Caption: Dedication - Transportation Building Dedication Addresses
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by the work of these men. If "conveyance for man and goods from place to place" Is one of the great elements in developing a people, surely the engineers who have contributed so muoh to the industrial development of the last century may be orowned as empire builderB. The work of the great transportation agencies has made possible the great manufacturing establishments of this state, whose products far exceed the combined product of the agricultural and mining Industries of the state. Their work has developed the manufacturing industries of the east by transporting the raw materials of the west and south of this country. They have doubled In value the producing territory of the Mississippi Valley by bringing its farmers, and later its manufacturers, into touch with the markets of the world. The Inhabitant, whether he be a trader or whether he be following any other occupation today, whether he liveB in the Occident or the orient - is alike under everlasting obligations to the engineers who have developed the great transportation systems ashore and afloat. Take the mere question of the abridgement of distance. London is today nearer to Urbana them Detroit was seventy-five or a hundred years ago« Pekin is today within easier reach of Champaign than New York was a comparatively short time ago. If distance has been bridged by the transportation engineers; if with their assistance and the courage and valor of the pioneers the forests and prsdrits have been turned into great producing farm land, surely the telegraph and the il
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