"The President of the Exposition bids me say to you that there has been no occasion on these grounds--that there will be none in the future--in which he would more gladly participate than this. "The Exposition management feels under peculiar obligations to the State of New York. We are indebted largely to her prompt and liberal co-operation for the high stand which the Exposition has taken. We are indebted to the Governor, to the New York Commission, to the gracious hostesses of this building, to the splendid woman who has, with rare tact and dignity, co-operated with the Exposition as President of the Board of Lady Managers. "In the building of this Exposition, science, invention, art, manufacture, the field, the forest, the mine, the air and the water have contributed their choicest treasures. How well we have succeeded in presenting them you must judge. But I wish to say to you that no matter how high a standard we have reached, still more important than all else is the representation upon these grounds of our splendid American man and womanhood. No man can walk about this Plateau of States, view these beautiful structures, see the people coming together from the north and the south, the east and the west, uniting in common loyalty and respect for our institutions, without feeling his heart swell with pride and gratitude. "It is no disparagement to our sister States, for me, a loyal son of New York, to say that it is most fitting that the Empire State should be pre-eminent here also in the beauty of her building, the character of her exhibits and the magnificent representation of her people. "I am proud of the State of New York--proud of her history, her scholars, her statesmen, her soldiers--proud of her material prosperity--proud of the great metropolis through whose gates thunders the commerce of the United States. "I love the State of New York--her broad and fertile valleys, her stately rivers, the lakes which glisten like jewels on her bosom, her mountains which rear their tops to the clouds; but most of all I love the quiet life of the country home--the honesty and industry of the plain people. "Our old home! Who can forget it? The great barn with its huge beams and fragrant mows of hay--the sparkling brook whose shining shallows bathed my naked feet--the broad meadow with its fence corners of luscious berries--the old schoolhouse, whose desks are impressed with generations of jack-knives! Was there ever so sweet a draught as that which we drew from the shining depths of the old well? "And yet the country boy grew restless. With his ear to the ground, he heard the distant hum of industry. He heard the tramp of a million feet in the great cities. He felt that the battle of life was on, and, that he must take his place in the struggle. And so he turned his back upon the old home.