Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1880-12-23
New England Dinner.


New England Dinner.
AT the New England dinner in BROOKLYN,
last night, Gen. Grant was received with
cheers, and spoke as follows:
am afraid that you are going to be good
deal disappointed, hut there is one thing in
which you will not be disappointed, for
shall not detain you long. We have heard
from our President and also from the Presi-
dent of the United States the same eulogy of
the Pilgrims and people of New England, and
l subscribe to all the President has said, and
! will say little more. We have heard a
great deal in our country about carpet bag
gers, and at times it was almost a word of
reproach.
New Englanders believe that when man
is citizen of one State he is a citizen of the
United States, and that he has right to go
into any portion of the country with all the
rights that he had at the place of starting.
Cheers. In our Southern States, par
ticularly in the northwest. We have seen the
effect of the carpet-bagger in his manifesto
ton of the feeling of equality with the native
born citizen. We have seen elegant cities
springing up even in the time of the youngest
of those present We have seen property
brought over the prairie where there
was nothing but what nature had planted, and
all this has been the work of carpet-baggers
and the principles of the people who formed
this society
Without any reflection upon any other
portion of the country, there would have been
much greater prosperity; much greater con-
tentment, if these carpet baggers had been
received in the same way elsewhere as they
had been received in the Northwest. APP
plause
In fact | have almost come to the conclu-
sion tina. there is very little progress or adj
yancement in a community made entirely by
natives of that community. Laughter. J
They require a little stirring up, little
probing, and the going away from the place
of ones nativity to bring out ones best en-
ergies. You may take it that this is the case
in this city or in the suburbs across the
river. Laughter.
Wherever you look, although you may
find very excellent representatives of their
sires among them. continuing their business
faithfully and successfully, yet you find moth
ing else, and nothing that is new, any new
enterprise except that which has been started
by new people. So am decidedly in ia vor
of the principles of New Englanders. They
obey the laws wherever they go; respect the
rights of others. and urge the right of free
and full enjoyment Of their political and re-
ligious liberties; making no distinction on
account of personal nativity.
Your president has asked one question to
which he seems to expect an answer. He
said: wherever the Pilgrim went,-and
where did he not go?'' That question can
not answer. Laughter. My travels have
been confined to the Northern Hemisphere. l
have not been to the equator, but have been
very near to it. and have not been in any
place where he was not or has not been.
Laughter and applause.
Secretary Evarts also spoke. He con-
cluded as follows -
1t is wonderful spectacle after the dire
calamity of civil war, that in seventeen years
the nation is more homogeneous, more bound
together, more powerful, richer than it ever
could have been, but for the triumph Of the
best over the worst. Cheers.