The Panama Pacific International Exposition 1915

PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION with every new discovery, so that, however we may or may not be menaced by what we call “trusts,” the law of better- ment, the seeking of the better way, undying in the human race, is forever making the path of the toiler more pleasant andprohibiting the greed of ownership and acquisition from ultimately enslaving the poor. For one of the sublime truths taught by these displays of manufactured articles is that the uses of things are free to every succeeding generation and to all peoples. Deducting from the total value of the manufactured product the cost value of the raw material used, or, to be more exact, the value of the material raw and partially pre- pared, and we have the wealth added by manufacture to a nation. In the United States in 1913 this amounted to more than ten and one-half billions of dollars. The importance which manufacture assumes in the world’s affairs is expressed in the number of exhibit palaces devoted to its use in the Panama-Pacific International Expo- sition. In addition to the Palace of Manufactures and the Palace of Varied Industries, there are separate buildings devoted to Machinery, Liberal Arts, Food Products and Transportation. These are mentioned as representative of a part of the general utilities involved in manufacture, though articles of commercial importance, articles entering into trade, showing an increase of wealth by means of the trans- formation of raw material into finished articles of com- merce, are usually intended in references to manufactures. But it is rather by statistical comparisons of the volume of national output, and analysis of these, that we best show forth the importance to nations and individual manufac- turers of making exhibits at the coming Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Based on the United States Government statistics, a fair estimate of the wealth production of the farms of the country for 1913 would be placed at over ten billions of dollars. The value of manufactured products, gross, for 1913, according to the same authority, is placed at over twenty- four billion dollars. [ io ]