Comparison of ideas is always educational and, as such, instructs the brain and hand of man.  Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human activity.  It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy of high quality and low prices to win their favor.  The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to devise, invent, improve and economize in the cost of production.  Business life, whether among ourselves, or with other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle for success.  It will be none the less in the future.

Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated process of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century.  But tho commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be.  The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly, presenting in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and illustrating the progress of the human family in the Western Hemisphere.  This portion of the earth has no cause for humiliation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization.  It has not accomplished everything; far from it.  It has simply done its best, and without vanity or boastfulness, and recognizing the manifold achievements of others it invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in advancing the highest and best interests of humanity.  The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the world work.  The success of art, science, industry and invention is an international asset and a common glory.

After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world.  Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and make them better acquainted.  Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced.  Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan.  They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable.  The world’s products are exchanged as never before and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade.  Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand.  The world’s selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports.  We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the fathers.  Isolation is no longer possible or desirable.  The same important news is read, tho in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.