ALBANY, NEW YORK, AUGUST 18.
It was 6 o'clock in the afternoon when the President arrived at Albany, during a heavy rain. In anticipation of this visit from the head of the Nation, the following telegraphic correspondence had passed between the courteous Governor of New York and President Harrison:
Albany, August 12.
Hon. Benjamin Harrison, Cape May, N. J.:
I learn for the first time to-day that you have accepted the invitation of Mayor Manning to stop at Albany on your way to Vermont. If the plan of your journey will enable you to pass a night in Albany, as I hope it may, I shall be pleased to have yourself and party become my guests at the Executive Mansion. Personally, as well as officially, I assure you it gives me great pleasure to extend this invitation, and I sincerely trust that you will so arrange your plans as to give me the opportunity of entertaining you. The Executive Mansion is ample for the accommodation of such members of your Cabinet or friends as may accompany you. On behalf of the people of the State, also, I shall be pleased to tender you a public reception at the State Capitol.
David B. Hill.
Stockton House, Cape May, August 12.
Gov. D. B. Hill, Albany:
I am very much obliged for your very cordial invitation, but it will be only possible for me to make a brief stay at Albany. How long depends upon the railroad schedule, not yet communicated to me. As soon as details are arranged will advise you. For such time as I can spare I will place myself in the hands of the city and State authorities.
Benjamin Harrison.
The following prominent citizens of Albany met the President at Selkirk and escorted him to the city: James Ten Eyck, Chairman; Col. A. E. Mather, John G. Myers, James M. Warner, Henry C. Nevitt, and William Barnes. Among others who greeted the President on his arrival were Capt. John Palmer, Commander-in-Chief of the G. A. R., Hon. Simon W. Rosendale, Deputy Controller Westbrook, H. N. Fuller, C. B. Templeton, William H. Cull, and Oscar Smith.
The reception was held in City Hall Square, where many thousand Albanians assembled. On the platform Governor Hill, Mayor Manning, with the Common Council, Secretary of State Rice, State Treasurer Danforth, and other State and municipal officers were gathered. The President received an ovation as he approached the stand. Mayor Manning welcomed him in the name of the city and presented Governor Hill, who extended to the Chief Magistrate a broader welcome in the name of the people of the Empire State.
Responding to these hospitable addresses, the President said:
Governor Hill, Mr. Mayor, and Fellow-citizens—The conditions of the evening, these threatening and even dripping clouds, are not favorable to any extended speech. I receive with great gratification the very cordial expressions which have fallen from the lips of his excellency, the Governor of this great State, and of his honor, the Mayor of this great municipality. It is very gratifying to me to be thus assured that as American citizens, as public officers administering each different functions in connection with the government of the Nation, of the State, and of the municipality, we, in common with this great body of citizens, whose servants we all are, have that common love for our institutions, and that common respect for those who, by the appointed constitutional methods, have been chosen to administer them, as on such occasions as this entirely obliterates all differences and brings us together in the great and enduring brotherhood of American citizens. [Prolonged cheering.]
This great capital of a great State I have had the pleasure of visiting once or twice before. I have many times visited your commercial capital, and have traversed in many directions the great and prosperous Empire State. You have concentrated here great wealth and great productive capacity for increased wealth, great financial institutions that reach out in their influences and effects over the whole land. You have great prosperity and great responsibility. The general Government is charged with certain great functions in which the people have a general interest. Among these is the duty of providing for our people the money with which its business transactions are conducted. There has sometimes been in some regions of the great West a thought that New York, being largely a creditor State, was disposed to be a little hard with the debtor communities of the great West; but, my fellow-citizens, narrow views ought not to prevail with them or with you and will not in the light of friendly discussion. The law of commerce may be selfishness, but the law of statesmanship should be broader and more liberal. I do not intend to enter upon any subject that can excite division; but I do believe that the general Government is solemnly charged with the duty of seeing that the money issued by it is always and everywhere maintained at par. I believe that I speak that which is the common thought of us all when I say that every dollar, whether paper or coin, issued or stamped by the general Government should always and everywhere be as good as any other dollar. I am sure that we would all shun that condition of things into which many peoples of the past have drifted, and of which we have had in one of the great South American countries a recent example—the distressed and hopeless condition into which all business enterprise falls, when a nation issues an irredeemable or depreciated money. The necessities of a great war can excuse that.
I am one of those that believe that these men from your shops, these farmers remote from money centres, have the largest interest of all people in the world in having a dollar that is worth one hundred cents every day in the year, and only such. If by any chance we should fall into a condition where one dollar is not so good as another I venture the assertion that that poorer dollar will do its first errand in paying some poor laborer for his work. Therefore, in the conduct of our public affairs I feel pledged, for one, that all the influences of the Government should be on the side of giving the people only good money and just as much of that kind as we can get. [Cheers.]
Now, my fellow-citizens, we have this year a most abundant, yes, extraordinary, grain crop. All of the great staples have been yielded to the labor of the farmer in a larger measure than ever before. A leading agricultural paper estimated that the produce of our farms will be worth $1,000,000,000 more this year than ever before, and it happens that just with this great surplus in our barns we find a scarcity in all the countries of Europe. Russia has recently prohibited the export of rye, because she needs her crop to feed her own people. The demands in France and in England and Germany will absorb every bushel of the great surplus we shall have after our people are fed, and, whatever complaints there may have been in the past, I believe this year will spread a smile of gladness over the entire agricultural population of our country.
This is our opportunity, and I cannot see how it shall be possible but that these exports of grain, now reaching the limit of the capacity of our railroads and of our ships, shall soon bring back to us the lost gold we sent to Europe and more that we did not lose. I was told by an officer of the West Shore road to-day that that road alone was carrying 100,000 bushels of wheat every day into New York, and that it scarcely stopped an hour in the elevator, but was run immediately into the bottom of a steam vessel that was to carry it abroad. [Cheers.]
This is only an illustration of what is going on. As the result of it our people must be greatly enriched. Where there has been complaint, where there has been poverty, there must come this year plenty, for the gardens have loaded the table, the orchards cannot bear the burdens that hang upon their reddening limbs, and the granaries are not equal to the product of our fields. We ought, then, this day to be a happy people. We ought to be grateful for these conditions and careful everywhere to add to them the virtue of patience, frugality, love of order, and, to crown all, a great patriotism and devotion to the Constitution and the law—always our rule of conduct as citizens. [Cheers.]
My fellow-citizens, it is very difficult to speak in this heavy atmosphere. I beg, therefore, that you will allow me to thank you for your friendly demonstration, and bid you good-night.
The following prominent citizens of Albany met the President at Selkirk and escorted him to the city: James Ten Eyck, Chairman; Col. A. E. Mather, John G. Myers, James M. Warner, Henry C. Nevitt, and William Barnes. Among others who greeted the President on his arrival were Capt. John Palmer, Commander-in-Chief of the G. A. R., Hon. Simon W. Rosendale, Deputy Controller Westbrook, H. N. Fuller, C. B. Templeton, William H. Cull, and Oscar Smith.
Responding to these hospitable addresses, the President said:
Governor Hill, Mr. Mayor, and Fellow-citizens—The conditions of the evening, these threatening and even dripping clouds, are not favorable to any extended speech. I receive with great gratification the very cordial expressions which have fallen from the lips of his excellency, the Governor of this great State, and of his honor, the Mayor of this great municipality. It is very gratifying to me to be thus assured that as American citizens, as public officers administering each different functions in connection with the government of the Nation, of the State, and of the municipality, we, in common with this great body of citizens, whose servants we all are, have that common love for our institutions, and that common respect for those who, by the appointed constitutional methods, have been chosen to administer them, as on such occasions as this entirely obliterates all differences and brings us together in the great and enduring brotherhood of American citizens. [Prolonged cheering.]
This great capital of a great State I have had the pleasure of visiting once or twice before. I have many times visited your commercial capital, and have traversed in many directions the great and prosperous Empire State. You have concentrated here great wealth and great productive capacity for increased wealth, great financial institutions that reach out in their influences and effects over the whole land. You have great prosperity and great responsibility. The general Government is charged with certain great functions in which the people have a general interest. Among these is the duty of providing for our people the money with which its business transactions are conducted. There has sometimes been in some regions of the great West a thought that New York, being largely a creditor State, was disposed to be a little hard with the debtor communities of the great West; but, my fellow-citizens, narrow views ought not to prevail with them or with you and will not in the light of friendly discussion. The law of commerce may be selfishness, but the law of statesmanship should be broader and more liberal. I do not intend to enter upon any subject that can excite division; but I do believe that the general Government is solemnly charged with the duty of seeing that the money issued by it is always and everywhere maintained at par. I believe that I speak that which is the common thought of us all when I say that every dollar, whether paper or coin, issued or stamped by the general Government should always and everywhere be as good as any other dollar. I am sure that we would all shun that condition of things into which many peoples of the past have drifted, and of which we have had in one of the great South American countries a recent example—the distressed and hopeless condition into which all business enterprise falls, when a nation issues an irredeemable or depreciated money. The necessities of a great war can excuse that.
I am one of those that believe that these men from your shops, these farmers remote from money centres, have the largest interest of all people in the world in having a dollar that is worth one hundred cents every day in the year, and only such. If by any chance we should fall into a condition where one dollar is not so good as another I venture the assertion that that poorer dollar will do its first errand in paying some poor laborer for his work. Therefore, in the conduct of our public affairs I feel pledged, for one, that all the influences of the Government should be on the side of giving the people only good money and just as much of that kind as we can get. [Cheers.]
Now, my fellow-citizens, we have this year a most abundant, yes, extraordinary, grain crop. All of the great staples have been yielded to the labor of the farmer in a larger measure than ever before. A leading agricultural paper estimated that the produce of our farms will be worth $1,000,000,000 more this year than ever before, and it happens that just with this great surplus in our barns we find a scarcity in all the countries of Europe. Russia has recently prohibited the export of rye, because she needs her crop to feed her own people. The demands in France and in England and Germany will absorb every bushel of the great surplus we shall have after our people are fed, and, whatever complaints there may have been in the past, I believe this year will spread a smile of gladness over the entire agricultural population of our country.
This is our opportunity, and I cannot see how it shall be possible but that these exports of grain, now reaching the limit of the capacity of our railroads and of our ships, shall soon bring back to us the lost gold we sent to Europe and more that we did not lose. I was told by an officer of the West Shore road to-day that that road alone was carrying 100,000 bushels of wheat every day into New York, and that it scarcely stopped an hour in the elevator, but was run immediately into the bottom of a steam vessel that was to carry it abroad. [Cheers.]
This is only an illustration of what is going on. As the result of it our people must be greatly enriched. Where there has been complaint, where there has been poverty, there must come this year plenty, for the gardens have loaded the table, the orchards cannot bear the burdens that hang upon their reddening limbs, and the granaries are not equal to the product of our fields. We ought, then, this day to be a happy people. We ought to be grateful for these conditions and careful everywhere to add to them the virtue of patience, frugality, love of order, and, to crown all, a great patriotism and devotion to the Constitution and the law—always our rule of conduct as citizens. [Cheers.]
My fellow-citizens, it is very difficult to speak in this heavy atmosphere. I beg, therefore, that you will allow me to thank you for your friendly demonstration, and bid you good-night.