During the war, when we were adding a couple of million dollars to our national debt every day, I did not care about encouraging the increase in the volume of the precious metals. We had the country to save first. But now. that the rebellion is overthrown and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver we mine, makes the paymenl of that debl so much easier. Now, I am going to encourage that in every possible way. We shall have hundreds of thousands of disbanded soldiers, and many have feared their return home in such great numbers may paralyze industry by fur-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

nishing suddenly a greater supply of labor than there will be a demand for. I am going to try to attract them to the hidden wealth of the mountain ranges, where there is room for all. Tell the miners for me that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability, because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are the treasury of the world."

It may not be amiss to state here that Lincoln's idea, big as it was, was only a part of the greatness of the west. He did not know then as we do now, that the agricultural products of the territory would at some future time prove of far greater value than her minerals. While millions have been torn from the ribs of the rock bound mountains, in the form of mineral wealth, there is within the radius of five hundred miles of where I am sitting, vastly more millions taken from the soil in the form of farm products.