Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| industrial movements to promote their honor and material welfare. He foresaw the immense benefits that would be brought about by the canal, and the practicability of constructing it; and by indomitable resolution and effort he at last committed the State to the policy he wished. In 1817 the work was started, and in 1825 it was completed, and the canal opened. |
| During the same period regular lines of steamboats were established on both the Hudson and the Sound; and the steamboat service soon became of great commercial importance. It was a couple of decades later before the railroads became factors in the city’s development, but they soon completely distanced the steamboats, and finally even the canal itself; and as line after line multiplied, they became the great inland feeders of New York’s commerce. The electric telegraph likewise was introduced before the middle of the century; and, as with the steamboat, its father, the man who first put it into practical operation, was a New Yorker, Samuel Morse,—though there were scores of men who had perceived its possibilities, and vainly striven to translate them into actual usefulness. Steam transportation and electricity have been the two prime factors in the great commercial and industrial revolutions of this century; and New York has produced the two men who deserve the most credit for their introduction. |