Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1880-10-12

oldtt. III Dtna1li VI - uutllDCi Va y caH6
and robust Belgian farmers, possessing
more or less means, who are seeking IN
formation concerning the lands and re-
sources of the Unitd States, with view to
emigration, remarks that until quite re-
Gently few of the Belgians have manifested
any desire to quit their country, but that
now they seem to have caught new in
spiratisn, and in large numbers are look
ing toward our shores for wider and
more remunerative field tor their indus
try. As rule Belgian farmers, grazers
and skilled mechanics, are a sober, indus
trious, and thrifty class of men.
General Garfield to Young Men.
The First Voters Garfield and Ar
thur Battalion, Of Cleveland, went
to Mentor Friday afternoon by a
special train Of six cars and called on Gen
eral Garfield at his home. The train stopped
at the farm and the battalion, headed by a
band, marched TO the residence, where Her
man W Grannis, president of the organiza-
ton, made brief eulogistic address, to which
General Garfield responded as follows:
Mn. CHAIRMAN AND YoUSG GESTLEMEN-
This is no ordinary event in the history of
any man-ndeed, in the history of any peo-
ple-when, as I am told, there are 400
Young men here who have made this jour
ney, not for any personal purpose, but to ex-
press that great, general, earnest purpose
that arises in the hearts of active, intelligent
young men when they first grapple with the
great questions of their country. know of
nothing quite like this in our history. With
all the pleasure it brings | am bound to say
it brings little disenchantment to me in this.
Always to tins time have been accustomed
to consider myself Young man. Laughter
and applause. If before your arrival any
body had raised the question, | should have
asserted, with a good deal of Indignation, if
anybody had denied it, that | myself was a
young man.
But thev tell me you are to cast your first
national vote at n Presidential election. If
that is so, young man as am, voted before
any Of you were born. Laughter and ap-
plause. If you are young and voters, Dor
rowing the language Of Rip Van Wrinkle
when he awoke from that long sleep. "Who
in the world am % Laughter and applause.
! must have passed the very flush of youth,
at least. But, young gentlemen, | have not
80 far left the coast of youth to travel inland
but that I can very well remember the state
of young manhood, from an experience in it
of some years, and there is nothing to me in
this world so inspiring the possibilities
that lie locked up in the head and breast of a
young man. Applause. The hopes that
lie before him, the great aspirations above
him. all these things, with the untried path
81 ,napinn It's 1iftrTItia. and
dangers, inspire him to courage and force
and work. 1t is a spectacle that the very
gods would look down upon in ancient Ro-
man days with more than ordinary interest.
Applause.
Now, let me say a single word or two in
answer to this great kindness and compliment
of your coming to my house, about some of
the thoughts that | know get into the hearts
of young men and inspire them, and some de-
lusons that are likely to get into their minds.
Let me speak of one deusion that think
from the remarks of your chairman, you arc
not likely to have. 1t is a delusion that af-
fects all men more or less-particularly the
young men-the delusion that good things
and great things are some way off yonder,
away abroad That is one of the delusions
that hope you are not living in now. To
illustrate this Where | spent my childhood
ti1cTt Is u lDHtiN llttle DTOOk anu SuTpt
where we used to go down and find slate
stones and white them out into pencils for
ourselves that were better than all other pen
ellis that we brought from abroad. But if any
boy ever brought into our school what is not
in any English dictionary, but in the school
boys dictionary, ''boughten' pencil, he
could get a whole handful of our home made
pencils for it, and yet every one of ours was
better than the best that he brought from
abroad. There was delusion among us that
outside of us, away from us, was glory was
greatness.
Row, as to our country. let us not get any
such delusion into our heads. know all
about abroad. know what it is to enlarge
our minds by it. But / want you to feel in
the depths of your heart that there is no
abroad in all this world that is half equal to
the glory of being an American here at home
and to-day. [Great applause. Right here
in this yard is a splendid specimen of Ameri-
can sovereignty, the roof and crown of this
world of sovereignty. Enlarge it into the
million of men who vote and YOU have the
grand, august sovereign of this last and best
born of time, the American Republic. APP
plause.1 Now that the sovereign shall be
unshackled forever that that sovereign shall
be unpurchasable when he stands at the bal
lot-box to order the supreme will of the Ma
tion that that sovereign shall be unintimidat-
ed by mortal man when he utters that final
omnifc word that commands the continent
that is the great purpose that all true Amer-
cans should keep in their minds. Great ap-
plause.
When | see such band of earnest young
men as meet me here to-day, feel certain
that they could deploy themselves as a ballot
box guard to defend the purity of the Amer-
4 II \. 4