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
In the evening the President attended a banquet tendered him by Lombard
and Knox chapters of Phi Delta Theta, of which college fraternity
General Harrison was a member in his student days. At the President's
table sat Toastmaster Lester L. Silliman, of Lombard Chapter, with
General Miles, Generals Grosvenor, Morgan, and Post, Mayor Stevens, Dr.
Ayres, and Rev. Dr. Hood. Brother Geo. W. Prince delivered the welcoming
address on behalf of the local chapters, to which the distinguished Phi
brother, President Harrison, arising amid great applause, responded.
After a few pleasant remarks regarding his recollections of college life
and his pleasure at meeting again with the members of the Phi Delta
Theta, he said:
My college associations were broken early in life, partly by
necessity and partly by choice; by necessity so far as the compulsion
to work for a living was upon me, and by choice in that I added to my
responsibility at an early date, so that it has not been my pleasure
often to meet with or sit about the banquet board with members of this
society. It gives me pleasure to meet with you to-night. I feel the
greatest sympathy with these young men who are now disciplining their
minds for the work of life. I would not have them make these days too
serious, and yet they are very full of portent and promise. It is not
inconsistent, I think, with the joyfulness and gladness which pertains
to youth that they shall have some sense of the value of these golden
days. They are days that are to affect the whole future. If I were to
select a watchword that I would have every young man write above his
door and on his heart, it would be that good word "Fidelity." I know
of no better. The man who meets every obligation to the family, to
society, to the State, to his country, and his God, to the very best
measure of his strength and ability, cannot fail of that assurance and
quietness that comes of a good conscience, and will seldom fail of the
approval of his fellow-men, and will never fail of the reward which is
promised to faithfulness. Unfaithfulness and lack of fidelity to duty,
to work, and to obligation is the open door to all that is disgraceful
and degrading.
I want to thank you again, gentlemen, for this pleasant greeting,
and to ask you, after the rather exhaustive duties of this day, to
excuse me from further address and accept the best wishes of a brother
in the Phi Delta Theta organization. [Cheers.]
_The Brigade Banquet._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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