“‘I thank you personally, and through you the good people of Tampa and Florida, for your hearty congratulations and well wishes. I shall hope to celebrate many more anniversaries of my birthday, and as each milestone is passed I trust we may all look back and see that I have contributed in a measure to the interests of the good people of your State and city. “‘H. B. PLANT.’ “A REMARKABLE OVATION. “President H. B. Plant, of the Plant System, was a happy man yesterday when he looked into three thousand smiling faces at the Exposition Auditorium and saw among them about one thousand five hundred of his faithful employees, who were assembled to celebrate his seventy-sixth birthday. “It was a rare tribute to a great and a good man. Probably no railway president in the world could have commanded such an ovation. “Mr. Plant was overwhelmed with graceful attentions from his employees, the Exposition directors, and our citizens generally. The day at the Exposition was a celebration in his honor, and at night the directors entertained him at a banquet. “It goes without saying that this tribute is worth more to Mr. Plant than presents of silver and gold. It will touch his heart as nothing else could. That he may long hold his honored place among us is the earnest wish of all who know him. “MR. PLANT AND THE NEGROES. “In addition to what has been said of Mr. Plant and his great System, the negroes are grateful for what he has done for them. There are over two thousand negroes employed by Mr. Plant. A great number of them have accumulated homes, educated their children, and have nice bank accounts, and they all love him. He has contributed liberally to churches, school-houses, and other negro enterprises; in fact, he has built several institutions of learning for negroes. A number of negroes hold positions of trust, with good pay attached, as is not the case with any other system the size of his in the United States. “May the years of Mr. Plant’s usefulness in behalf of the South, colored and white, be many more.”--Atlanta _Constitution_. “HONORS TO MR. PLANT. “Few men have done as much as Mr. H. B. Plant to develop the South, and the _Journal_ joins heartily in the tributes which are being paid to him to-day. “He has reached the age of seventy-six with a record which any man might envy, and we trust is good for many more years of usefulness. Mr. Plant is the head of great corporations which have been of incalculable value to the South. They have been so, not because they are rich and powerful, but because, under his direction, they have been conducted on broad and liberal lines. Mr. Plant’s policy has been to build up. His career presents a splendid contrast to those of the railroad wreckers who have enriched themselves at the expense of thousands of individual victims and of great regions of the country.