“Sunday, October 27th, was Mr. Plant’s seventy-sixth birthday. I had the pleasure of being one of a party of friends that filled his private car in going to the Exposition, and occupied one of the large and elegant rooms of his suite at the Aragon Hotel, Atlanta. On the morning of that day a few gentlemen--and they were gentlemen in every sense of the term--representing the more than twelve thousand employees of the Plant System, adroitly entertained their president in his own room, while the others took possession of his parlor. When everything was in readiness, Mr. Plant and his guests were invited into the parlor. He was most cordially greeted and congratulated on the seventy-sixth return of his birthday. Then written addresses, couched in choice language, were read from the three different departments--railroad, express, and steamboat--of the Plant System, followed by presentation of flowers, of a silver compass, suggesting the straight and upright course of his life, and a silver cup, large and massive,--a ‘loving-cup,’--‘filled, Mr. Plant, with the esteem, affection, and best wishes of your associates and employees, to whom you have been a benefactor and friend.’ Mr. Plant’s response was beautiful, tender, and touching, as kindly eyes looked through their tears at this grand old man whom they esteemed as a father. “Next day, the reception given Mr. Plant in the Auditorium, by the employees of the Plant System, where addresses and resolutions of appreciation, esteem, and gratitude for what he had done for the South, were presented to him, was grand beyond description. In the evening of the same day a banquet was tendered him at the Aragon Hotel by the managers of the Exposition. Judges, lawyers, merchants, the mayor of Atlanta, and a large company of distinguished gentlemen sat down to a sumptuous repast. But it was ‘the feast of reason and the flow of soul’--the eloquent and patriotic sentiments expressed in the after-dinner speeches that gave this choice chapter of Plant Day its chief significance and greatest charm. Never was Southern eloquence more eloquent or tongues more fluent in giving forth the overflow of heart. ‘No North, no South, but one united, happy country--the land of the free and the home of the brave.’