Vashon Island News Record

The United States has definitely grown up. The swaddling clothes stage of its existence is forever past.

Not so very long ago we were the precocious child among nations. It was the general custom to kindly pat the growing child on the head and remark that it might amount to something some day if it carefully emulated its elders. It was a healthy child and grew to manhood with unforeseen rapidity. It left the nursery to become a world leader in industry, in business and in finance.

We took the best the old world had to offer and embellished it with new qualities of shrewdness, progressiveness and unprecedented foresight. The result is the greatest industrial civilization the world has known.

At the beginning of any life there is bound to be experiment. It is a necessity of eager youth. What waste it causes is the price of progress.

We have sifted the good from the bad. We have found stability; we have blazed our trail along sound economic lines. We have exalted and striven toward an ideal—the uttermost efficiency.

America produces 70 per cent of the world's petroleum and 55 per cent of the copper. We have 85 per cent of the world's automobiles and also an overwhelming majority of the telephones. Our railroads are beyond comparison. We have the production and use of gas and electricity.

We have set ourselves a standard of living that has made necessities of luxuries. Our high wage scale and the mechanical power commanded by the worker has made that standard possible.