The age-herald., 1901-03-24

The President of the United States, the Governor of Alabama. who had come an hundred miles to speak the ardent word of welcome for the State, school children by the thousands in line, other thousands of citizens without regard 10 sex or race looking on amidst incessant cheers and other complimentary noises, Che bright afternoon, April 16 1891, the time, and the Union railroad passenger station the place, all are recalled as features of public event in the brief career of Bir- mingham best remembered among ire Quent events of kindred character.
 No doubt latent sense of eyen-handed Justice pervaded the demonstration Of welcome to President Harrison, for it came third in order of welcomes to Pres ldents rendered within brief period by Alabama First in that period came the phenomenal display of enthusiasm man. Hested on the visit of President Davis to Montgomery, in which not only all Ala hama, but much of Georgia and the Gulf States were found in rivalry with our own people Next an outbreak of gener- Dus impulse only less general, came with the appearance of President and Mrs. Cleveland at the State Agricultural Fair nt Montgomery. These recent honorable exhibitions of public hospitality were present in the mind of Governor Jones when he rose to greet President Harrison in the name of Alabama. As usual with the Governor of that time, his speech was fresh, true and fervid utterance very grateful, too, to the President.
 I am not to forget the pagan maxim, | |. is no little of Christianity that is recog- nized organism, baptized under new for mulae. So much to the honor of man kind. Our noble guest of that day has gone the way of all hesh The good he did lives after him. The good he did is not always in the abstract truth Of his words or the absolute wisdom of his con duct. He loved his fellow man and spoke and acted as if he sought truth and wis dom. That is enough of human aim and endeavor. It is heavenly character in the exemplar not to be mistaken.
 Alabama Is entitled, as of her right, to have correction made of certain misinfor- nation already allowed too much license in difference to the source of 1t and which was repeated and enlarged upon by Pres ident Harrisons speech in response to Governor Jones' welcome address. It is not amiss to say that President Harri- son owed no little of his attractive de- meanor to his James river lineage. lie had been a gentleman generations before he saw the light, so to speak. To this day stands the old James river plantation house where American Harrisons, for two centuries, were born and reared in an incomparable atmosphere of social dig nity, public faith and, above all personal honor. All of us around the President, when he rose to speak here, saw at a glance the silent signs of his origin, knew 1t to be Southern, and cheered it to the echo.
 In less than two minutes after the Pres ident rose to respond to the Governor, he spoke the words following:
 My countrymen, we thought the war a great calamity, and so it was. The de struction of life and of property was sad beyond expression; and yet, we can see now that God led us through that Red Sea to development in material pros perity and to fraternity that was not otherwise possible. (Cheers.) The indus tries that have called to our midst so many toiling men are always and every where the concomitants of freedom. Out of all this freedom from the incubus of slavery the South has found new indus trial birth. Once almost wholly agricul-