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 parade was an imposing affair. Thirty thousand veterans were in
line. The Indiana contingent numbered over 1,000, and as they passed
the reviewing carriage, led by Major George Noble, cheer after cheer
was given in honor of the distinguished Hoosier. Nearly 6,000 school
children participated in the parade. In the afternoon the President
visited the reunion grounds with Commander Ira F. Collins and other
officers of the Kansas Department, G. A. R. Governor Humphrey delivered
the welcoming address.
The President responded as follows:
_My Fellow-citizens_--I am strongly tempted to omit even an attempt
to speak to you to-day; I think it would be better that I should go
home and write you an open letter. [Great laughter and cheering.] I
have been most profoundly impressed with the incidents which have
attended this tremendous and, I am told, unprecedented gathering
of the soldiers and citizens of the great State of Kansas. No one
can interpret in speech the lessons of this occasion. No power of
description is adequate to convey to those who have not looked upon
it or into the spirit and power of this meeting. This assembly is
altogether too large to be greeted individually--one cannot get his
arms around it. [Laughter and cheers.] And yet so kindly have you
received me that I would be glad if to each of you I could convey the
sense of gratitude and appreciation which is in my heart. There is
nothing for any of us to do but to open wide our hearts and let these
elevating suggestions take possession of them. I am sure there has
been nothing here to-day that does not point in the direction of a
higher individual, social, State and national life. Who can look upon
this vast array of soldiers who fought to a victorious consummation
the war for the Union without bowing his head and his heart in
grateful reverence? [Great applause.] Who can look upon these sons of
veterans, springing from a patriotic ancestry, full of the spirit of
'61, and coming into the vigor and strength of manhood to take up the
burdens that we must soon lay down, and who, turning from these to the
sweet-faced children whose hands are filled with flowers and flags,
can fail to feel those institutions of liberty are secure for two
generations at least? [Great cheering.] I never knew until to-day the
extent of the injury which the State of Kansas had inflicted upon the
State of Indiana [laughter and cheers]--never until I had looked upon
that long line of Indiana soldiers that you plucked from us when the
war was over by the superior inducement which your fields and cities
offered to their ambitious toil. Indiana grieves for their loss, but
rejoices in the homes and prosperity they have found here. [Cheers.]
They are our proud contribution to the great development which this
State has made. They are our proud contribution to that great national
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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