Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-16
CHEERING THOUSANDS
Splendid Greeting of Presi-
dent by the Saengerfest.
A SCENE OF BEAUTY
FIFTEEN THOUSAND PEOPLE
GATHERED IN GREAT HALL.
Baltimore Entertaining Enormous
Crowd Of Visitors to the Great
Carnival Of Song.

now in session in the monumental city.
Fifteen thousand people were gathered in
the great building with two purposes in
view-to see the President OF the United
States and to hear master music from this
combined singing societies. The hall was
magnifcently decorated. and the scene one
of inspiring beauty as the monster crowd
waited for the distinguished guest of the
evening.
The President finally was seen by the
crowd and mighty cheer that tore the
roof rose from the multitude as he made
his way to the presidential box under the
escort of President Wieman and Represen-
tative Wachter.
Accompanying the President and occupy
ing a seat next to him in the box was the
German ambassador, Count Won Sternburg.
Other neighbors in the box were Senator
McComas. Representative Frank c. Wach-
ter, the Presidents scort from Washington;
Mr.. William Loeb, jr., secretaryto the Presi-
dent and Mr.. Simon Wolf, who was the
Presidents guest. They formed the official
party from Washington, which reached
the armory at $40 o'clock, and which left
at $50 for the capital.
The Presidents presence and his speech
stood out in bold relief in the evening
program along with the German songs rem
dered by 5000 voices. In the audience,
which cheered the President, frantically
waved handkerchiefs as greeting eagerly
grasped every word that fell from his lips
and applauded to the echo the inspiring
music, were the representative citizens or
Baltimore, men in every walk or me- ana
for every man in the huge gathering there
was a lady-a wife, a sweetheart or a sis
ter.
The box to the right OF the President was
occupied by Governor John Walter Smith
and staff in brilliant uniforms. The box
to the left was occupied by Mayor McLane
and friends. During the evening Governor
Smith and Mayor McLane were escorted
into the Presidents box separately by
President Wieman of the Saengerfest, who
introduced the President to them
President Roosevelt occupied magnih-
Gently decorated box. Upon being intro
duced he spoke as follows:
My fellow citizens: Let me In the first
place congratulate the city of Baltimore
upon what she has done and upon the
way she has done it; and then let me well
come the members of the Saengerfest Asso-
citation and all the guests of Baltimore this
evening. At the beginning of our countrys
history many different race strains have
entered to make up the composite Amer-
can. Out of and from each We have gained
something of our national character; to
each we owe something special for what 1t
has contributed to us as people.
1t is almost exactly two hundred and
twenty years ago that the first marked i'm
migration from Germany to what were
then the colonies in this western hemis-
phere began. AS is inevitable with any
pioneers, those pioneers of the German race
on this side of the ocean had to encounter
bitter privation had to struggle against
want in many forms, had to meet and over
come hardshp-for the people that go forth
to seek their well-being in strange lands
must inevitably be ready to pay as the
price of success the expenditure Of all that
there is in them to overcome the obstacles
in their way.
1t was some fifty years later that the
Ia % INN ior9f n
lonial times began to flow hither, one of
the leaders in 1t being Muhlenburg. the
founder of a family which has contributed
to military and civil life some OF the wor-
thiest figures in American history from the
first I wish to recall to you that the first
OF the famous speakers of the House of
Representatives was Muhlenburg of Ger
man ancestry.
It Is meet and fitting to recall that here in
this city-for Baltimore is a center in that
region of our land where from the earliest
DAYS there was that intermingling Of ethnfc
strains which finally went to the making of
the Americans who in '76 made this coun-
try a nation-here in this city, here in this
state, in the region now included within
the boundaries of this state, was founded
that colony which first of all on this west
ern continent saw government modelled
upon those principles Of religious freedom
and liberation which we now regard as the
birthrights Of American citizens.
Here in what Is now this city, when 1t
a colony, we saw men OF many
ent race origins, coming from many ma
tionalities the other side of the ocean,
joined hand in hand to build up in brother
hood and unison great and powerful COM
monwealth. After the colonial days were
over the thirteen struggling colonies had
become a nation-and yet a young and
weak nation, but destined in the fullness
of time to overshadow the whole world,
destined in the fullness Of time to become
not merely the greatest republic. but the
I'D rr-I,ny he.
sun has ever shone.
Throughout our career of development the
German immigration to this country went
steadily onward, and the people who came
here those and their sons, and grandsons
played an ever-increasing part in the his
tory of our people-a part that eliminated
in the civil war; for every lover Of the
Union must ever bear In mind what was
done in this commonwealth, as in the COM
monwealth of Missouri, by the folk of Ger
man birth or origin who served so loyalty
the flag that was theirs by inheritance or
adoption.
And here in this city would be unwilling
to let an occasion like this pass without re-
calling the part of incalculable Importance
PLAYED by the members of the Turn Verein
of Baltimore in saving Baltimore to the
Union. In congratulating every man here
to whom it was given to fight in the great
civil war, in cOngratulating the men of
Baltimore, who in those dark days followed
the lead if Siegel, Rapp and Blumenberg in
playing well and nobly their part in uphold
ing the hands of Abraham Lincoln, 1 con-
graduate them thrice over because 1t was
given to them to fight In a contest where
the victors and the vanquished alike have
bequeathed to us heritage, the memory of
the yalor and the loyalty to the right as to
each it was given to see the right, showed
alike by the men who wore the blue and
the men who wore the gray in the great
days of the civil war.
Terrible though that contest was, terrible
though the contest was in which with blood
and tears and sweat, with the suffering of
men and the sorrow of women, the genera
ton of Lincoln and Grant purchased for US
peace and union; terrible though it was, it
paid for itself infinitely over and over again
by what 1t left to us-not merely reunited
land, not merely a land in which freedom
was indeed instead of only a boast, but
above all the right as Americans to feel
within US the lift toward lofty things which
must come to those who know that their
latham and forefathers have in the ulti-