The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-09
AT WICHITA FALLS.
Speech of President in Consratuiating
 the Texans.

l the Texans.
 l Vernon, Texas, April S.-At Wichita Falls the President said:
 "I know this country well. It is l just twenty-five years ago that l first went into the great west the real west, up beyond the Missouri In North Dakota. At that time I saw great stretches of level prairie without a house. where now there are thriving towns, but do know that l have never seen greater transformation than what I am told has taken place during the same time in your own country.
 q have now been travelling for four days through Texas. l want to con gratulate you on the enterprise and forethought you have shown in your great irrigation schemes here. What you have done is not only of very great importance to this community, but 1t is of the utmost importance by way of example to all of our western people. I have had the good forunte to spend many years of my life in the western country. When I became President one of the first things to which l de- voted by attention was to try to bring about a fuller development of irriga- tion and therefore of the reclamation of agricultural lands in the semi arid regions. Naturally I take a particulra
 
 regard The welfare of the great western country, and that means In its essence the welfare of the United States as a whole. depends upon the encouragement given to the home maker That is the crop we want to grow, the crop of home makers. The men who really can conquer this con tinent for the republic are the men like Mir Burnett and the others who
 |. frontier out into the land of the Indian and the buffalo and there made ready the way for the civilization that we now see before us. Great Is our debt of obligation to those men.
 Wanted a Reunion.
 T came down to Texas several years ago to help raise my regiment and when we returned from Santiago, I told the men that we would surely have to have a reunion of the regiment at San Antonio, under the walls of the Alamo, where the regiment had been raised. At last the opportunity came when I could arrange to have the regimental reunion here and at the same time visit your great and wonder full State.
 'T admire Texas not only for its wonderful material advantages. for it's agricultural and industrial re- sources, but above and beyond all of this for the character of its citizen ship. for the character of it's men and women. l have been received in Tex as in a way for which I cannot suffi- ciently express my gratitude and ap- preciation.
 We look at this country of ours, we of the United States. not as some thing for today only but as something that is to last through the ages. We are trying here in America, on the largest and most complete scale that 1t has been tried. the experiment of having a free people govern itself by l itself and for itself Cheers and ap- plause) We are bound to make a success of it, not for our own sakes, l but for the sake of mankind. The | cause of free government throughout 1 the land would be shaken to it's foun- | dalton if we fail here. We can sue l caed only by seeing to 1t that the chill l dren-the boys and girls. who in ten | or fifteen years or twenty years will | he the men and women who will then l control affairs-are so trained that they can do their part well in the del icate work of self-gOvernment under free institutions, and I congratulate you upon what you have done and are doing in this regard"