The use of electricity as a motive power is yet in its infancy, and it is only a question of time when all these desirable improvements will be accomplished. It is less than five years since the first electric street-railway was put in operation in the United States. You will find in the Forum of September, 1891, a very able article on this subject from the pen of Mr. Frank J. Sprague. He says: "There were, then, in operation and under contract, in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan, not less than 350 electric street-railways, using more than 4,000 cars and 7,000 motors, with 2,600 miles of track and a daily mileage of nearly 500,000 miles and carrying nearly a billion passengers annually." This was over one year ago and the tabulated statement, contained in the Electrical Industries of October, 1892, shows that on the 15th of September last, just one year later, there were in the United States alone 469 electric roads, with 5,446 miles of track, using 7,769 motor cars and 3,790 trail cars. If these statements are both correct, wonderful progress has been made in the construction of electric railways during the past

year.

There are now in operation in Cleveland about fifty miles of double track electric street railways and sixteen miles more of double track in process of construction, which, when completed, will make a total of 132 miles of track using the trolley system. We have also one of the best constructed cable roads in the country, operating eleven miles of double track. This road is splendidly equipped with all the most modern improvements known to the cable system. Including horse car lines, there are altogether about 175 miles of street car tracks in Cleveland.

It is gratifying for me to know that I am not addressing a convention of fossils. No fossil ever succeeded in anything, except to leave the marks of its lineage on the rocks or in the crust of the earth. I doubt if it would be possible to get together a body of men more representative of the "push" and "pull" of American life than those I see before me. [Applause.] Coming from the different cities of the country, you embody in your collective capacity a system which has evoluted from small and crude beginnings into 1,500 street-railway companies. You are fast taking harness off horses and putting it on lightning and steam. The words "grip" and "wire-pulling" have received from you a new and enlarged meaning. You propose to divide the use of the streets with the people, but you take your half out of the

You ask a right of way through the principal thoroughfares, and when it is granted, the right to keep out of your way is the only valuable right that remains. Knowing your tendency to absorb everything in sight, rails are laid down to keep you where you belong. [Laughter.]

The longing for a future life has always been regarded as a strong proof of the immortality of the human soul; but corporations have no souls, and, therefore, their strong desire for continued existence would seem to disprove this theory. Eternity itself seems too short for some of them.

It

Nothing could be more appropriate than your selection of Cleveland as the place for holding this national convention. is another evidence of your shrewdness, because, while here, you can leave your orders for everything necessary for the equipment. of your various roads, and possibly they may be filled before you reach home. In speaking of the prosperity of Cleveland, I will make no invidious comparisons between this and other cities. We should all rejoice at the growth and prosperity of any and every city in this broad land, whether east or west, north or south. I take no stock in a man who is jealous of the growth of any city that is protected by the stars and stripes. We are one country, with one flag and one destiny, and whatever benefits one section or one city adds to the general prosperity of the whole. A man who is so small that he can see nothing good outside of his own city or his own folks is not big enough to be called an American citizen. The marvelous growth and prosperity of American cities, along the sea coast, the great lakes and rivers and in the interior is without a parallel in the history of the world, and every man who loves our free institutions should be proud of every one of them. Cleveland is a growing city, and the growth is solid and substantial. The true way to judge of the prosperity of a city is by the growth of its industries, the increasing volume of its business and the number of its buildings. and permanent improvements.

The books of our building inspector will show that in the past.

four

years there were erected in this city 11,000 new buildings and 5,000 new additions at a total estimated cost of over This would be an average of about 2,700 new

$21,000,000.

buildings every year. The census of 1890 will show that during the decade between 1880 and 1890 we increased over 100,000 in population. During the same decade we added 1,010 new manu

facturing establishments to the number we had in 1880, so that we now have 2,065. In 1890 these factories gave employment to 47,000 adult males and 5,000 adult females, making a total of 52,000 hands. There was paid to them in 1890 over $30,000,000 in wages alone. The cost of the raw material necessary to run these factories in 1890 was over $56,000,000 and the value of the manufactured products in the same year amounted to nearly $100,000,000. These facts and figures as to our industrial growth are official. You will find them in the address of General Porter, Superintendent of the Census, recently delivered in this city. It was published in pamphlet form for free distribution by the Board of Industry, and I hope each one of you will receive a copy before leaving our city.

In that address he sums up the growth of Cleveland in the following language:

"In ten years you have doubled the number of your establishments and the value of the products. You have nearly trebled the capital invested in manufactures, multiplied the total number employed two and a half times, and you are paying out annually in wages more than three times as much as you did in 1880."

He also says that Cleveland is the largest ship building port in the United States, and the largest in the world, except Clyde, in Scotland. He also adds: "These are cold, clear official statements of facts."

Few, if any cities in the world can present such a record of growth and prosperity. The manufactories in Cleveland are, perhaps, more diversified than those of any other city in the world. These 2,065 industrial establishments manufacture nearly every kind and variety of articles in the shape of iron, steel, brass, copper, wood and rubber that can be found anywhere in the markets of the world, or of which the mind of man can conceive.

This brief review must suffice. We might exhaust ourselves in trying to exhaust this subject. I will now commit you to the tender mercies and generous hospitalities of the street-railway magnates of Cleveland. I need not tender them the liberties of the city; they have taken them already and will share them with you. Like yourselves, they are great "hustlers." They will doubtless keep you on the move and afford you every opportunity to enjoy the varied social and business life of Cleveland. If anything should be wanting to make your stay pleasant and agreeable, they know how to appropriate it. I trust that your conven

tion will be of profit to yourselves and to the public in whose service you are enlisted. [Applause.]

RESPONSE OF THE PRESIDENT.

The President: I thank you, Mr. Mayor, on behalf of the Association for your kind words of hospitality; and I trust the city of Cleveland will not be ashamed of her guests when we leave. Your kind suggestions I hope the delegates will bear in mind. We know there are some places in Cleveland that we

must not visit.

VOTE OF THANKS TENDERED THE MAYOR.

Mr. William Richardson, of Brooklyn: I move you, Mr. President, that the thanks of the Association be tendered His Honor, the Mayor, for his instructive and eloquent address; and espeIcially for his hearty words of welcome to this city. Carried.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF LAST REGULAR MEETING. The President: The reading of the minutes of the last regular meeting is now in order.

be

The Secretary: If these minutes are to be read, there will not

any

other business done at this session.

Mr. Lewis Perrine, Jr., of Trenton: I move that the minutes as printed be approved and that their reading be dispensed with. Carried.

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.

The President: The next order of business is the address of the President.

The President then delivered the following address:

Gentlemen of the Convention:

This is a patriotic year, and its culminating point is close at hand. Friday of this week has been designated by Congress as a national holiday in commemoration of the discovery of America. Happily for us, since we cannot be on that day to take part in the opening of the World's Fair, it is privilege to meet together as the representatives of one of the foremost American industries in the state whose capital is Columbus. In this way at least we are permitted to pay our tribute of respect to the memory of the

in Chicago

our

bold and intrepid navigator, who 400 years ago turned the prow of his vessel to the westward and sailed forth into the unknown seas on the most fruitful voyage of discovery in the history of mankind.

It is a felicity to meet in Ohio this year, and it is a pleasure and privilege to come to Cleveland. We have heard much of the Forest City with its far famed Euclid Avenue, its viaduct of massive masonry, its splendid Arcade, and its beautiful Lake View Cemetery, whose crowning feature is the mausoleum which holds all that is mortal of the martyred Garfield.

But of deeper interest than any of the sights of the city and more closely bound to us by the ties of common interest, are the street-railway companies of Cleveland. Their officers have greeted us with such generous hospitality, and have made such excellent arrangements for our comfort and convenience, that we feel like reversing the usual order of business, and to extend to them a vote of thanks at the very outset. The city offers a fine opportunity to study practical street railroading. Here we see the most advanced ideas of construction, the highest development of the electric system, and a splendid new cable plant, as nearly perfect as capital, invention and engineering skill have been able to make it; and by the way of contrast and historical interest, we find a few horse car lines to remind us of the meetings a decade ago, when we used to grow excited over discussions of the relative merits of the horse and the mule as a street railway motor.

The street-railway interests of the United States are assuming wonderful proportions. Every day some new company is born, and every morning paper brings us rumors of consolidations, absorptions, and syndicate purchases, until the statistician lays aside his pencil and sheet in despair, utterly bewildered by the mass of accumulating and shifting figures. Definite data is out of the question, and I shall not attempt to tell you how great we are even in round numbers. But while the street-railways are legion, there is but one American Street-Railway Association, and I know you will be glad to learn that Mr. D. F. Longstreet, one of the founders of this body, in compliance with the request of the Executive Committee, has prepared an historical paper detailing the motives which led to the formation of the Association and giving due credit to the gentlemen associated with him in the movement. We shall be favored with this paper a little later.

This is pre-eminently an electric age, and most of us believe that as yet we are only standing on the threshold. The horse and his half brother, the mule, are destined to disappear as street-railway motors. The cable system, from its very nature and cost, must be confined to the thickly populated districts of large cities; but there seems to be no limitations to the electric railway. It leaps over the city lines wherever there is a large suburban town calling for rapid transit; it girds the summer lakes; it is forcing its way through the scenic splendors of the Niagara gorge close beside the water's edge, and when the Convention goes to California, as no doubt it will some day ere long, we may expect to ride round the Yosemite on a train of trolley cars; and how rapidly it has all come about!

It was just ten years ago that the President of this Association, at the Chicago meeting, with a foresight which must have been born of intuition, ventured to predict that the lightning would some day be harnessed to the