The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1911-09-21


seeing your beautiful exposition; espe
| cially, as your committee was good
enough to take special pains to see
that l had the opportunity. l knew
southern hospitality was most warm
hearted, but / did not know the long
reach II had uAGl taMxA myself taken
possession OF, with nay COED wife, yes
terday on the Jersey coast and brought
here-I absolutely had no say about
anything, and l was the guest of the
committee from the time left Lake
wood until got here to-day.
1t is, as your chairman has said
quite appropriate that one from Gin
cinnati should come to the exposition
in Knoxville. He has referred to that
curious circumstance in the history OF
the country-the city of Cincinnati
building a great railroad down through
your region; he spoke about the cour-
age of it-what has always struck me
more than the courage was the faith
that was shown by it. We up north
did not suffer as much from the war
as you did, but we suffered most seri-
oously, and yet my homo city within
three years after the civil war closed
had started the construction of that
great enterprise of building that rail-
road-to send her two lines of peace
able steel where hostile steel had so
long been flashing. Public sentiment
was so strongly in favor of 1t that we
even had to warp our strength little,
we thought, to be able to do it, and
that old city spent twenty million dol
lors to put that railroad down, and the
faith that it implied was the faith in
the future of the Southland. Gap
plause).
The first trip that ever made south
beyond the Kentucky border across
from which | live, was down through
this country shortly after the war, and
! had no idea of the desolation and
the destruction and the suffering, So
cially and commercially, that existed
here; but our people up there knew
that the best strains of our blood had
settled this region; they knew that
God had blessed it abundantly, and
they had faith that no disaster could
permanently keep down the energy
and industry of the people here. CAP
plause). And so they built that rail
road, and, as it often happens, those
who haye courage and faith are re-
warded, because. contrary to the evil
prophesies of great many 1t has turn
ed out to be a-good commercial invest
has been justified by you men of the
south who are able to make such
display of Industries as you have here
tonight tApplause).
But, there is another reason why a
Cincinnati man ought to come to the
exposition, and that Is, because Gin.
cinnati is the mother of the exposition
in America. Soon after we started
that railroad back in the seventies we
had the first great exposition ever UNI
dertaken, and, 1t was SO successful in
attendance, in the education and in
the encouragement of industry, that
when the government undertook the
great Centennial exposition in Phila-
delphia in 1876 they sent to Cincin-
natl and got our Director and made
him Director General OF NE National
exposition, ana 50 weA did he>perfsrm
his duties that that good old Queen OF
England made him knight
Now, 1t may seem strange, being
your neighbor always and having felt
q deep interest and at one time sym
pathy for the people of this region
that never was in Knoxville but once
One night had little while tc