Now, I am going to very illy repay the courtesy with which I have been greeted, by causing for a minute or two acute discomfort to a man of whom I am very fond—Uncle Remus. Presidents may come and Presidents may go; but Uncle Remus “stays put.” Georgia has done a great many things for the Union; but she has never done more than when she gave Mr. Joel Chandler Harris to American literature. I suppose he is one of those literary people who insist that art should have nothing to do with morals, and will condemn me as a Philistine for not agreeing with them; but I want to say that one of the great reasons why I like what he has written is because after reading it I rise up with the purpose of being a better man, a man who is bound to strive to do what is in him for the cause of decency and for the cause of righteousness. Gentlemen, I feel too strongly to indulge in any language of mere compliment, of mere flattery. Where Mr. Harris seems to me to have done one of his greatest services is that he has written what exalts the South in the mind of every man who reads it, and yet what has not even a flavor of bitterness toward any other part of the Union. There is not an American anywhere who can read Mr. Harris’s stories—I am not speaking at the moment of his wonderful folk tales, but of his stories—who does not rise up a better citizen for having read them, who does not rise up with a more earnest desire to do his part in solving American problems aright. I can not too strongly express the obligations I am under to Mr. Harris; and one of those obligations is to feel as a principle that it is my duty (which if I have transgressed, I have not transgressed knowingly) never as an American to say anything that could be construed into an attack upon any portion of our common country.