The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-30
Governor and Mrs. Durbin and Sena-
tor Fairbanks the Distinguished
Guests of the Exiles.
SPEECHES MADE
TRIBUTE By THE COVER
NOR To HIS STATE AND PEOPLE.
Senator Fairbanks Response to the
Toast, sour Country and It's Flag"
Senator Hanna's Address.

SAA'
nual banquet of the Indiana Society OF
Ohio was held tonight in the banquet hall
OF the Hollenden. About 100 people who
| claim the 'Hoosier State as their birth
| place and who have formed an organiza-
ton in order better to perpetuate the MEM
cries and traditions of their home State,
| gathered to do honor to Indiana and to
| several of her most prominent sons. Gov
! ernor Winfield T. Durbin and Mrs. Durbin
were the guests of honor of the society.
Sepator Fairbanks was also an honored
| guest, as was Governor Durbin's secretary,
G. B. Lockwood, and the list of those pres
! ent included many others almost equally
| as well known. Senator Hanna was one Of
the speakers and Mayor Johnson was to
have been had not business called him I'M
expectedly East.
Before the banquet proper members Of
the society gathered in social intercourse
in the parlors. The distinguished guests
held a reception and greeted the visitors.
the scene Of the banquet TO the strains Of
ION the Banks of the Wabash"
GOVERNOR DURBIN TELLS A STORY.
After an hour spent In disposing of a din
ner of many courses NJ. A. Marks. the
PAOot0CAk VI ~ cOSiClys aNall6 as tOoSS
master. introduced Governor Winfield T.
Durbin, who spoke in part as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Indiana So
ciety-Years ago there used to float up and
down the western Ohio border, for the
speci4 delectatior of Hoosiers living just
across cross the lineaf was born myself within a
story that ran something like this: A trav-
eler entered a railway coach and chose as
his seatmate an uncommunicative farmer
Il who 6QV0f6n his attention aYnIlSiyplV To fhQ
window. At length, seeking to relieve the
monotony of the journey. the newcomer at
tempted to engage his companion in con-
Nope
After a pause: Well, then. I suppose
Nope
Another pause. We'll. do you happen to
be from Michigan
Another luli in the conversation. Well,
l don't want to seem inQuisitive, stranger,
but do you mind telling me what State you
We'll growled his companion, If you
Now. gol darn We. ianr
v oA1d SO, only a few decades g the
strongest and most unreasonable of all
prejudices-the prejudice of geography. The
name Hoosier was, according to a wide
for simplicity and i~literacy. An idea was
especially prevalent East of the Alleghenies
to the effect that the State was peopled by
a strange race of bucolic beings. clad in
skins and coming out Of the underbrush
only at infreQuent intervals for the pur-
pose of trading wampum for gold bricks.
newspaper Photographer, the professional
funny man md the persons who. by the
inscrutable oversight of Providence, are
permitted to create the comic supplements.
Whatever these gentlemen failed to do to
the reputation of the State was accom-
plished by the authors Of dialect stories
whose characters talked a weird jargon
quite as unfamiliar to Hoosier ears SIS the
magazine Scotch Of to-day.
INDIANA NEVER Jagged.
There never was any excuse for the be-
lief that Indiana Jagged behind the process
sion of civilization. The men who con-
Quered the primeval wilderness stretch
ing q century ago from AXE Michigan to
the Ohio and from the Wabash to the
Maumee were Of that same hardy and he
roic race of pioneers that carved out the
commonwealth Of which this splendid city
is the metropolis. Few of them were grad
yates of colleges, most of them knew much
more Of woodcraft than of ancient Ian
guages; but more honor to them, then, that
they made the common school the very cor
nerstone OF a commonwealth they had
wrested from savagery itself. Struggling
for mastery with the elemental forces Of
nature, the only institution of learning
which opened its doors to them was the
above their rude environment, filled with
| a noble appreciation of the vital relation
between the dissemination of learning and
the rearing of a citizenship worthy of a
| republic, they provided for free schools
with a generosity and foresight before I'M
paralleled in the history of States. Occu-
| plying a territory seemingly destined ex-
therefore well adapted to the peculiar in
stitution' which fourished throughout a
neighboring portion Of the Republic. they
met squarely the issue of slavery and reso-
lutely decreed that every foot of Hoosier
soil should be forever free. AS a State
the history of Indiana covered less than
half a century when Destiny laid its heavy
burden upon Abraham Lincoln, who had
grown from boyhood to manhood IN the
primeval Businesses OF the young common
wealth and carried with him out of the soli-
tudes of her forests and the primitive So
ciety of the pioneers that spirit of devo-
ton to freedom which possessed them. and
OF which he became the very incarnation.
man of blood and iron. Oliver p. Morton,
a State but a single generation removed
from occupancy by aborigines sent forth to
battle an army three times as large as that
which followed Wellington at Waterloo,
and before an Indiana soldier fired, along
the border line of Texas. the last hostile
shot of that mightiest Of modern con-
fiicts, she had in proportion given more
lavishly of her blood and treasure to the
cause than any other commonwealth whose
soldiers fought beneath the stars and
stripes. There might be forgotten Of In
diana's history all but that crucial period
from 1861 to 1865. and yet what a glorious
record would remain to her!
"HOOSIER" NOW AN HONOR.
The name Hoosier has ceased to be an
epithet, indeed to be thus entitled is by
Indianians everywhere esteemed an honor,
but proud as we are of the States great
present, let US never apologize for the past
for 1t is a great past, picturesque, heroic,
noble. and without a chapter in IT thai any
loyal I%ndianian would blot out. There lies
before the Indiana of the future no surer
pathway to q high place among enlightened
States than that the Hoosiers Of this and
succeeding generations shall prove worthy
of the ancestry which left to them a her
itage so splendid.
1.-The State Of Indiana to-day presents
the unusual combination of a common
wealth having a settled civilization. and yet
with its natural resources in the infancy of
their development. The first half century
of the States history saw an almost un-
broken forest, stretching from the lakes of
Steuben to the rivers of Posey, transformed
into a vast succession of smiling fields
yielding generously the treasures of the
harvest. The Indiana Of even thirty years
ago was typically an agricultural State.
Nature had dealt SO bountifuily with so
much Of the earth's surface as lies within
our boundaries that IL Ia not surprising
that nearly a half century of our history
had passed before any one considered II
necessary to search beneath the smiling
exterior Of the commonwealth for the treas
ures IL concealed. The Indiana of to-day.
still pre-eminent In the extent and pro-
: ductivity Of her tiliable lands, with her