F. ROBERT-- E. COWflN COLLECTION

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

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ADDRESS

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Thirtieth Industrial Exposition

DELIVRRKD BY

K. A. DENICKE, — Kc H ^ - • ^

PRESIDENT OF MECHANICS' INSTITUTE.

San Francisco, August 17tli, 1897.

Ladies and Gentlemen: — It is my pleasant duty to welcome
you to the Thirtieth Industrial Exi)osition of the INIechanics'
Institute. I hope you will agree with me, that eacli Exposition
is an improvement on the last.

On this occasion, in compliance witli a resolution passed at
a late congress in this city, our chief feature will be an exhibi-
tion of Pure Food. In his address of welcome to the members
of that congress. Mayor Phelan observed: "While war slays
her thousands, peace slays her tens of thousands with agencies
carried on through the ordinary channels of trade- -that is,
l)y deatlis caused by disease-bearing foods." On the same occa-
sion, President Kerr, of the Manufacturers' and Producers'
Association, said: "It is a well established fact that no State
can hope to reach its true development which does not contain
within its limits not only the producer, who takes from the
hand of nature the materials required liy mankind, but also
the manufacturer, who converts the products into the finished
forms required by modern civilization. To combine these pro-
cesses, so that we can become as nearly self-supporting as eco-
nomical conditions will permit, should be the aim of every
enlightened citizen. It is the duty of the manufacturer to
guard the interest of the producer as his own; while, in turn, it

is the interest of the ])roducer to foster the development of
manufacturers, so that their combined efforts shall result in a
perfect product, which shall he sought for by commerce at home
and abroad."

The same thought inspired the Board of Health to undertake
an inspection of foods, with a view to extinguish the trade
in spurious foods. This was a wise idea. The prosperity of
this State largely depends upon the excellence and purity of
the articles produced here for sale at home and abroad, and, as
this is a food-producing State, upon the excellence and purity
of our food products especially. The agitation against impure
food is not confined to California. It has spread throughout
the world, and the region which establishes a reputation as a
pure food producer, is the region which will take in the shekels.
By vigorously insisting that every article which bears the Cali-
fornia brand shall be what it purports to he, and the best vari-
ety of its class, we shall attract custom from all parts of the
world, and the money of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America,
will come here to enrich our growers, our manufacturers and
our merchants.

We want to perfect our processes so that the words "made in
California " shall be, all the world over, a guarantee of quality,
purity and general excellence. Nature has done much to help
us to this end. Commercial honor, which is deeply rooted
among our people, will assist by making the adulterator an
object of scorn and contempt. But technical knowledge, which
teaches how to improve our ])rocesses, and to take advantage
of scientific discoveries and the invention of genius, is also re-
quired to accomplish the end, and it is to promote that knowl-
edge that exhibitions, like the one I now invite you to inspect,
are designed. It is not enough that our State should bloom
like a garden. We must learn how to deal with its fruits so as
to extract from them their utmost possible utility and attrac-
tiveness. It is only when we have learned this that they will
be sought for by consumers in every region under the sun, and
our cities will become hives of industry, splendid with palaces
and monuments, tliis the metropolis of the Pacific, as New York
is the metropolis of the Atlantic.

Fifty years ago, a rebellion against impure food broke out in
England; there was hardly an article of common consumption
that was not adulterated, and there did not seem to be anyway
of punishing the adulterators. At that crisis a chemist, whose
name was Hassall, undertook to smoke out the dealers in
spurious articles, and he went about his work in a very ingen-
uous way; he bought at various stores small (quantities of lead-
ing articles of consumption, such as tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate,
l)read, butter, cheese, preserves, pepper, vinegar, wine, beer and
spirits, these he analyzed, and he published the analysis in the
" Lancet " newspaper, with the names and addresses of the
dealers who had sold him adulterated articles, A terrible
storm arose. The "Lancet" and Hassell were flooded with
libel suits. But they kept on smilingly, and the end of the
fight was that no conviction could be got against the paper or
the chemist. The fraudulent dealers lost their customers, a
law was passed in Parliament to fit their case, and now it is as
hard to find in London an adulterated article as it was fifty
years ago to find a pure one. I hope that the Exhibition now
opened will induce some of you to take equally energetic
measures to maintain the reputation of California as a producer
of pure food.

I am sorry to have to say to you that the successive Mechanics'
Institute Fairs, while demonstrating the development of the
State as a producer, have not iflustrated a corresponding pro-
gress in manufactures. This has been due to various causes,
one of which is the high price of coal. I am happy to express
to you my hope that this drawback is likely to be removed;
what stearr has been to the nineteenth century, electricity will
be to the twentieth; and I look forward to the time when, in-
stead of bringing coal from the mines, it will be converted on
the spot into an electric fluid, which will be conducted by wiresj
to the cities and villages, there to be used for power, light and
heat. This will not only cheapen all the processes of manu-
facturing industry, it will substitute for the mephitic coal gases,
which are one of the chief causes of disease in the crowded
haunts of men, an atmosphere as pure as that of the country,

and will bestow on the working class the blessings of fresh air
while they are enjoying the blessing of pure food.

The foaming torrent of Niagara has been harnessed and
buckled to machinery for the creation of electricity in the great
State of New York. We have, in this State, water power in
the streams and lakes of the Sierras, which can be utilized in
the same way. There is no limit to the volume of electricity
which skillful engineering can make them yield. Machinery
adapted for the purpose was exhibited at our last Mechanics'
Fair. By turning it to account, California will ask no odds of
States which are more bountifully supplied with the best kinds
of coal, and will overcome the drawback of its geological
formation.

But this new power, with its vast possil)ilities. should remain
the property of the people of the State, and be guarded against
monopoly by individuals or corporations. A special bureau
should be created by the Legislature, with authority and
means to erect the necessary plants and storage reservoirs.
Such a bureau could be manned by a selection from the most
distinguished graduates in engineering at the two universities,
and there is ample labor in our cities to perform the mechani-
cal work. Under proper management, electrical works, such as
supply the Folsom prison with the power it uses, would become
a source of income for the State, and might in time justify a
reduction in the tax levy. *

A question arises, however, it can not be kept back, are our
California boys and girls receiving such an education as will
enable them to take advantage of "the tide in the affairs of
men, which taken at the flood, will lead to fortune?" Are
they receiving a proper technical education? I look upon this
question as one of the most important we have to grapple with
to-day — as a question which should be especially considered at
the thirtieth fair of our Institute, which ever since its birth,
has by its library, its classes, its lectures and its fairs, estab-
lished a right to consider itself a pioneer in the field of techni-
cal and mechanical education.

The whole of the United States is drying up for the want of
technical education. It is dropping behind other nations, and

growing poor when they are growing rich. There is an army
of unemployed workers, because the workers are unskilled, and
consumers are obliged to send abroad for articles which we
might just as well make at home, if we had the skill. An un-
skilled workman is like an unarmed soldier. He is helpless,
and cumbers the earth. He is an incubus for want of techni-
cal training.

This is especiiilly the case in textile industry. We cannot
compete with European nations in textile fabrics; not from
want of brains, not from want of raw material, but because we
do not know how. In quality, a part of our technical schools
are fully equal to similar establishments in Europe, but there
are not enough of them, and the children of the poor have not
been educated to make use of those which exist. Look at Ger-
many; once, and not so very long ago, at the l)ottom of the
ladder, and now at the top, owing to her splendid system of
technical education. During our Centennial Exposition, in
1876, the German exhibit was the object of a report by Com-
missioner Herr Reuleaux; he summed up his conclusion in the
drastic phrase, '^Billig und schlecht.^^ (Cheap and nasty). It
was indeed far behind the exhibits of England, France and the
United States. Germany realized the truth of the Commis-
sioner's verdict, and set to work with energy, foresight, intelli-
gence and patriotism, to rei)air her defects. The result is
known to all. In the windows of stores not only in England
and this country, but all over the world, goods are marked,
" Made in Germany."

Seventeen years after the Centennial Fair, Germany's exhibit
at Chicago was a veritable triumph in many branches of indus-
try as well as in science and art. She had raised herself to the
first rank among producing nations by the careful education of
her masses. United States Consul Monaghan, of Manheim,
gives the results of his observations in a valuable paper, wherein
he says; ''The schools are here, never to go. The sooner we
get them in the United States — for get them we must, if we
will hold our home markets, to say nothing about foreign — the
better." United States Consul General Raine says of the Cre-
feld school of weaving: ''Some years ago the Crefeld industry

6

was nearly ruined; the old manufactories were unable to strug-
gle any longer against French, English and Swiss firms. A
few Crefeld manufacturers, dejected but not discouraged,
founded in this city a weaving school, and this very soon
changed the situation. Now the Crefeld factories contest with
even Lyons for the supply of the markets.'' United States
Consular Agent Neuer, in his description of the Gera weaving
school, says: " I commend the German system of technical
education as well worthy the serious consideration of our man-
ufacturers, as trained and skilled operatives must be of vast
service to us. It is an important factor, and closely connected
with the highest interest of oar laboring classes. The advance-
ment of German commerce in all parts of the world is generally
admitted, and while government aid may partly account for
the fact, it is no less the superior schooling of the people which
opens new markets for the Germans." In fact, so rapid has
been Germany's rise as a manufacturing country, and so excel-
lent has been the quality of the goods exported, that she has
successfully challenged England in her own home m;irket.

Manual training and technical schools have been established
in every European country, and in Japan likewise. Statesmen
believe that it is wise, economical and patriotic to insist upon
such academical studies as will make the student both a better
man and a more efficient producing machine. The mechanic
of the future will need something more than the rudiments of
mechanics; he will require general culture as well, and a broad
knowledge of the requirements of humanity, to make a man of
him; he must be taught something of the constitution of his
country, and something of social science, so that he shall know
the record of human progress, understand the feeling of patri-
otism, and estimate the value of liberty. His training must
fit him to vote intelligently. He can learn all this, together
with the practical rules of his calling, at a technical school,
if it be intelligently conducted.

Mr. Felix Adler, the Director of the Workingmens' School of
New York, explained the purpose of such schools in terse
phrase: — " The worker in the factory of to-day too often moves
like a machine among machines. He does not comprehend the

wonderful processes which occur around him, and his mind is
blunted and degraded by constant contact with operations of
whose principles he is ignorant. Far otherwise would it Ije if
he could be so far educated as to understand the nature of the
material with which he deals, the laws which the gigantic
forces which he utilizes obey, and if the mechanical contrivances
among which he labors became transparent to his eyes so as to
reveal their underlying plan. The worker becomes truly inde-
pendent then, when he has intellectually mastered his work,
and it is one of the fairest promises of the creative method and
of manual training that it will build up the intelligence, give a
new dignity to labor by putting mind into it, and saturate the
daily toil of the masses of mankind with understanding."

United States Commissioner of Labor Wright says, in one of
his reports: " It is no wonder that the German craftsman, with
so many incentives to study, with so many facilities of acquir-
ing skill in his trade, and living in the atmosphere of industrial
thought, becomes the accomplished specialist that he is."

At the present time, the boy leaves the public school with his
education incomplete to learn his trade in the shop. When the
manual and technical schools of training are as numerous as I
hope and believe they soon will be, he will leave one school to
enter a higher one, where besides becoming a skilled mechanic
his moral and mental education will i)r()ceed hand in hand
with his technical training.

The great nations of Europe have learned a bitter lesson by
Germany's competition! Can we afford to ignore it and neglect
their experience ? We pay out millions upon millions for
goods which are not made at home, for want of technical edu-
cation.

We now have a Tariff — may it remain undisturbed for many
years! so that Congress can busy itself with the revival of our.
Merchant Marine, and then may it be hoped that it will find
time to consider a subject which is vital not only to our trade
and industry, but to the wellbeing of the entire laboring class!
But whatever it does, we, here in California, owe to ourselves,
to foster technical education, and to help the Lick school, the
various technical branches of common school system, and tlie

8

Wilmerding school, which is about to be built, to supply Cali-
fornia with skillful artisans enough to make this a great
manufacturnig State.

One last word. One morning this summer, before sunrise, I
stood on the summit of a spur of the Sierras. Before me
stretched the rich valleys of the Sacramento and the San
Joaquin, with their thousands of happy homes, and along their
Eastern l)order, the lofty snow-topped giants of the Sierra. A
beam of pale light shot across the Eastern sky, then the peaks
of the snow-tipped mountains glowed with roseate fire, and
gradually the welcome sun poured its golden rays down the
slopes, along the rippling streams, to the valley below. In the
rivulets silvery trout leaped in joyful greeting to meet him; the
loaded grain bowed its heavy head in thankful recognition; the
apricot, the apple and the peach turned their blushing cheeks
his way for their morning kiss; and the rose, the magnolia and
the morning glory unfolded their bursting buds to receive his
eager embrace. All this passed before my fancy as I, too, felt
the comforting warmth of the great planet's first rays. Over-
powered by so much blessing, I would have thrown myself
upon my face to relieve an overflowing heart in grateful tears,
but, as I moved, I heard a whirring, hateful noise, and there
before me lay in mottled coil, its ugly head raised, about to
strike, a rattlesnake. Bounding backward, I caught up a heavy
boulder, and crushed the reptile. Then, winding my steps
downward, I thought how our fair daughters and struggling
sons were also threatened and robbed of the full enjoyment of
their life by a nasty reptile in human form — I mean the polit-
ical "boss," who is poisoning our civic life. We, too, must find
a boulder to crush him, and it is at hand. One hundred men,
good and true, are working night and day to find it. When
they have it, it will rest with you to use it — for the boulder I
mean is the Neio Charier.

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