. J?. (X <*t5 THE DEDICATION OF l?e of CHICAGO. APRIL 29. 1885. ADDRESS OF EMERY A STORRS, {. GVKOHOW? VMN PRvmis. 44 (. 4% \ASMAt IV Ik Pnsa* Memtm of tfe Chicago Board tf Trade: BEUTVCTG it would be interesting and valuable to the present members, in connection with the development of the Board of Trade and the chy of Chicago since April, 1848, it is my pleasure to furnish you with a copy of Hon. Emery A. Starrs' oration upon the dedication of this building thirty years ago, April 23, 1885. The first annual meeting of the Board was held in 1849 in April, a month memorable tons as a nation and to some of us as individuals. The first blood of our Revolutionary War was shed April 19, 1775; the first blood of die Mexican War was shed April 16, 1816. The first gun of our Civil War was fired April iz and the first blood shed April 19, 1861. General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865. The first shot of our Spanish War was fired April 22, 1898; and April 21, 1914, marked the day of the spiffing of the first American blood in our present Mexican "watchful waiting." But possibly the saddest line in April's history is that iccoiding die assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14, 1865. Personally, April means much to me. Fifty-fear years ago, on the 2}d of April, 1861, I enlisted to help save our nation and the honor of our flag and was instrumental in organizing Taylor's Chicago Battery. We left Chicago June 3d (which was the day Senator Stephen A. Douglas died), mmmandrd by Captain Ezra Taylor, who was a menibei of the Board, (afterwards General W. T. Sherman's Chief of Artillery). Under the command of General U. S. Grant, Generals Sherman, McPherson, and Logan, I participated in many battles (among which in April were Shiloh in '62 and Vkksburg in '63, (where I was promoted to Captain), ending up near Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 1864. Returning to Chicago at the expiration of the battery's enlist- ment, I reentered the commission business, having been a member of the Board since 1859. I was elected a director in 1870, serving through the Big Fire in '71, the burning of the building of die Board at due corner of Washington and T .a Salic streets, and its rebuilding. Thirty years later in 1900 I was again elected a director, serving three years, and am now die only member of die Board who was in die commission business before die Cvfl War, and am still active, with a son to follow. '- = DEDICATION Hew oapd of :- :-:: - : = . ADDRESS OF EMERY A STORRS. UfiHux. Snvn. THIS IS A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL ADDRESS OF EMERY A. STORRS, PRINTED IN 1885 IN CHICAGO. REPRINTED, IQIJ, BY R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS CO. CHICAGO . $resibent anb Gentlemen: ORTY years ago, what is now known as the great West was farther removed from the city of New York than the remotest confines of Europe are separated from the great West to- day. What is now an empire in power, popula- tion, and wealth was then almost an unknown country; and nothing more dis- tinctively illustrates the marvelous increase in popu- lation, wealth, and power of the Northwest than the growth, from its first humble beginnings up to its present greatness, of the Chicago Board of Trade. In 1848, that Chicago was to be a great city, and that, seated at the head of the chain of lakes, it was to command in a large measure the trade of the grain- growing regions that it was to be the center where should be gathered their agricultural products, and from which those products should be distributed throughout the world became manifest to those few hopeful and sagacious men who, on the 13th of March of that year, met together for the establishment of a board of trade in this city. The call for the first meeting was signed by thirteen firms and individuals, and resolutions were passed stating that the growing trade of Chicago demanded the establishment of a board of trade; a constitution was adopted, and a [5 ] committee appointed to draw up by-laws, which were submitted to an adjourned meeting on the first Mon- day in April following, when they were adopted. The beginnings were very small. The annual rent of the rooms was 3110. But, as small as the board was in point of numbers, it immediately interested itself in public questions. The first annual meeting was held in April, 1849. Steps were taken to secure telegraphic reports of the eastern markets, and the hour for daily meetings was fixed at nine o'clock. This young association de- voted itself at once to the regulation of tolls on the canals, the condition of the harbor; and the confi- dence which even at that early day was reposed in it is exhibited by the fact that the city council, having a short time before made an appropriation of 31,000 in bonds, redeemable in five years at ten per cent, placed these bonds at the disposal of the board. In April, 1850, the general law relating to the estab- lishment of the board of trade was read at the first meeting of the board, and the members organized under the act passed February 8, 1849, the title of the association being the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago, and the admission fee fixed at the sum of 35. In 1850 a deficit in the treasurer's books was found of 3146, and the annual dues were raised from 32 to 33. The board during this year was active in promoting the free navigation of the River St. Law- rence. Notwithstanding the pressing invitations ex- tended to the members to meet daily, but few of them did so; and the hour of the meetings was changed from twelve, noon, to one P. M. [6] The third annual meeting was held in April, 1851, and there were at that time but thirty-eight members in the association. The treasurer's books then showed a deficit of 3165, to meet which the treasurer recom- mended that each member be assessed 34, which would very nearly free the association from debt. Charles Walker, during this year, was elected presi- dent, and a delegation of the board was appointed to attend a convention to be held at Peoria, to consider the improvement of the Illinois River. A daily record was kept of the members present at the annual meet- ings, and that record presents the curious fact that day after day there were no members whatever present, and on many occasions no one present but the faithful and able president, Charles Walker. In 1852 the membership showed an increase of fifteen names within the year. It is not necessary to trace through these intervening years the history of this board. It is enough to say that up to 1858 its growth was exceedingly slow, but that in the meantime it had interested itself in all questions of a general character affecting the interests of the city and the Northwest. In 1855, at the seventh annual meeting, for the purpose of securing a better attendance of the members, refreshments were furnished to them, of crackers, cheese and ale, and a reading-room projected. In 1856 the annual meeting was held in the ladies' ordinary at the Tre- mont House. The year 1858 was a notable one in its history. Our honored citizen, Julian S. Rumsey, was its president and inaugurated the present system of grain inspection, which has been substantially adopted [7] throughout the country, and has become an authority throughout the world. During that year the first annual report was made. In 1859 the board felt itself sufficiently strong to occupy more enlarged rooms, and to involve themselves in liabilities for the payment of an annual rental of 31,200, which by many of its conservative members was deemed to be very extravagant. From 1859 down to 1861 the growth of the board was exceedingly rapid. In 1860 the list of member- ship comprised 625 names. In 1859 a new charter was obtained from the legislature, conferring upon the association privileges commensurate with the in- creasing growth of the commerce of the city, and this, together with new sets of rules and regulations, was formally presented and adopted. In 1861 the list of membership had increased to 725, and the board had a substantial surplus. In 1863 it commenced the erection of its new building on the southeast corner of LaSalle and Washington streets, which was finished and occupied by it in 1865. This building the board continued to occupy until its destruction by fire on the 9th of October, 1871. It was rebuilt within a year, and the new building has been occupied by them since that time up to to-day. The list of member- ship has increased to nearly 2,000. The transactions of the board attract the attention of the commercial world. The history of this magnificent temple, dedi- cated to an honorable commerce, has already been told you; and it is for the formal dedication of this splendid structure to so great a purpose that we are to-day assembled. [8] The Board of Trade of the city of Chicago is worthy of such a home. Considering the magnitude of the interests which it controls and represents, and the fidelity with which, from its birth down to to-day, the great trusts reposed in it by the people have been discharged, it needs not to vaunt itself, but the truth- ful story of what it has done is all the eulogy which it requires. This much, and very hurriedly, by way of history. But the figures showing the increase of its business until its transactions have reached their present co- lossal proportions are more eloquent than any mere language of description can possibly be. When the board was organized in 1848, the entire shipments of flour from this city were 45,200 barrels, but in 1884 those shipments had reached 4,808,884 barrels. In 1848 there were shipped from Chicago 2,160,000 bushels of wheat, but in 1884 those ship- ments reached the enormous aggregate of 21,046,577. The growth of the Northwest is well exhibited in these speaking and eloquent statistics. In 1848 the shipments of corn from Chicago were 550,460 bushels; but in 1884 they amounted to 53,274,050 bushels. Within the same period of time the shipment of oats has increased from 65,280 bushels to 34,230,293 bushels. Prior to the year 1853 we possess no records ex- hibiting the trading in pork, lard, butter or wool. But the increase in the actual transactions in these products is something marvelous. In 1853 the ship- ments of pork amounted to 9,266,318, and in 1884 to 549,674,034 pounds. Of lard, in 1853 the shipments [9] were 1,847,552 pounds, which had increased in 1883 to 219,617,436. In 1854 the shipments of butter amounted to 577,388, and in 1884 to 90,660,374 pounds. The shipments of wool in 1853 amounted to 953,100 pounds, and in 1884 to 53,334,926. The receipts of live stock and the packing business since 1864 and 1865 show an increase equally great. In 1864 we received 338,840 head of cattle, and twenty years later, in 1884, the receipts had increased to 1,817,697. Of live hogs there were received in 1865, 757,072, and in 1884 we received 5,351,967. In 1864 there were packed 70,086 cattle, and 1,182,905 in 1884. In the year 1865 there were packed 760,514 hogs, and in 1884 the aggregate reached 3,911,792. The capacity of our grain elevators is 26,175,000 bushels. The actual values thus represented in dollars and cents may safely be stated to amount to the enor- mous sum of 3600,000,000 per year. In part, these products furnish the foundations upon which the transactions of the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago are based. They are real, if anything is real, and are the most substantial and positive actualities. These figures demonstrate that the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago does not deal in fictions, for if there should be removed from the world's supplies for one year these vast quantities of grain and provisions, want and hunger and famine, most positive and real, would follow, which would be no fictions, but realities of the most deplorable and calamitous character. Nor are the men who engage in the handling of these products gamblers. As colossal as the values I have [10] named are, they represent but a small fraction of the entire volume of the transactions on this board. A thousand bushels of grain may change hands twenty times every day, but fortifying each transaction is the warehouse receipt; and a fictitious transaction, or one which bears the slightest resemblance to a gambling one, is within the rules of the board an utter impossi- bility. I am not speaking of these facts, so greatly to the credit of the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago, as distinguishing it from other associations of like character throughout the country. What I have said of this board is doubtless true in the main of all other associations of a kindred character. That there are speculative operations in grain and provisions no one will undertake to deny, but so long as the nature of man remains what it is, and what it always has been, enterprises more or less speculative will characterize the commerce and trade of the world. It occurred many years ago to Lord Kenyon, who was a great man within a certain judicial range, that he could regulate by judicial decision the currents of trade. He conceived that buying grain and breadstuffs, and holding them for a rise for speculative purposes, was against public policy and immoral; and he therefore, as chief justice of the king's bench, adjudged all such transactions void. But the king's bench, with all its judicial terrors, might as well have undertaken to change the course of the seasons as to have checked enterprises of a speculative character in breadstuffs; and such a clamor was raised about the ears of Lord Chief Justice Kenyon that it was not long before his decisions were relegated to the limbo of overruled [in cases, and are quoted to-day, not as authority, but as demonstrating how far and how absurdly wrong even a great judge may possibly go. While no rules can check, and it would be unwise to undertake to check speculative operations, yet the declared objects of the board are utterly hostile to fictitious and gambling transactions, and to corners. The preamble of its rules and by-laws expresses the general objects of the board in this language: "To maintain a commercial exchange; to promote "uniformity in the customs and usages of merchants; "to inculcate principles of justice and equity in trade; "to facilitate the speedy adjustment of business dis- "putes; to acquire and disseminate valuable com- "mercial or economic information; and generally to "secure to its members the benefits of co-operation in "the furtherance of their legitimate pursuits." The rules and by-laws of the board are hostile to all such enterprises, and to the creation and manipulation of corners; and its authoritative action on notable occasions has been in entire harmony with the general purposes as expressed in its preamble, and in further- ance of its rules and by-laws. In the year 1874, desperate efforts were made to control the corn market, which led to serious losses to the trade, and to extended litigation. The transactions involved the dignity and the fair fame and character of the board. Charges were preferred against members of the board for viola- tion of its rules, reciting that "the objects of the " association, as set forth in the preamble to its general "rules, are in danger of subversion by the toleration "among its members of acts contrary to the principles [ 12 ] "which should govern all commercial transactions." An investigation of the efforts made to control the corn market, and of those engaged in these efforts, was demanded. The parties were brought to trial, result- ing in the expulsion of several of the accused by a large and decisive vote, furnishing thereby the completest evidence of the determination of the board to exercise its discretionary powers to the end that the highest possible standard of commercial integrity might be maintained. No association of individuals has ever adapted itself to new and indeed to novel situations more rapidly or more intelligently than the Chicago Board of Trade. It has shown itself equal to every emergency, and has developed a positive genius for legislation. Under the old-time methods of transporting grain in bags, and its delivery at the various railroad depots, or by canal or water-ways, a general system of inspection was well-nigh impracticable, and was perhaps un- necessary. But the tremendous growth of produc- tion made a change in the method of handling grain indispensable, and to this point, years since, the trans- portation of grain in bulk superseded the old method, and this change in the method of transportation necessitated a change in the method of handling and storing; and out of this grew our vast elevator system. It became impossible, therefore, to keep each shipper's grain by itself, and there grew up at once a necessity for fair and equitable inspection, such a system as would save the producer and shipper harmless, and secure him absolutely against any deceits which might be attempted upon him by the warehouseman. I [ 13 ] have already had occasion to refer to this system of inspection; and the system itself, supplemented as it now is by state legislation, is one so admirably adapted to the purposes for which it was designed as to reflect the highest credit upon its author, and upon this board. This system of inspection, and the issu- ance of warehouse receipts, practically revolutionized the character of transactions on 'Change, and made possible those colossal operations which have carried the fame of the Chicago Board of Trade all around the globe. Behind every transaction on 'Change stands the warehouse receipt; and this warehouse receipt is as conclusive and unchallengeable evidence as to quan- tity and quality as the mint stamp of the government upon its coin; or the silver certificate that the exact amount of silver is behind it which it claims to rep- resent. One of the declared objects of the board, as we have seen, is to facilitate the speedy adjustment of business disputes; and its rules, referring controversies between its members to the board itself for determination, and substituting arbitration in the solution of business differences for the slow and tedious processes of litigation in the courts, have operated most satis- factorily, and resulted not only in the saving of expense, but in the encouragement of a much better state of feeling between members of the board, and the settle- ment of questions between those members, much more speedily than could have been achieved by the ordi- nary proceedings in courts of justice. It is a part of the history of the board that failures which from time to time occur, accompanied with a [ W] fair and honest showing, are speedily settled; and it is claimed that there has been in all its history no instance of a fair and honest failure where the unfortu- nate member has appealed in vain to the good sense and fairness of his brother members for an arrange- ment of his difficulties. Compared with the action of the courts, settlements of great claims which have been made by the board itself illustrate its business fairness and sagacity. Within a few years a failure occurred involving millions, which would have re- quired years for adjustment had it been submitted to the ordinary forms of judicial proceeding, and involved thousands of dollars of expense; but within a period of thirty days a complete settlement had been reached, practically without expense, and substantially to the entire satisfaction of all the parties concerned. It would be utterly impossible that, in the ordinary prosecution of its business, the vast contracts that are made upon 'Change should be submitted to writing; and so it has come to pass that so high a level of per- sonal honor has been reached that but a motion of the finger, a nod of the head, or a word, is all that is re- quired in a transaction involving possibly millions of dollars, and the instances of a violation of contracts thus entered into are so rare and exceptional that it would be difficult to recall even one of them. Whether entirely conscious of the fact or not, the members of the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago represent not merely themselves, and act not merely for themselves, but stand between the producer on the one hand and the consumer throughout the civi- lized world on the other. There is no great business t 15 ] interest in this city in which, either directly or in- directly, it is not interested. Its members are found at the head of, or are intimately connected with, our great banking institutions; and the safety and solidity of our banks are universally recognized. This board, directly or indirectly, has settled legal questions of the largest importance to the producing and financial interests of the country. It has demonstrated the fact that those customs which, for the convenience of business, merchants have established among them- selves, are stronger than any mere legal technicalities, and that to those customs, when among merchants they become uniform, universal, and well established, the law must bend, and if it does not bend it will break. Lawyers have commented with great pride upon what they claim to be the fact that that great jurist, Lord Mansfield, was the substantial author and founder of what is now known as the law merchant. I would not detract from the encomiums so justly for generations passed upon Lord Mansfield for his part in giving form and strength to that splendid body of the law. But it is always to be remembered that the law merchant was not invented nor devised by Lord Mansfield, nor by any other judge or judges, but grew out of the necessities of trade as developed by actual experience, was a code which merchants had estab- lished for themselves, and that the part which Lord Mansfield played was not that of creating this code, but was the perhaps equally wise part for a great judge of recognizing the existence of these customs, and giving them, by his adjudications upon the bench, the authoritative force of law. [ 16] To the changed condition of things growing out of different methods of transporting grain the courts in this state, I will not say were compelled to bend, but freely adapted themselves. Not many years since, by a combination between the railroads and elevators, a great danger was threatened in the monopolizing of the warehouse business; and when a resolute, repre- sentative, and thoroughly plucky member of the board, controlling an elevator, insisted that the railroad com- panies should deliver grain to his elevator as freely, and upon the same terms and conditions, as they delivered to others, he was met by a flat refusal on the part of the railroad company; and resorting to the courts, the old rule that the carrier was not compelled to deliver property beyond the terminus of its line was appealed to as a justification. But the courts wisely held that the new system of transporting grain in bulk shifted the terminus from the freight depot to the elevator, and that every elevator connected with the main track was a terminus for the grain consigned to it, broke up the threatened system of monopoly, and made the business absolutely free. This case was a pioneer one, and involved countless millions in its consequences. In its determination, and in the way it was determined, every producer of grain and cereals in the Northwest was interested. But what was a pioneer case but a few years since in this state has now become the settled law of the whole country, and the old conflicts between the members of this board and the railroad companies and the elevators have practi- cally ceased to exist, for the elevators and the rail- road companies now have their memberships upon your [17] board, and, so far as possible, all interests are consulted. Beyond your mere daily transactions here far beyond them do your duties extend; and far beyond these transactions do your influences reach. From the first the interest which this board and its mem- bers have shown in all matters of public moment and consequence, and the intelligent activities which it has exhibited in the promotion of public interests upon a large scale, have brought to the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago that general confidence to which we may look, in part, at least, for an explanation of its marvelous growth and prosperity. During its long and honorable career, the efforts and influences and the achievements of the board of trade of this city have not been limited to merely commercial enter- prises. It has for more than a quarter of a century been the nucleus around which great movements have gathered for many public and patriotic purposes. Perceiving the necessity of an undivided nationality, it spoke at the very outbreak of the rebellion, in no uncertain tones, for the preservation of the Union and the honor of the flag. It raised and equipped a battery of artillery, the fame of which adorns one of the brightest pages of our annals, and "which history will never willingly let die." It contributed to the raising of three regiments, known as the board of trade regiments. It was foremost in aiding the raising of men to fill our depleted armies. It sustained with unflinching zeal and unwavering faith the financial honor and integrity of the country. It stood by the greenback and the national banknote in the days of their adversity; it is fitting and proper that it should I 18] be largely endowed with them in the days of their honor and triumph. Money to the cause of the Union without stint, it gave when money was required. Men, as I have said, from its own membership it fur- nished. Its courage and hopefulness never for a moment faltered. This board saw, with undimmed vision, the imperative necessity that the Mississippi should flow unvexed from St. Paul to the Gulf, and that it should carry, without tolls and restrictions, on its bosom if need be, the commerce of the world. When the war closed, with that keen breadth of sagacity which it has always exhibited, it sought the prompt settlement of all questions which grew out of it, and on a basis so firm that these questions could not thereafter be revived. It insisted upon a Union restored not only in name, but in fact; and it to-day greets the South and the men of the South as friends in no half-way sense; as friends in a broader and better sense than ever before; as citizens of a common coun- try, sharers in a glorious destiny for the future. It welcomes New Orleans and Atlanta, Savannah and Charleston every southern city and greets every southern man as a fellow-citizen. It welcomes and rejoices over its and their prosperity, and asks that in the future peace may be perpetual between every portion of the country, and that over that comonm country there shall float but one flag, that flag filling all the sky a flag without stain or blemish on its ample folds. Its charities have been as broad as its patriotism has been genuine. Behind the great sanitary com- mission it stood with its helping hand, and down the [ 19 ] Mississippi to the Gulf has this board scattered its charities and its^benefactions in an unstinted measure. These charities, like its commercial operations, know no limitations of state lines. There is no geography in the generosity of the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago. Wherever there is suffering or want, it recognizes the boundaries of no mountains, rivers, or seas. It is a power felt not only in state but in national legislation. It will demand for the city of Chicago, and through the city of Chicago for the great West, that the act of Congress making this city a port of entry shall be no dead letter. It will demand and insist upon it that vexed questions of transportation by sea or land be settled in the interests of the great producing industries of the country. It will demand that our animal industries be protected and cared for; that our vast public domain be preserved from the rapacious grasp of monopolists; that our currency be kept at a standard so high that it pass unchallenged everywhere and that it suffer no debasement; that the exportation of our live stock and our hog products be protected by national legislation; and that indeed all the great interests shall, so far as in it lies, be made the subject of its constant, earnest, and intelligent care. United with other boards of trade throughout the country in a national organization, it conceives it to be its duty constantly to influence, wisely and intel- ligently, congressional action, and will see to it that that duty be religiously performed. The Chicago Board of Trade, and the city itself, of which this board is so fitting a type and representative, stands between the producer on our great plains and the thousands [20] and millions of consumers in our own country 'and across the seas. Its great operators to-day reach by electric currents all quarters of the globe, and every morning the Chicago markets furnish the cue for prices of cereals and provisions throughout the world. It is but natural that the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago should be thoroughly representative and cosmopolitan in its character. The architects of that mighty empire which within half a century has been reared in the valley of the Mississippi and the Far West have been drawn from every portion of our, country and indeed from every quarter of the globe. The thrifty self-reliance of New England, the commercial breadth of New York, the sturdy solidity of the old Keystone State, the vigorous and chivalric self-respect of the South, all find their representatives on the floor of this exchange. Attracted by thousands and tens of thousands to these limitless and fruitful fields, the Englishman, the German, the Irishman, the Swede, have made their homes with us and merged their old nationalities with ours. And hence in greeting to-day the representatives from the great cities of our country and the old world, we make no new acquaintances, but renew old friend- ships and here reassert the ties of kindred and com- mon ancestry. As unconscious as the founders, still living, of this city were of the stupendous proportions of the work in which they were engaged, are the members of this board of the influences under which they are acting every day. Its commerce is so extended that its fibers [21 ] are interlaced with the fate of kingdoms. If you take the transactions in cereals and provisions on this board, and run out the lines to their last extremity, you will find they reach to Threadneedle Street, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Calcutta, to all the farms in Great Britain, France and Germany; you will find far-off Russia affected by and responding to your daily deals; and as they are affected so are you. Unconsciously or otherwise, you are the agents and representatives of every food-consuming and money center in the world. This marks the extent of your power and influence. You are the clearing house in these great products for civilized mankind; and the time is not so far distant as you may think when here shall be ex- changed the products of the old, dreamy Orient for the products of the Occident. Your mission is to be worthy not only of your prosperity to-day, but of those colossal and resplendent results which Providence is surely working out for us in the future. It is not necessary to remind you how exalted is the character of the real merchant. The greatest master of English prose has said: "There are not more useful members in a common- " wealth than merchants. They unite mankind to- gether in a mutual intercourse of good offices, dis- " tribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, "wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great." There is no greater civilizer than commerce. The wisest of modern thinkers and philosophers has said: " Commerce tends to wear off those prejudices which "maintain distinction and animosity between nations. "It softens and polishes the manners of men. It [22] " unites them by one of the strongest of all ties, the "desire of supplying their mutual wants. It disposes "them to peace, by establishing in every state an "order of citizens, bound by their interests to be the "guardians of public tranquility. As soon as the "commercial spirit acquires vigor, and begins to gain "an ascendant in any society, we discern a new genius "in its policy, its alliances, its wars, and its negotia- tions." The most superficial observer cannot fail to see that as great as has been the merely material prosperity which has attended your history, your glory will not always be merely material, nor will you always be satisfied with a prosperity reckoned by the size of your warehouses, and the volume and extent of your trade. A broad, splendid culture will come by and by; it is coming. Out of this vast commerce have grown countless splendid homes; it has reared churches, it has established schools and colleges. There is, I am sure, a wonderful chemistry at work on the shores of this great lake, and in this city, which will evolve from the grain elevator, from the stock yards, from the pork-packing establishments, splendid results in science, in arts, in literature. We have just seen what has never before been witnessed in this country, born almost in a day, a magnificent festival devoted to music in its highest form and development, successful beyond the wildest dreams of its projectors. The Board of Trade of the city of Chicago knows no rivalries other than the generous rivalries of a broad and liberal commerce. Glad to welcome here to-day the representatives from all over the country, from [23 ] across the seas, and from the neighboring Dominion of Canada, it extends to those representatives, and to the people who are behind them, greetings the heartiest and most cordial. For them and others it bespeaks all the prosperity for which they could ask, knowing full well that New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New Orleans and Atlanta, Memphis and Mo- bile, Buffalo and Toledo, Montreal and Quebec, Liver- pool and London, may prosper never so much, their prosperity in no sense detracts from the growth and development of the Northwest and of the city of Chicago, but, as we flatter ourselves, adds and con- tributes to it. In this feeling, deeper than I can express it, broader than I can describe, are these exercises this day conducted. To a commerce inspired by such purposes is this magnificent temple dedicated; and so long as it shall endure, so long as its walls shall stand, will the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago maintain for itself that exalted position which it has finally reached, and through the centuries we trust be worthy of the great future that is coming to us as a people, and of the honorable achievements which illumine its past. [ 24]