I thank you, Mr. Chairman; I thank you, gentlemen--all of you--for your too generous and amiable welcome. I esteem it a great privilege to meet so many representatives of an estate which, more than any other, at this hour controls the world. It is my daily duty in Washington to confer with the able and distinguished representatives of civilized sovereigns and states. But we are all aware that the days of personal government are gone forever; that behind us, and behind the rulers we represent, there stands the vast, irresistible power of public opinion, which in the last resort must decide all the questions we discuss, and whose judgment is final. In your persons I greet the organs and exponents of that tremendous power with all the respect which is due to you and your constituency, deeply sensible of the honor which has been done me in making me the mouthpiece of the sentiment of appreciation and regard with which the nation welcomes you to this great festival of peace and of progress. Upon none of the arts or professions has the tremendous acceleration of progress in recent years had more effect than upon that of which you are the representatives. We easily grow used to miracles; it will seem a mere commonplace when I say that all the wonders of the magicians invented by those ingenious oriental poets who wrote the "Arabian Nights" pale before the stupendous facts which you handle in your daily lives. The air has scarcely ceased to vibrate with the utterances of kings and rulers in the older realms when their words are read in the streets of St. Louis and on the farms of Nebraska. The telegraph is too quick for the calendar; you may read in your evening paper a dispatch from the antipodes with a date of the following day. The details of a battle on the shores of the Hermit Kingdom, a land which a few years ago was hidden in the mists of legend, are printed and commented on before the blood of the wounded has ceased to flow. Almost before the smoke of the conflict has lifted we read the obituaries of the unsepultured dead. And not only do you record with the swiftness of thought these incidents of war and violence, but the daily victories of truth over error, of light over darkness; the spread of commerce in distant seas, the inventions of industry, the discoveries of science, are all placed instantly within the knowledge of millions. The seeds of thought, perfected in one climate, blossom and fructify under every sky, in every nationality which the sun visits.