Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United StatesHarrison, Benjamin
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Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States
Harrison, Benjamin
Harrison, Benjamin, 1833-1901; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- Politics and government
The crowning event of the day was the reception of several hundred
members of the Irish-American Republican Club of Cook County and
Chicago. The visitors were met by the Home Irish-American Protection
Club, Patrick A. Ward, President, assisted by the Columbia Club and
several thousand citizens. Their demonstration was one of the most
notable of the campaign. This club was the first political organization
in the country to congratulate General Harrison on his nomination. The
evening of June 25 the club met and adopted the following, which was
telegraphed the General:
The Irish-American Republican Club of Cook County, Illinois,
congratulate you and the country upon your nomination. We greet
the gallant soldier and true American, and rejoice with our
fellow-citizens of every nationality in the glad assurance your
nomination gives that the industries of our country will be protected
and the honor of the Nation maintained with the same courage and
devotion that distinguished you on the bloody field of Resaca. We
salute the next President of the Republic.
NATHAN P. BRADY, _President_.
Leaders of the delegation were Hon. John F. Finerty, F. J. Gleason,
Dennis Ward, Richard Powers, and Messrs. Russell and O'Morey. Thomas
F. Byron, of Lowell, Mass., founder of the Land League in America,
accompanied the club. In the absence of President Brady their spokesman
was Mr. John F. Beggs. General Harrison delivered one of his happiest
responses. He said:
_Mr. Beggs and my Friends of the Irish-American Republican
Club of Cook County, Ill._--You were Irishmen, you are Americans
[cheers]--Irish-Americans [continued cheering], and though you have
given the consecrated loyalty of your honest hearts to the starry flag
and your adopted country, you have not and you ought not to forget
to love and venerate the land of your nativity. [Great applause.] If
you could forget Ireland, if you could be unmoved by her minstrelsy,
untouched by the appeals of her splendid oratory, unsympathetic with
her heroes and martyrs, I should fear that the bonds of your new
citizenship would have no power over hearts so cold and consciences so
dead. [Cheers.]
What if a sprig of green were found upon the bloody jacket of a
Union soldier who lay dead on Missionary Ridge? The flag he died for
was his flag and the green was only a memory and an inspiration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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