The daily state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 188?-1891, 1890-04-20

our rich friends Of New England and
the North are turning their eyes to the
South whose genial sun makes every
day, except Sunday, work day and
wh=re no isms and strikes make invest
ments unsafe Or proitless. | went lot
long ago over into Tennessee ard when [
saw stir and enterprise everywhere, long
trains laden with coal and coke and pig
iron rattlir 6 in every dire ection and the
heavens fairly glowing at night with the
glare o. coke oven and bl st furnaces, |
felt Ike exclaiming, Poor North
Carolina gave the b-st part OF herself
away when she dismembered herself aud
gave Tennessee TO the Union But
But when I recalled to myself our peo-
lie and their growing towns and INDUS
tries and how, without foreign help, we
are digging life out of the ribs Ct what
was thought to be death, and what we
have in our mountains and plains to
work upon, | felt Constrained 10 ssay
My land, my native land, of every land
the pride
You do we'll to celebrate the compile
ton of SO important a road as the one
now brought to your doors, linking to-
gether the Atlantic coast and the great
West and fulfilling the prophetic visions
and the ardent longings of your fore
fathers. It bisects the S.ate, having five
outlets to the North, no entanghng ALI
ances, independent Of all others, and like
Aleck Stephens ''toting its own skillet "
The inside history Of the building Of the
DAD will never be told. | nave some
times thought | would write it as les
son to my children and the children OF
the State of what North Carolinians can
do.
After many tossings by tempests. storms
and unfav oripg winds, we have come to
| your hospitabe shores, 0 beautiful Queen
| City by the Sea, like 1E1eas and hi, fol
lowers came to the kindly shores of the
gentle Carthaginian Queenl It is !.
maven of rest we are in, and sitting at
your banquet board, l will not vex your
ears 0 beautiful Queen, by renewing oul
unspeakable grief and telling how the
fleet in which we have come has been
threatened with wreck and tossed by the
tempest
When the State Of North Carolina
money on her railroads, determined t(
spend no more and sold to company o.
North Carolnians the thirty seven mile
of no paying road, and those Nortl
Carolini ians said they would build th,
road to Greensboro and then 10 Whining
ton and then to connection with Gin
cionati, carping critics laughed at tn
crowd Of ''cornfeld hands, as the nev
railroad builders were called IL ierision
Bu;, as step 10y step the road was buiit /,
South Carolina, then to Greensboro. theI
TO 3ft A.l Z &nd then to Wilmington, tn
laugh Of the scorner r1i52od into
>ardonc grin at the unexpected success
ot the syndicate But there We're time
when the low ring clouds, big with de
,truction, hung low above the heads {
the builders, anu have seen times vine
tiev met around he council board wit
) olanchad faces and with great teads {
cold sweat npoIl their brows, when,
!, one hal tiincued or each had failed to fet
the sympathetic and reassuring touch {
his ne Oh bor's elbow, the Individual fol
5 tanes If q Gozen North Carolinar
wouid have been destroyed and tt
PIE lge they had given 10 the State woul
/ nave been broken. But amid the tu
/ moil and tempest and threatenin
5 shoals AID Scyllas and Chary bd
, ses, we had al 4Eneas in JUN
2 A. Gray whose watchful eye al
( calm head, cool nerve aud III
=; faltering hands were at the hel
j guiding us into safe harbor- and "
e are here safe and sound, @ Reg;aa,-
e beautiful Queen City by the Sea! mel
G ton these things not to praise the III
o IN ng whom l held a small place, +
), 70 show what North Carolina grit CT
: 10, an how North Carollnians can st;
/ and stay and stay to the end.
d The toast proposed omlts one trea 4
II that North Carolina has, which wi
$, your consent I will add, and that
o HIlmington' an enthusiastic Frenc
:, man sitting at the banquet board OF N
:, poleon, once proposed this sentimen
IS In tie world there is no country Ii
j, France in France, no city like Paris,
h Paris, no man like Napoleon" Pa
4 phrssing, I would say that in the wol
there is nc country like America,
} America, 10 State like North Carolil
l IN North Carolina, no city and no peol
or superior if even equal, to the city a
the people Of Wilmington.