at some length upon problems before the country and the steps believed to be necessary for their solution.

I have been in Philadelphia many times. I have had occasion, in connection with various Presidential trips, to note the tact and courtesy and hospitality with which your citizens arrange for such gatherings as this and for the services or exercises incident to your public meetings. You will pardon me for the personal allusion if I say that in a number of instances when visiting other places under such auspices I felt it necessary to take charge of the committees; whenever I came here your committees took charge of me I conclude, therefore, that to-night I am in your hands, and that while you may differ with some of my statements and conclusions, you will bear with me patiently, and will receive in the generous spirit so characteristic of your people such suggestions as may seem warranted regarding the topic upon which I shall speak.

Many of you recall the visit of President McKinley to attend the opening of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. He believed in such agencies for the promotion of our commerce. Some day the new Department of Commerce and Labor may find it advisable to have closer relations with these museums, and I should be glad to see some practical steps taken to that end. Doctor Wilson, the able head of the Museum, and those associated with its development, deserve the thanks of this community and the recognition I am sure they will receive from the business men of the country for what they have contributed to the fund of our information upon commercial topics.

There has never been a time in the history of this country when so much interest was taken in commercial and industrial conditions as at present. With the expansion of our territory has come the expansion of our trade. We believe that the necessary expansion of territory has been attended by no sacrifice of the principles upon which the Government was founded and with no menace to our future welfare. The same must be made true of the expansion of our trade. The founders of the Republic builded wisely, and however great may be the development on commercial and industrial lines, there should be no deviation from the great fundamental principles, adherence to which has been the safeguard of our institutions. Some time ago,

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