OF

JAMES A. BEAVER,

TO THE

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

OF

PENNSYLVANIA,

JANUARY 1, 1889.

HARRISBURG:

EDWIN K. MEYERS, STATE PRINTER.

1889.

MESSAGE.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,

EXECUTIVE CHAMBER,

HARRISBURG, PA., January 1, 1889. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth

of Pennsylvania:

GENTLEMEN : You come together under favorable auspices. The Commonwealth prospers. Her population increases. Her vote at the last general election aggregated within seventeen hundred of one million, being about one hundred thousand in excess of the vote at any time previously cast. This vote, measured by the standard of 1880, would indicate a population approximating, if not quite equal to, five millions.

Plenty crowns the year which has just closed. Agriculture has been rewarded by generous returns from the soil, in greater degree than in several years past. The output of our mines has steadily increased. We easily hold our place in the front rank of the producers of coal and iron. The busy hum of industry has indicated the content of employment, even if manufacturers have been denied a fairly profitable return. Internal and interstate commerce show increased and increasing tonnage, and give employment to constantly increasing numbers. The growth of our railroad system, although checked in some directions, has been healthy and vigorous elsewhere, and has tended to the development of our vast resources heretofore untouched. New territory for the production of oil and natural gas has been discovered and opened up. The utilization of natural gas and of the vast accumulations of culm in the anthracite coal regions, and the development of new bituminous coal fields in several parts of the State, have proved of great advantage to our manufacturing industries in all portions of the Commonwealth and offer superior attractions to those desiring to locate new manufacturing industries, especially such as relate to the manufacture of iron and the products thereof.

The vigorous growth and healthy development of the smaller cities, indicated by increased attention to the paving of streets and the introduction of electric motor, and horse railways, are evidences of general thrift and commendable enterprise.

Industrial thrift has been but slightly retarded by strikes and lockouts, destructive alike to all the interests affected thereby, and an in1 MESSAGE.

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