OFFICERS OF THE WESTERN GAS ASSOCIATION, 1898-1899. President. GEO. TREADWAY THOMPSON . . New York City. PROCEEDINGS -OF THE WESTERN GAS ASSOCIATION. TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING, HELD AT HOTEL PFISTER, MILWAUKEE, WIS. June 14th, 15th and 16th, 1899. FIRST DAY-MORNING SESSION. The Association was called to order, at 10 A. M., of June 14, by the First Vice President (Mr. I. C. Copley, of Aurora, Ill.), who assumed the Chair on account of the absence, through illness, of the President, Mr. George Treadway Thompson. The regular order having been called for, President Copley said, in INTRODUCING MAYOR ROSE, I presume you all recognized the fact that when I came in I brought with me a rose-the Hon. D. S. Rose, Mayor of Milwaukee, whom some of us may need to know. I have pleasure in introducing Mayor Rose, who has consented to welcome us to the city over which he presides. THE MAYOR'S WELCOME. MAYOR ROSE-Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: It affords me much pleasure, in behalf of the people of our city, to extend a greeting to you. Milwaukee in recent years has become one of the most popular convention cities in the United States, and we take a pardonable pride, I think, in receiving visitors who come from other cities, and in using our best endeavors to make their visits enjoyable and profitable. I can readily understand the great profit that of necessity must result from conventions of this character, in which men engaged in a particu lar line of business associate and come together for the purpose of discussing those questions that are of paramount importance to the particular business in which they are engaged. We have in Milwaukee a Gas Company, and we have formed a bond of union. with that Company. Our relations have, in fact, become quite cordial; indeed so close have they become that the Gas Company extends to our people, on the first day of every month, an urgent invitation to call upon its managers at their office, which invitation we usually accept. It may be a disclosure to you, gentlemen, of information which you do not now possess when I say to you that Milwaukee produces natural gas-in prolific quantities; but there is a difference between gas-and gas. If you associate with my friend Cowdery during your visit in our city, you will have an opportunity to test both samples of gas. (Laughter.) We have a population of about 300,000. We have nearly 4,000 manufacturing industries, and our output last year exceeded $147,000,000; so that as a manufacturing city we claim a place upon the map. It is our aim to keep step with our sister cities in the pathway of progress, and we claim that we have, in our population, as much energy, industry, frugality, and enterprise as has any other city in this Union. A very large percentage of our people own their own homes, and we take pride in the mild sort of rivalry among our people in the efforts to make each individual home more attractive and pleasant than its neighbor. As a result, we have one of the most beautiful residential cities in the United States. I think you will bear me out in that statement when you have had opportunity to look over Milwaukee. We take pride in our public institutions. Within the last ten years, Milwaukee has spent an enormous amount of money in building up our public institutions. We have an educational system which is the peer of any system in any State of the Union. Our schoolhouses are of the most improved and attractive order. Our public library was erected within the last few years at an expense of three-quarters of a million of dollars, and that library, with our museum, compares favorably with any other institution of a similar character in the whole country. Our city hall, erected at an expense exceeding $1,000,000, is one of the nicest, most commodious and attractive office buildings of that kind in this country. We have here a system of drainage that is incomparable; a drainage tunnel connecting the Lake with the river, through which the river is flushed every 24 hours, thus insuring healthfulness to our people. Now we are in the act of constructing another tunnel for the purpose of flushing one of the other rivers, upon the south side. Our park system is new, but we have a number of very attractive young parks that will be inviting to |