Part 42

_My Friends_--I have spoken at all times of the night and all hours of the day, and under conditions much less auspicious than those around us this morning. We have here a bright sunshine and a bracing air, and everything in nature adds to the gladness of this demonstration which you have made in our honor. I most sincerely thank you for this evidence of your friendliness. I assure you that it is very pleasant, and I cannot but believe that it is very useful for those who are charged with public duties at Washington occasionally to move about a little and look into the faces of the plain, patriotic people of the country. Most of the people who come to see me at Washington want something, and as the provision made by law is not adequate to meet all these wants there is very apt to be a great deal of discontent; but when we get out among the great masses of the people, among those who are doing the work of the farm, of the shop, and of the office, who have a patriotic pride in their country and its institutions, and are kindly disposed, charitable in their judgments, and who have no other interests than that the laws shall be faithfully executed and the whole interest of the people faithfully looked after, we find great refreshment in their presence. I am sure we have such an audience here this morning. You will not expect of any officer that he will altogether avoid mistakes; you have a right to expect a conscientious, courageous fidelity to public duty. I quite sympathize with the suggestion of your Mayor, that it is one of the proper Government functions to improve and to open to safe navigation the great waterways of our country. The Government of the United States has reserved to itself the exclusive control of all navigable inland waters, and that being so, it is, of course, incumbent upon the Government to see that the people have the best possible use of them. They are important, as they furnish cheap transportation, and touch points that are often, either for economy or natural reasons, inaccessible to railway traffic. I thank you again for your interest and bid you a kindly farewell. If no ill happens to you that I do not wish, and all the good comes to you that I do wish in your behalf, your lives will be full of pleasantness and peace. [Enthusiastic cheers.]

PENDLETON, OREGON, MAY 7.

After leaving The Dalles the presidential party encountered a sand storm. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon they arrived at the beautiful city of Pendleton and were greeted by a large crowd, including several hundred Umatilla Indians, led by Chiefs Peo and Ten-a-ow-itz. Chief Peo made an address and said:

I am glad to greet the great father. Indian and white man are now one family, friendly, and I give you the hand of welcome for my people. You represent one race, I another, but we are all of one Government, and between red man and white there should no longer be war. My people want only peace. In behalf of my tribe I say welcome, President.

The Committee of Reception comprised Mayor J. H. Raley, Judge J. A. Fee, J. M. Leezer, Senator Matlock, Capt. A. L. Ewing, T. C. Taylor, W. D. Fletcher, S. Rothchild, T. F. Rourke, R. Alexander, Lot Livermore, Benj. S. Burroughs, H. L. Marston, T. G. Hailey, W. D. Hansford, F. W. Vincent, Mrs. M. B. Clopton, Mrs. T. C. Taylor, and Mesdames Fee, De Spain, and Fletcher. Mayor Raley made an address of welcome.

The President replied:

_My Fellow-citizens_--Among all the surprises that have greeted us on our journey I do not remember any that burst upon us with more suddenness than this beautiful sight that you have arranged for our welcome here. Travelling for some hours through a sparsely settled region, I did not at all anticipate that so large an assemblage could be gathered here. I am glad to read in your faces a full confirmation of the Mayor's words of welcome. You have a pride in the common heritage of Government which our fathers organized for us. You honor the flag which floats about us here. It is pleasant to meet here, scattered over these plains of the West, so many veterans of the great Civil War, men who came out of the army poor as they went into it, men who did not serve their country for reward, but out of a loving fealty to its flag and to their Government; men who asked no questions about pay, but went with loyal hearts to battle, determined that the flag should be maintained in its supremacy from sea to sea; men who, returning safely from the vicissitudes of the camp and the march and from the perils of battle, have been ever since giving their brave endeavors to open this new country, to increase its prosperity, and by honorable labor to make comfortable homes for themselves and their children. I greet you to-day, comrades, with a loving heart. God grant that these later days--for years are increasing with us all--may be full of sunshine, full of the respect of your neighbors, full of prosperity, and crowned at last with the full blessing of immortality.

To these little ones now enjoying the beneficent provisions which your State has made for their care and education I give the most affectionate greeting. The children of this land are the light and the life of our households. They are in the family what the blossoms are in the orchard and garden. May they appreciate the blessings they enjoy, and when they come to mature years and take up the unfinished labors of their fathers, may they hold aloft the flag which their fathers followed to battle and maintain all those things that conduce to decent and orderly communities and to the purity of the home. To these pioneers who have under discouragements and great difficulties sought these Western homes and opened the way for civilization I give my greeting, and to all I give the assurance that these distant States are not forgotten by us who are, for the time, chosen to administer public office at Washington. We take you all into our consideration, our confidence, and our affection. I believe there is a great community of interest that touches all our States. I believe that our legislation should be as broad as our territory, should not be for classes, but should be always in the interest of all our people. And now, thanking you for this most interesting and cordial welcome, I bid you good-by. [Cheers].

LE GRANDE, OREGON, MAY 7.

The President had an enthusiastic reception at Le Grande from several thousand residents. The city was beautifully illuminated in honor of the visit. The Committee of Reception consisted of Hon. J. H. Slater, E. S. McComas, M. F. Honan, and R. E. Bryan. Mayor C. H. Finn made the welcoming address.

The President responded:

_My Fellow-citizens_--It is very gratifying to see this vast assembly here to-night, and I regret that our arrival was not in the daylight, that we might have a better view of this city and its surroundings, as well as of these prosperous and happy people who are assembled here to-night. We have travelled many thousands of miles on this journey, and it has been one continued succession of happy greetings. We have passed through the land of flowers, and they have strewn our pathway with them. We have come now to this north land where the flowers are not so abundant, but where the welcome and heartiness of the people is quite as manifest and quite as sincere. I rejoice to have had the opportunity to see portions of the State of Oregon which I had not previously visited. Your industries and products are so varied that working together, supplying the wants of different communities by the productions of each, it must be that you shall grow in population, and that the rewards of your labor shall be full and rich. But above all these material things in which you show the country the resources of your people, I rejoice that social order, education, good morals, and all those things that tend to promote the human happiness, the peace of your communities, and the glory of your State, are also here thought of and promoted. [Cheers.] We are citizens of one great country, and I do not believe there is a nation in the world where there is a more perfect unification of heart and purpose than in the United States of America. I do not believe there is anywhere any people more earnestly in love with their institutions and with the flag that symbolizes them, more in love with peace and peaceful industries, and yet stronger in their defence of the truth and of the right. [Cheers.] I beg again to thank your citizens of this city and of the surrounding country for this gracious and hospitable welcome. [Cheers.]

BAKER CITY, OREGON, MAY 7.

The closing event of the long day was the reception at Baker City at 11:30 P.M. Fifteen hundred people were present and the town was illuminated. The Reception Committee was Mayor S. B. McCord, Hon. R. S. Anderson, and Geo. H. Tracy. Joe Hooker Post, G. A. R., Fred K. Ernst, Commander, was present.

Responding to Mr. Anderson's welcoming address President Harrison said:

_Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens_--It is very pleasing, so late at night, to be greeted on our arrival here by this large audience and by these hearty cheers. We thank you very sincerely for this evidence of your friendly interest, and beg to assure you in return that not only as public officers, but as citizens with you of this great country, we are in hearty sympathy with all your pursuits and plans and hopes in this distant State. I have heard before of its beauty and the fertility and productiveness of its wheat fields and of the rich mines which are found in this vicinity. Situated as you are, the great question with you must be one of transportation, one of getting the products of your field, the surplus of your agricultural products, to a market. I hope you appreciate all the advantages in this regard which the development of these Pacific cities is giving. Every great manufacturing establishment that is built there produces and increases population, and makes additional and nearer market for the products of your fields. I hope the day is not far distant when the completion of the Nicaragua Canal will make a shorter way to the Atlantic seaboard States and much shorter and cheaper communication with a European market. I am glad to be assured--indeed, I do not need the assurance--that here in Oregon, as in the Central and Eastern States, we are one people, loyal and united in the love for the flag which some of these comrades aided to be victorious in the great war, and that you are thoroughly in love with our American institutions. I am glad to assure you that, so far as I am concerned, I know no sections in this country. I desire to promote those measures which shall always be for the interests of all classes, and which shall diffuse the benefits of our institutions equally and fairly among all the States and among all our people. [Cheers.]

BOISE CITY, IDAHO, MAY 8.

Boise City, the capital of Idaho, was reached at 7 o'clock the morning of the 8th, where a stop of two hours was made. The following committee of distinguished officials and citizens received the President: His Excellency Gov. N. B. Willey and official staff, comprising Col. E. J. Curtis, Col. J. A. Torrance, Lieutenant-Colonel Casswell, and Maj. Geo. F. Hinton; Senator Geo. L. Shoup, Hon. James A. Pinney, Mayor of Boise City; R. Z. Johnson, President Board of Trade; John Lemp, Charles A. Clark, E. R. Leonard, C. W. Moore, J. W. Daniels, Calvin Cobb, A. J. Glorieaux, Nathan Falk, Peter Sonna, A. R. Andola, J. H. Richards, Hon. S. W. Moody, Capt. C. C. Stevenson, and Capt. D. W. Figgins.

The President was escorted to the Capitol grounds by Phil. Sheridan Post, G. A. R., D. F. Baker Commander, A. C. Bellus, Senior Vice-Commander, N. F. Kimball, Junior Vice-Commander. The parade was in charge of Maj. H. E. Noyes, of the Fourth Cavalry, and was one of the most creditable demonstrations witnessed on the trip. The local militia and more than 1,000 school children participated. Every veteran and each scholar carried a flag, which elicited from President Harrison a beautiful tribute to the national symbol.

After the review Governor Willey and Mayor Pinney formally welcomed the President, who responded as follows:

_My Friends_--This is instructive and inspiring to us all as American citizens. It is my great pleasure to stand for a little while this morning in the political Capitol of this fresh and new State. I had great satisfaction in taking an official part in admitting Idaho to the Union of States. I believed that it was possessed of a population and resources and capable of a development that fairly entitled her to take her place among the States of the American Union. You are starting now upon a career of development which I hope and believe will be uninterrupted. Your great mineral resources, now being rapidly developed, have already brought you great wealth. Undoubtedly these are to continue to be a source of enrichment and prosperity to your State, but I do not forget that we must look at last for that paramount and enduring prosperity and increase which our States should have to a development of their agricultural resources. You will, of course, as you have done, carefully guard and secure your political institutions. You will organize them upon a basis of economy, and yet of liberal progress. You will take care that only so much revenue is taken from the people as is necessary to the proper public expenditure. [Applause.]

I am glad to see that this banner of liberty, this flag of our fathers, this flag that these--my comrades here present--defended with honor and brought home with victory from the bloody strife of the Civil War, is held in honor and estimation among you. [Great applause.] Every man should take off his hat when the starry flag moves by. It symbolizes a free republic; it symbolizes a Nation; not an aggregation of States, but one compact, solid Government in all its relations to the nations of the earth. [Applause.] Let us always hold it in honor. I am glad to see that it floats not only over your political Capitol, but over the school-houses of your State; the children should be taught in the primary schools to know its story and to love it. To these young children, entering by the beneficent and early provision of your State into the advantages of that great characteristic American institution--the common school--I give my greeting this morning. May every good attend them in life, and as the cares of life come on to take the place of the joys of childhood, God grant that, instructed in mind and heart in those things that are high and good, they may bear with honor the responsibility which you will soon lay down.

To these comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, survivors of the great war, upon whom the years are making their impression, I do not doubt that these who stand by me have borne an honorable part among your fellow-citizens in the development of the resources of this, their adopted State. Not long will we tarry; but, my comrades, the story of what you have done is undying, and I doubt not this morning that the satisfaction of having had some small part in redeeming this Nation and preserving its integrity will fill your hearts with gladness, even under adverse conditions of life. A grateful Nation honors you. Every community should give you its respect, and I can only add to-day a comrade's greeting and a hearty God bless you all! [Cheers.]

POCATELLO, IDAHO, MAY 8.

A great crowd, including several hundred Indians, greeted the President's arrival at Pocatello the night of the 8th. The Committee of Reception consisted of Frederick K. Walker, A. B. Bean, A. F. Caldwell, John S. Baker, O. L. Cleveland, R. J. Hayes, E. C. Hasey, George Dash, Frank Ramsey, J. J. Guheen, H. G. Guynn, and L. A. West. A large delegation from Blackfoot was represented on the committee by Hon. F. W. Beane, Col. J. W. Jones, and F. W. Vogler.

Chairman Savidge of the committee delivered the welcoming address and introduced the President, who said:

_Fellow-citizens_--In 1881, that sad summer when General Garfield lay so long in agony and the people suffered so long in painful suspense, I passed up the Utah and Northern Narrow Gauge Railroad through this place--if it was a place then--to Montana on a visit. The country through which we have passed is therefore not unfamiliar to me. I have known of its natural conditions, and I have seen its capabilities when brought under the stimulating influence of irrigation. I have had, during my term in the Senate, as Chairman of the Committee on Territories of that body, to give a good deal of attention to the condition and needs of our Territories. My sympathy and interest have always gone out to those who, leaving the settled and populous parts of our country, have pushed the frontiers of civilization farther and farther to the westward until they have met the Pacific Ocean and the setting sun. Pioneers have always been enterprising people. If they had not been they would have remained at home; they endured great hardships and perils in opening these great mines of minerals which show in your State, and in bringing into subjection these wild plains and making them blossom like gardens. To all such here I would do honor, and you should do honor, for they were heroes in the struggle for the subjugation of an untamed country to the uses of man. I am glad to see that you have here so many happy and prosperous people. I rejoice at the increase of your population, and am glad to notice that with this development in population and in material wealth you are giving attention to those social virtues--to education and those influences which sanctify the home, make social order secure, and honor and glorify the institutions of our common country. [Cheers.]

I am glad, not only for the sake of the white man, but of the red man, that these two extensive and useless reservations are being reduced by allotment to the Indians for farms, which they are expected to cultivate and thereby to earn their own living [cheers], that the unneeded lands shall furnish homes for those who need homes. [Cheers.]

And now, fellow-citizens, extending to such comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic as I see scattered about through this audience my most cordial greeting as a comrade, to these children and these ladies who share with you the privations of early life on the frontier, and to all my most cordial greeting and most sincere thanks for your kindly demonstration, I will bid you good-by. [Great cheering.]

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, MAY 9.

At Pocatello the President was met by a committee representing the citizens of Ogden, Utah, who took this opportunity to pay their respects, it being impracticable to hold a reception in that city owing to the late hour the train passed. The Ogden committee consisted of Mayor W. H. Turner and wife, Hon. James A. Miner, E. M. Allison and wife, J. R. Elliott, W. N. Shilling and wife, Capt. Ransford Smith, Wm. H. Smith, M. N. Graves and wife, Col. A. C. Howard, Rev. A. J. Bailey, E. M. Correl and wife, Thomas Bell, J. Cortez and wife, W. W. Funge and wife, O. E. Hill and wife, John N. Boyle, Gilbert Belnap and wife, Joseph Belnap, J. S. Painter, Maj. R. H. Whipple, W. R. White, and Prof. T. B. Lewis.

The committee appointed by Governor Thomas to meet and welcome the President at the State line on behalf of the Territory of Utah consisted of Hon. E. P. Ferry, of Park City; H. G. Whitney, O. J. Salisbury, and M. K. Parsons, of Salt Lake; Lieutenant Dunning, of Fort Douglas; and Chief-Justice Zane, Associate Justice Anderson, Hon. C. S. Varian, Colonel Godfrey, John E. Dooly, Heber M. Wells, E. C. Coffin, and Spencer Clawson.

The presidential party arrived at the "City of Zion" at 2:45 A.M. At 8 o'clock they were met by Governor Thomas and Mayor Geo. M. Scott at the head of the following Citizens' Committee of Reception: Secretary Sells, Irving A. Benton, General Kimball, Colonel Nelson, Commissioner Robertson, C. C. Goodwin, Hon. J. T. Caine, R. C. Chambers, Fred Simon, Hoyt Sherman, Ellsworth Daggett, Judge Blackburn, Colonel Lett, James Hansborough, Frank D. Hobbs, Judge Miner, General Connor, Judge Bartch, J. H. Rumel, C. E. Allen, Arthur Pratt, H. G. McMillan, J. P. Bache, Judge Boreman, W. H. H. Spafford, A. J. Pendleton, Fred Heath, W. L. Pickard, H. Pembroke, Daniel Wolstenholm, Councilman Armstrong, W. P. Noble, Louis Cohn, W. P. Lynn, L. C. Karrick, E. R. Clute, J. B. Walden, J. M. Young, Sheriff Burt, Selectmen Howe, Miller, and Cahoon; C. B. Jack, W. H. Bancroft, R. Mackintosh, J. H. Bennett, Robert Harkness, H. W. Lawrence, J. B. Toronto, and Mesdames Zane, Salisbury, Dooly, Blunt, Chambers, Goodwin, James, Anderson, Lawrence, Gaylord, Simon, and Bartch; Miss Robertson, Mrs. I. A. Benton, and Mrs. Hobbs. This committee and a large body of citizens escorted the party to the Walker House, where breakfast was served. The President then headed a procession, composed of U.S. troops, State guards, G. A. R. veterans, pioneers, and many other local organizations, and was escorted to a pavilion in Liberty Park.

Governor Thomas and Mayor Scott delivered welcoming addresses, to which President Harrison responded as follows:

_Fellow-citizens_--The scenes which have been presented to us in this political and commercial metropolis of the Territory of Utah have been very full of beauty and full of hope. I have not seen in all this long journey, accompanied as it has been with every manifestation of welcome and crowned with flowers, anything that touched my heart more than that beautiful picture on one of your streets this morning when the children from the free public schools of Salt Lake City, waving the one banner that we all love [cheers] and singing an anthem of praise to that beneficent Providence that led our worthy forefathers to land and has followed the pathway of this Nation with His beneficent care until this bright hour, gave us their glad welcome. [Applause and cheers.]

My service in public life has been such as to call my special attention to, and to enlist my special interest in, the people of the Territories. It has been a pleasant duty to welcome the Dakotas, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming into the great sisterhood of the States. I think it has not fallen to any President of the United States to receive into the Union so large a number of States. The conditions that surround you in this Territory are of the most hopeful character. The diversity of your productions, your mines of gold and silver, iron, lead and coal, placed in such proximity as to make the work of mining and reduction easy and economical; your well-watered valley, capable, under the skilful touch of the husbandman, of transformation from barren wastes into fruitful fields--all these lying in easy reach and intercommunication, one with the other, must make the elements of a great commercial and political community. You do not need to doubt the future. You will step forward confidently and progressively in the development of your great material wealth.