upon an assemblage of comrades gathering with their families to a
social reunion to recall their services and sacrifices and to bathe
their souls in the glory of this bright day and of this great land
that they fought to save. [Applause.] Such assemblages are full
of interest to the veterans, and they are full of instruction and
inspiration to those who gather with them. It is our habit in the
West, as it is yours here, to have these annual meetings, and it is
always a pleasure to me when I can arrange to meet with the comrades
of my old regiment, or of the old brigade, or with the veterans of
any regiment of any State who stood for the flag. [Applause.] There
is a pathetic side to all this. We gather with diminished ranks from
year to year. We miss the comrades who are dropping by the way. We see
repeated now that which we saw as the great column moved on in the
campaign of the war--a comrade dropping out, borne to the hospital,
followed to the grave--and yet these soldier memories and thoughts
are brightened by the glories which inspire and attend all these
gatherings of the veterans of the war. We see the old flag again, and
I am glad to believe that there has never been a period in our history
when there was more love for it. [Applause.]
It is quite natural that it should be so. These veterans who stand
about me have seen many days and months in camps and battlefields and
in devastated country through which they marched when there was on
all the horizon one thing of beauty--that glorified flag. [Applause.]
They brought home the love of it in their hearts, wrought in every
fibre of their nature; and it is very natural that the children who
have come on should catch this inspiration and love from the fathers
who perilled everything that the flag might still be held in honor,
and still be an emblem of the authority of one Constitution over an
undivided Nation. We see to-day how worthy the land was for which
our comrades died, and for which you, my comrades, offered your
lives, in its great development and its increasing population, in
its multiplying homes, where plenty and prosperity, the love of God
and social order, and all good things abide. In this great Nation,
striding on in wealth and prosperity to the very first place among the
nations of the earth; in this land, in truth as well as in theory the
land of the free, we see that which was worthy of the utmost sacrifice
of the truest men. [Prolonged Cheers.]
I recall with pleasure that some of the New York regiments, coming
to the Western army with Hooker and Howard and Gerry and Williams and
others, served in the same corps to which I was designated during the
great campaign upon Atlanta. Some of the comrades who made that march
from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the sea are here to-day, survivors of
one of the greatest, in all its aspects, of all the campaigns of the
war. You came from those bloody fields upon the Potomac, and struck
hands with us of the West as brothers. You helped us in the struggle
there to cut the Confederacy in twain, and, lapping around by the sea,
to strike hands with Grant again near Appomattox. [cheers.]
I thank you again most cordially for your friendly demonstration
and presence. If I had the power to call down blessings upon my
fellow-men, the home of every comrade here would be full of all
prosperity. [Applause.]
FAIR HAVEN, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
At Whitehall the party was joined by Adj.-Gen. T. S. Peck and Col.
M. J. Horton, of Governor Page's staff. When the Vermont line was
reached General Peck, in the name of the Governor, formally welcomed
the President to the State. Fair Haven was reached at 10 o'clock. The
Reception Committee was Hon. Samuel L. Hazard, Andrew N. Adams, George
M. Fuller, and Wm. V. Roberts.
Mr. Hazard introduced President Harrison, who said:
_My Fellow-citizens_--We have already lost some minutes at your
station, and it will not be possible for me to hold the train longer.
I thank you for this friendly greeting, and for the kindness which
beams upon me from the faces of these contented and happy men and
women of the good State of Vermont. I am glad to see about me the
evidences of the indomitable pluck and successful enterprise which
characterize so highly all of your New England States. When you found
the stones too thick to make agriculture profitable you compelled
the rocks to yield you a subsistence, and these great slate and
marble industries have become the centre of wealthy and prosperous
communities. You are here, each in his own place; these good ladies in
that supremely influential position, the American home, and you, my
countrymen, in the shops and in the fields, making contributions to
the prosperity and glory of this great Nation. It is pleasant to know
that the love of country, stimulated by the teaching of the father and
of the mother, revived by these recollections of the first struggle
for independence, deepened by the sacrifices which were made in the
Civil War to preserve what our fathers had purchased for us, are still
holding sway in the hearts of our people. [Cheers.]
We are conspicuously a people abiding in respect and honor for
the law. The law, as expressed in our constitutions and in our
statute-books, is the sovereign to which we all bow. We acknowledge
no other. To the law each and every one should give his undivided
allegiance and his faithful service. There is no other rule that
will bring and maintain in our communities that peaceful and orderly
condition, that good neighborhood and kindly intercourse, which is
so essential to the happiness of any community. I am sure that these
things, now as of old, characterize these New England communities,
where the strife which your colder climate and your soil compel you
to make for your subsistence has bred habits of thrift, economy, and
independence, and the love of liberty which I am sure is as fadeless
as the stars. [Applause.]
Thanking you again for this pleasant morning reception, I will bid
you good-by. [Applause.]
CASTLETON, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
At Castleton there was a large crowd, including 200 pupils of the
Normal School, who pelted the President with roses and golden-rod. The
Reception Committee comprised Hon. Henry L. Clark, A. E. Leavenworth, S.
B. Ellis, and A. L. Ramson.
Judge Clark introduced the President, who said:
_Ladies and Gentlemen_--It is very pleasant to meet here, mingling
with the citizens of this neighborhood, the pupils of your Normal
School. One of the most influential characters in the history of the
United States is the New England school-teacher. If we could follow
the track of these intelligent men and women who have gone out from
the New England States into the West and South; if we could trace
those strong, yet slender and hard-to-be-discovered, threads of
influence which they have started in the communities to which they
went; if we could know how they have impressed on the minds of the
pupils brought under their care the great lessons of self-respect
and love for free institutions and social order,--we should have a
higher thought than we have yet had of the power and dignity of these
pioneers of education. [Cheers.]
BRANDON, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
Brandon gave the travellers a hearty reception at 11 A.M. Ex-Gov.
J. W. Stewart, of Middlebury, Hon. Aldace F. Walker, of Chicago; G.
G. Benedict and C. S. Forbes, of St. Albans, joined the party here.
Ex-Governor Ormsbee welcomed the President on behalf of the residents of
Brandon.
General Harrison said:
_My Fellow-citizens_--The kindly pelting which I have received at
the hands of some of your ladies and of these bright children reminds
me of a like experience on the California trip, when we were so pelted
with bouquets of handsome flowers that we were very often compelled
to retreat from the platform and take cover in the car. These gifts
of flowers which you bring to me here are the products of your fields
and not of your gardens. The beautiful golden-rod! It is pleasant to
think that in this plant, so widely distributed, slightly diversified
in its characteristics, but spreading over nearly our whole country,
we have a type of the diversity and yet the oneness of our people; and
I am glad to think that its golden hue typifies the gladness and joy
and prosperity that is over all our fields this happy year, and, I
trust, in all your homes. I thank you for your pleasant greeting this
morning, and bid you good-by. [Cheers.]
MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
On the arrival of the train at Middlebury at 11:30 A.M. another large
and enthusiastic throng was on hand. The President was greeted by
ex-Gov. John W. Stewart, Col. A. A. Fletcher, G. S. Wainwright, Judge
James M. Slade, Charles M. Wilds, E. H. Thorp, E. P. Russell, B. S.
Beckwith, E. J. Mathews, John H. Stewart, A. J. Marshall, Col. T. M.
Chapman, Rufus Wainwright, and Frank A. Bond. The veterans of Russel
Post, G. A. R., were present in a body, also the Sons of Veterans.
Governor Stewart introduced the President, who said:
_My Fellow-citizens_--Though I have not before had the pleasure of
looking into the faces of many of you, Vermont has for many years
been familiar to me, and has been placed high in my esteem by the
acquaintance I have formed at Washington with the representatives
you have sent there. It has been a great pleasure to me to know your
esteemed fellow-citizen, Governor Stewart. Your State and district and
the Nation at large have had in him a most able and faithful champion
of all that was true and clean and right. [Three cheers were given for
Governor Stewart.]
You have been particularly fortunate, I think, in your
representatives at Washington, as I had occasion to say the other day
at Bennington. I am glad to be here at the site of this institution of
learning--Middlebury College, which is soon to complete its hundredth
year of modest yet efficient service in training the minds of your
young men for usefulness in life. These home institutions, in which
these able and faithful men assiduously give themselves and their
lives to the building up and development of the intelligence--and
not only that, but of the moral side of your young men--are bulwarks
of strength to your State and to your community. They cannot be too
highly esteemed and honored by you; because, my countrymen, kings may
rule over an ignorant people, and by their iron control hold them in
subjection and in the quietness of tyranny, but a free land rests
upon the intelligence of its people, and has no other safety than in
well-grounded education and thorough moral training. [Cries of "Good!
Good!" and applause.] Again I thank you for this cordial greeting
which Vermont gives me this morning, and to these comrades and friends
I extend a comrade's greeting and good wishes. [Applause.]
VERGENNES, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
At Vergennes a large and joyful crowd greeted the distinguished
traveller. The Reception Committee comprised Hon. J. G. Hindes, Mayor of
the city; Hon. J. D. Smith, Herrick Stevens, and J. N. Norton.
Secretary Proctor introduced the President, who spoke as follows:
_My Fellow-citizens_--I have had, as you know, some experience in
this business of speaking from the end of a railroad train. But it has
seemed to me this morning that these Vermont towns are closer together
than on any other route I have travelled. [Laughter.] Perhaps it is
because your State is not very large, and you have had to put your
towns close together in order to get them all in. [Laughter.] I have
heard an interesting story of the origin of this city of Vergennes.
I suppose it was one of the earliest instances in the history of our
country, if not the very first, of a city being constructed upon paper
before it was built upon the ground. [Laughter.] That has come to be
quite a familiar practice in these late days of speculation, but it
is singular that a city charter and the ample corporate limits of one
mile square should have been given to Vergennes before this century
began. If the expectations of the founder of this city have not been
realized fully, you have more than realized all the thoughts of Ethan
Allan and his contemporaries in the greatness and prosperity of your
State and in the richer glory and higher greatness of the Nation of
which you are a part. [Cheers.]
I am glad this morning to look into the contented faces of another
audience of New England people. You were greatly disparaged in the
estimation of some of our people before the Civil War. There had
spread unfortunately over the minds of our Southern brethren the
impression that you were so much given to money, to thrift, and
to toil that your hands had forgotten how to fight. It was a most
wholesome lesson when the whole country learned again in the gallant
charges and stubborn resistances of the Vermont Brigade that the
old New England spirit still lived; that Paul Revere still rode the
highways of New England; and that the men of Concord and Lexington
and Bennington still ploughed her fields. [Applause.] I am glad to
meet you this bright, joyous morning; and I am sure, in view of the
fatigues that have preceded and that are to follow, you will excuse
me from further speech, and accept my most heartfelt thanks for your
friendliness. [Applause.]
BURLINGTON, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
Burlington gave the President a royal reception Tuesday noon. The Queen
City was elaborately decorated, and all business was suspended during
the demonstration. The distinguished visitors were welcomed by Senator
George F. Edmunds, his honor Mayor Hazelton, Col. Le Grand B. Cannon,
Hon. E. J. Phelps, Gen. William Wells, ex-Gov. U. A. Woodbury, Hon. B.
B. Smalley, Hon. G. G. Benedict, C. F. Wheeler, ex-Governor Barstow, C.
W. Woodhouse, and Elias Lyman, President of the Board of Aldermen. After
luncheon at the home of Senator Edmunds, the President was escorted
through the Fletcher Library to a platform fronting the park, where
20,000 people greeted him.
Mayor Hazelton delivered the address of welcome and introduced President
Harrison, who responded as follows:
_Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens_--I am not a little intimidated as I
face so unexpectedly this vast concourse of the citizens of this great
State of Vermont. I say great, though your territorial extent does not
place you among large States; great in an origin that gave occasion
for an early and resolute expression of that love of liberty which
has always pervaded your people; great in a population that has never
bowed the knee to the arrogance of power or to the blandishments of
wealth, and has, through all the history of the State, maintained the
inspiration of its early annals for love of personal independence. I
rejoice to be present to-day at the home of one of your distinguished
public servants, with whom it was my good fortune for a time to be
associated in the discharge of public duties. I am glad to see here,
at his own home, the respect and honor in which George F. Edmunds
is deservedly held by the people of Vermont. [Applause.] Having for
six years witnessed the value of his services as a legislator in the
Senate of the United States, I share with you the regret that this
country is no longer to enjoy those services; though it is a source
of gratification to you, as it is to me, to know that in his love and
loyalty to the State that he has so highly honored, in his love and
loyalty to the Union of States, there will be no call for his wise
counsel and help that will not find a ready response from the walks of
life which he has chosen to resume. [Applause.]
My fellow-citizens, it is true, as your Mayor has said, happily
true, that we not infrequently, and with ease, lift ourselves above
all the contentions of party strife and stand in the clear, inspiring
and stimulating sunshine as American patriots. [Applause.] We are
conspicuously a people who give their allegiance to institutions and
not to men. [Applause.] It were a happy thing for others of our sister
republics on this hemisphere if they could follow this great example.
Our people are not slow to appreciate public services. They are not
reluctant to acknowledge transcendent genius, but they give their
loyalty as citizens to institutions, and not to parties or to men.
[Applause.] This was happily shown in our great rebellion, when party
divisions, that seemed to lift barriers between us like these mountain
peaks, were obliterated in a moment by that love for the Constitution
and the flag which pervaded all our people [applause]--a love that
made the people of all these great States one; that sent from Vermont
and Massachusetts, as from Indiana, those stalwart and devoted sons
who offered--many of them gave--their lives for the perpetuity of the
Union and the honor of the flag. Let us pursue our lines of division.
It is characteristic of a free people--it is essential--that mental
agitation and unrest out of which the highest and best is evolved. But
let us never forget that the fundamental thought of our Government
is the rule of the majority, lawfully expressed at pure and clean
elections, and that, when thus expressed, the laws enacted by those
chosen to make our laws are not less of the minority than of the
majority. [Applause.] Those who make the laws are our servants, to
whom we yield the respect of office and that measure of personal
regard to which their lives may entitle them. [Applause.]
We are this year a most favored and happy people. Drouth has blasted
the crops of many of the nations of the world. Most of the peoples
of Europe are short of food. And God has this year, mercifully to
us, mercifully to them, made our store-houses to burst with plenty.
We have a great surplus of breadstuffs, and there is not a bushel of
wheat, corn, rye or oats that will not find a ready market this year.
Happy are we in this great prosperity; happy that again out of your
abundance the lack of other peoples may be supplied. Let us be careful
that our heads are not turned by too much prosperity. It has been out
of hardness, out of struggles, out of self-denials, out of that thrift
and economy which was an incident of your soil, that the best things
in New England have come. [Applause.] And, while thankful to God for a
season that diffuses its blessings as this sweet sunshine is diffused
into all our homes, let us remember that it is not, after all, riches
that exalt the Nation. It is a pure, clean, high, intellectual, moral,
and God-fearing citizenship that is our glory and security as a
Nation. [Applause.]
Let me thank you again for the friendliness of your manifestations,
for the opportunity to stand for a few moments in this most
beautiful city. [Applause.] You have the advantage of many of our
municipalities. You have not only the beauties of these groves and
gardens and pleasant streets and lovely homes, but from these hilltops
you have laid under contribution fifty miles in either direction to
beautify Burlington. [Applause.] I thank you, and part with you with
regret that my stay cannot be longer and my intercourse with you more
personal and informal. [Applause.]
ST. ALBANS, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.
The President and party embarked at Burlington on board Col. W. Seward
Webb's yacht _Elfrida_ and greatly enjoyed the sail on Lake Champlain,
landing at Maquam in the evening, whence a special train carried them
to St. Albans, where they were welcomed by the Committee of Reception,
consisting of Hon. A. D. Tenney, George T. Childs, Alfred A. Hall, T. M.
Deal, W. Tracy Smith, B. F. Kelley, A. L. Weeks, and A. W. Fuller. After
dining at Governor Smith's the President, at 9 P.M., was escorted to the
Welden House, fronting St. Albans Park. Twelve thousand people greeted
him. The scene was one of unusual beauty; from the branching elms hung
2,000 Chinese lanterns.
When the President appeared on the balcony the enthusiasm was great. He
was introduced by Hon. E. C. Smith, and spoke as follows:
_My Fellow-citizens_--I fear that my voice will not permit me
suitably to acknowledge this magnificent demonstration. In the tour
which I made this spring across the continent I witnessed very many
great assemblages and looked upon very many brilliant and entrancing
scenes, but I recall none outside the greater cities more beautiful
and worthy than this in St. Albans to-night. [Applause.] Most deeply
do I feel whatever of personal respect you thus evidence, and yet more
highly do I appreciate that love of American institutions, that fealty
to the flag, which I am sure is the dominant impulse in this great
assembly. [Applause.]
Your situation upon this great water line connecting the St.
Lawrence with the Hudson was an early suggestion to the trader as
well as to the invader. The Indian canoe, the boat of the fur-trader,
ploughed these waters in the early days of our history. At a later
time they suggested to the military leaders of Great Britain who
commanded the armies sent for the subjection of the colonies that
familiar strategy of severing the colonies into two parts by moving
and establishing posts upon Champlain and the Hudson. These attempts
and the brave resistance which was made by our people, in which
Vermont had so conspicuous and creditable a part, have made all the
shores of Lake Champlain historic ground. In the address delivered
by President Bartlett in 1877 at the observance of the centennial of
the battle of Bennington, I noticed that he said, "Trading Manchester
sent two regiments to conquer a market," and it recalled to my mind
the fact that one of the great motives of resistance on the part of
the colonies was the unjust trade restrictions and exactions which
were imposed upon them by the mother country in order to secure the
American markets for the British manufacturer. You recall how severe
and persistent were the measures adopted in order to repress and crush
out the establishment of manufacturing industries in the colonies.
This battle for a market was never more general or more strenuous than
now among all of the nations of the world, though now generally not
pushed to bloodshed. [Applause.] All of the countries of the Old World
have through colonial extension by the division of Africa, much as a
boy might divide a watermelon among his fellows, had reference largely
to trade extensions and enlarged markets. In this contest we have
ourselves engaged, not by attempting to push our political domain into
lands that are not rightfully ours, not by attempting to overthrow or
subjugate the weaker but friendly powers of this hemisphere, but by
those methods of peaceful and profitable interchange which are good
for them as for us, [Cries of "Good! good!" and applause.] Secure in
the great American market for our manufactures--a market the best
per capita of any in the world--we have come now to believe that
we may well extend our trade and send our manufactured products to
other countries across the seas and in ships carrying the American
flag. [Cries of "Good! good!" and applause.] We do not need in any
degree to break down or injure our own domestic industries. We are
consuming, to an enormous extent, of tropical products not produced
by our people, and by a fair exchange with the nations sending us
sugar, tea, and coffee we propose and have entered successfully upon
the enterprise of opening the markets of Central and South America to
the manufacturing establishments of New England and the United States.
[Cries of "Good! good!" and applause.]