Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1898-11-10
PKEsIDENrIAL TO URs.
Striking Physical and Sncial Changes Since
Washington's Day.

WHshington's Day.
81. Louis Globe-Deinocrat.
comparison OF the length of time
passed by Presidents on their occasional
tours through the country, or through
part of it, and the scenes connected
Herewith will reveal some striking
physical and social changes in the
United States in the past hundred
years. The first President was an
ardent believer in the necessity for him
and his successors to mingle with the
people of various localities as often as
was convenient. When Congress, in
1889, took a recess, Washington set out
on a tour through the New England
States, steering clear of Rhode Island,
which had not yet ratified the Con-
stitution, which consequently, was not
represented in Congress, and which,
in fact, was a foreign nation at the
time. Washington's primary purpose
in his tour was to help to knit the
States into a closer union by making
them personally acquainted with their
chief magistrate, by showing that he
was citizen of all the States, and not
merely of the one in which he resided
at the time of his election, and in
revealing to them that all the States,
small or large, and north and south,
were on an absolute political equality
in tho nation.
This particular function of president
ial tours is as obvious in Mckinley IS
days as it was in Washington The
number Of States in the Union, how
ever, and the time would bo consumed
in travelling through these States, are
widely different now from what they
were then. The capital of the country
when Washington made his first tour
Just 100 years ago at this very season,
was New York tho States only eleven,
for North Carolina as we'll rs Rhode
Island had not yet accepted the Con.
stitution, and he travelled through part
OF New England only because the few
weeks in which the congressional re-
cess lasted would not permit him tc
see the whole country, small as it was.
| BY the slow conveyances of a century
| going from New Hampshire, the north
ermost State Of the Union at thai
time to Georgia, than Mckinley woult
be in making a complete circuit of thu
country's verge, around the Atlantic
coast, the Gulf Of Mexico, the Pacific
coast and the Canadian boundary. TIL,
| journey from Washington, ID. c., t
Manila would take no more time il
1893 than a trip from Portland, Me.
to Savannah would have done in 1889
Washington, too, had an experience,
on his first tour such as no Presiden
would have now. All governors except
one of the States which Washington
entered went to their frontiers TO NEE
him, and provided him with escort
when going to their capitals. TIL
solitary exception was John Hancocl
of Massachusetts, an excellent man il
many ways, but narrow and vain, VIII
believed that as head of State h
was as high socially as the President
who was simply head of an aggregation
of States which could be dissolved q
any time, and which was likely to b
dissolved in any case before long, b
the Withdrawal of some or all Of tn
States from the league. In these day
of lightning speed on transcontinenta
railroads, when, States frontiers ar
less physical than they are ideal,
is not the custom OF governors to mee
the Presidents on entering their States
but no governor nor mayor would hav
treated Mckinley, Cleveland or Harrl
son with the discourtesy which Har
cock displayed toward Washington
Moreover, Washington at that tim
J had never identified himself with an
party, and was elected both times by
unanimous vote Of the electoral college
Neither partisan nor sectional feelin
is ever shown toward a President
, these days in his social visits anon
J his people. There was nothing in I'll
personnel of the various committe,
, which entertained President McKinle
at his stopping places on his tour
the West to indicate to which party
locality he belonged. The improv
ment in the country's political maj
ners in the past hundred years has bet
as marked as have been its advances
| the purely physical methods and col
veniences.