SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, MAY 6.
The steamer bearing the presidential party, followed by a great flotilla that had come out to greet them, arrived at Seattle at 1:30 P.M., and fully 40,000 people witnessed the disembarking. The city was profusely decorated. On Pioneer Place stood a triumphal arch bearing the ensigns of all nations. Ranged at its entrance were the Sons of Veterans in uniform and 75 school-girls. As the President's carriage entered the great arch the choir-girls greeted him with a song of welcome, composed for the occasion by Prof. L. A. Darling. Near the arch, on a platform, sat the shrivelled form of Angeline, daughter of Chief Seattle, the last of the race of royal barbarians who once ruled in the bays and forests of the sound. She was an object of great interest to the President and his party. After visiting Lake Washington on the cable cars the President was escorted to the University campus by Stevens, Miller, and Cushing posts, G. A. R., M. M. Holmes and J. St. Clair, commanders. Thirty thousand people were assembled on the campus; officials were present from every part of the State, also from British Columbia. Opposite the speakers' stand were 2,000 school children, each waving a flag. Governor Ferry, Senator John B. Allen, Hon. John H. McGraw, Jacob Furth, and numerous other prominent men were on the platform with the President, Secretary Rusk, and Mr. Wanamaker. Rev. G. A. Tewksbury pronounced the invocation. Judge Thomas Burke then delivered the welcoming address on behalf of the citizens.
President Harrison replied:
Judge Burke and Fellow-citizens—I am sure you have too much kindness in your heart to ask me to make an address to you this afternoon. This chilly air, this drizzling rain, the long exposure during the day which you and these precious children have suffered, warn me, on your account as well as my own, that I should say but a few words in recognition of this magnificent welcome. Six years ago I visited your beautiful city, and the distinguished gentleman who has been your spokesman to-day was one of a hospitable committee that pointed out to me the beauties of this location. You were then largely a prospective city. Some substantial and promising improvements had been begun, but it was a period of expectancy rather than of realization. I am glad to come to-day and to see how fully and perfectly the large expectations then entertained by your enterprising people have been realized. It is a matter of amazement to look upon these towering substantial granite and iron structures in which the great business of your city is transacted. That disaster, as it seemed to you, which swept away a large portion of the business part of your city was like the afflictions that come to the saints, a blessing in disguise. [Cheers.] You have done what Chicago did. You have improved the disaster by rearing structures and completing edifices that were unthought of before. Those who were not enterprising or liberal have been compelled to be liberal and enterprising in order that they might realize rents for their property made vacant by fire. [Cheers.]
I fully appreciate the importance of this great body of water upon which your city is situated. This sound, this inland sea, must be in the future the highway, the entrepot, of a great commerce. I do most sincerely believe that we are entering now upon a new development that will put the American flag upon the seas and bring to our ports in American bottoms a largely increased share of the commerce of the world. [Cheers.] As I have said in other places, for one I am thoroughly discontented with the present condition of things. We may differ as to methods, but I believe the great patriotic heart of our people is stirred, and that they are bent upon recovering that share of the world's commerce which we once happily enjoyed. Your demonstration to day under these unfavorable environments has been most creditable to your city. We have certainly seen nothing in a journey characterized by great demonstrations to surpass this magnificent scene. [Cheers.] I realize what your spokesman has said, that in all this there is a patriotic expression of the love of our people for the flag and for the Constitution. [Cheers.] And now, my friends, thanking you for all you have done for me, humbly confessing my inability to repay you, pledging to you my best efforts to promote the good of all our people, and that I will have a watchful observation of the needs of your State, of your harbors, for defence, improvement, and security, I bid you good by. [Cheers.]
After the President's address an effort was made to present the veterans individually, but the inclement weather forbade it. Turning to those about him President Harrison said:
I leave you very reluctantly, and I shall always be sorry that my time was so limited here that I could not do justice to your hospitality. [Great cheering.]
At 5 o'clock the party boarded their train, but a great crowd had assembled and called repeatedly for the President, who responded and said:
I can only thank you once more; you have given me a royal welcome, and I carry away with me the most grateful memory of your kindness. I was up until past midnight last night, making a speech, and had to be up at 6 o'clock this morning to speak to some friends in Oregon. I leave you with the best wishes for your city and the State. [Enthusiastic cheers.]
As the President concluded there were loud calls for Postmaster-General Wanamaker, who waved his hand toward the children and said:
The reasons given by the President for not making a speech certainly apply to those who are in your programme to follow him. I cannot, however, leave the platform without thanking you for that share of the welcome that falls to us who attended. There is a chill in the air, but there is no lack of warmth in the cordial greeting that you have given to us who, though we felt ourselves to be strangers among you, have found ourselves to be among friends. I have been trying to find out since the census report was announced what the reason was that Philadelphia had fallen behind. [Laughter and applause.] It is all very plain to me now. This city set on a hill I shall put down in my book as Philadelphia Junior. [Applause.] You have the family likeness. I recognize some of you by name, and I do not wonder that you have settled in this beautiful spot, so rich in its resources, where you discovered everything that we have in Pennsylvania except one thing, and I expect you will find that before long, and I am sure that I hope that you will find the anthracite coal stored away somewhere in your hills. I know if you undertake to find it you will do it. [Applause.] You need no better illustration than the choir over yonder, that could not be stopped even to allow the President to speak. [Applause and laughter.] I shall carry away from here a story that I am afraid they will call a California story, but I will get your Mayor to give me a certificate that I was perfectly sober—that there was nothing but water. [Applause and laughter.] And I shall try to recommend what I have seen in this wild West, where people have their splendid schools, their many churches, their refined homes, and where there is such a hearty welcome for all that come in their midst. For my part of the work at Washington I have already given you evidence that the Post-office Department was thinking of the Pacific coast. I shall do the best that I can as a business man for this splendid business people that you have in your city and for the many more that are to come; that all the facilities of the mail—quickening it, increasing it—shall be given to you; that you shall not say that your Government does not give you all the assistance in building up your great enterprises and swelling the prosperity of all this coast. I say good-by to you and give you a heart full of good wishes. [Continued applause.]
After the President's address an effort was made to present the veterans individually, but the inclement weather forbade it. Turning to those about him President Harrison said:
I leave you very reluctantly, and I shall always be sorry that my time was so limited here that I could not do justice to your hospitality. [Great cheering.]
At 5 o'clock the party boarded their train, but a great crowd had assembled and called repeatedly for the President, who responded and said:
I can only thank you once more; you have given me a royal welcome, and I carry away with me the most grateful memory of your kindness. I was up until past midnight last night, making a speech, and had to be up at 6 o'clock this morning to speak to some friends in Oregon. I leave you with the best wishes for your city and the State. [Enthusiastic cheers.]
As the President concluded there were loud calls for Postmaster-General Wanamaker, who waved his hand toward the children and said:
The reasons given by the President for not making a speech certainly apply to those who are in your programme to follow him. I cannot, however, leave the platform without thanking you for that share of the welcome that falls to us who attended. There is a chill in the air, but there is no lack of warmth in the cordial greeting that you have given to us who, though we felt ourselves to be strangers among you, have found ourselves to be among friends. I have been trying to find out since the census report was announced what the reason was that Philadelphia had fallen behind. [Laughter and applause.] It is all very plain to me now. This city set on a hill I shall put down in my book as Philadelphia Junior. [Applause.] You have the family likeness. I recognize some of you by name, and I do not wonder that you have settled in this beautiful spot, so rich in its resources, where you discovered everything that we have in Pennsylvania except one thing, and I expect you will find that before long, and I am sure that I hope that you will find the anthracite coal stored away somewhere in your hills. I know if you undertake to find it you will do it. [Applause.] You need no better illustration than the choir over yonder, that could not be stopped even to allow the President to speak. [Applause and laughter.] I shall carry away from here a story that I am afraid they will call a California story, but I will get your Mayor to give me a certificate that I was perfectly sober—that there was nothing but water. [Applause and laughter.] And I shall try to recommend what I have seen in this wild West, where people have their splendid schools, their many churches, their refined homes, and where there is such a hearty welcome for all that come in their midst. For my part of the work at Washington I have already given you evidence that the Post-office Department was thinking of the Pacific coast. I shall do the best that I can as a business man for this splendid business people that you have in your city and for the many more that are to come; that all the facilities of the mail—quickening it, increasing it—shall be given to you; that you shall not say that your Government does not give you all the assistance in building up your great enterprises and swelling the prosperity of all this coast. I say good-by to you and give you a heart full of good wishes. [Continued applause.]