As I said at Richmond, second only to the man who wore the blue, I hold the man who wore the gray, and we should indeed consider ourselves fortunate as a Nation that, forty years after the Civil War, we find all of our people can challenge as the possession of all every memory of valor left by both sides in the great contest. Now we know but one rivalry—the rivalry to see which of us can do most for the flag of a united country. TO A DELEGATION OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, AT NEW ORLEANS, LA., OCTOBER 26, 1905 _Gentlemen: Rather, if you will allow one who took part in a very small war to call you so, Comrades_: I accept your gift with pleasure. Although sometimes we have difficulties in this country that we have to battle against, and sometimes things that we are not quite satisfied with, yet we are pretty good people. I have felt this almost as never before during the past weeks. Now think what it means in a Nation for the President of that Nation, forty years after one of the greatest wars of all time, to be able to come and speak as I spoke in the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and to feel that I was addressing a people as loyal to the flag of our reunited country as can be found in this broad land of ours. I passed in the shadow of the monument of Admiral Semmes in Mobile—under whom one of my uncles fired the last gun that was discharged from the “Alabama,” which another uncle built. The daughter of that admiral is now the wife of our Governor in the Philippines. Gentlemen, this is an honor I appreciate. I thank you not only for the gift and the words which accompany it, but for the spirit which lies behind the words. AT THE LUNCHEON, NEW ORLEANS, LA., OCTOBER 26, 1905 _Governor; Mr. Mayor; and You, My Hosts_: Let me, at the outset, express through you my profound gratitude, my deeply moved appreciation of the way in which the people of New Orleans and of Louisiana have greeted me to-day. Gentlemen, no President of the United States could be greeted as I have been greeted to-day and not go back to take up the duties of his office with a stronger and more earnest purpose to try faithfully to represent all the people whom he serves. And, Governor, as you have so well said, when a man is President, when he holds any public office, questions of a merely partisan character sink into absolute insignificance compared with the mighty questions upon which all good Americans should be united.