_Governor; Mr. Mayor; and you, My Valued Friend, Senator Clay; and you, Men and Women of Georgia; Men and Women of my Mother’s State; My Fellow-Citizens and Fellow-Americans_: I can not too strongly express the feeling of gratitude I have for the reception given to me to-day. I want to give you a word of explanation as to what the Senator last said. The Senator said quite truly that when I was in doubt as to the capacity or honesty of any man I was seeking to appoint, or the wisdom of any policy, I was in the habit of going to him. I will tell you why: because the Senator does what I hope I try to do and what I have preached. Whenever I go to the Senator I know I get a square deal. As I said once before to-day, the Senator comes in that group of men upon whose advice I, like every other American President who wishes to do what is best for the people, must rely. If you will come down to bed-rock fact, the party differences are mighty small compared to the common interests that all of us have as Americans. On the great majority of questions, on almost all the important questions that come up, what you want in public life is to find the public man who cares for the interests of the people, and who not only cares for them, but has the sense to know how to make that care effective. I have found that I could consult Senator Clay with absolute freedom and absolute confidence in his good faith and sincere desire to do what was best for our people. All I had to do was to convince him that I was right. I was not always successful in convincing him; but if I did convince him I knew he would stand up for what he thought right. Before speaking to all of you here together let me say just one word suggested by the generous and unexpected gift presented to me by the representatives of organized labor here in Atlanta. I am speaking in this mighty city, an industrial centre of the Union, in a great agricultural State. It is of course a mere truism to say that if the men who till the soil and the wage-workers are well off the rest of the people will be well off; and it is the part of wise statesmanship to try primarily to do all that can be done for the farmers, the men who live on the land, who work on the land, and for the wage-workers, the men who actually do the work with their hands. It has been my good fortune to be an honorary member of a union of wage-workers. There are few honors that I have ever had of which I am prouder than that. I believe in organized labor; and I will do all that in me lies for the wage-worker, except to do wrong, and if I was willing to do that I would not be his true friend or any one else’s.