Year: 1879

At the annual banquet of the Chicago
Commercial club, given at the Grand
Pacific Hotel in that city, at which
General Grant was present, Ex-GOv-
ernor Bagley of this State responded to
the toast, "Our inland and foreign COM
merce. May our inland states develop
and become equal in strength to their
seabOard sisters" in speech bristling
with humOr, and which was interrupted
by constant Outbursts of applause and
merriment. He said:


Mr.. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:-AS
a business man-and as | believe you are
all business men-Or at least did believe
SO when came here, but have made
up my mind that some of you are speech
makers. But am not. The last speech
made was across the lake at st. Joe. 1t
was political speech. l undertook to
persuade the people of st. Joe there was
but one party in the land that could be
trusted, and that was the Republican
party, because happened to be a Repub-
lican myself; and the audience began
slowly to disappear; and they kept going
as kept on talking, and finally two men
who sat on. the front seat got up to go,
the last two in the house. l got down
from the platform and took one of them
by the collar and said to him: II shall
not let you go until you promise me you
will vote the Republican ticket" 1 want
ed to make convert. And he said he
would promise me anything if 1 would
let him 90, and he went. l said to him:
how about this other man that sits with
YOU? "Well,' he said, "that doesn't make
any difference; he is a deaf and dumb
man and can't hear" So, you see, do
not make speeches in that sense. But
cannot tell you how glad l am, as busi-
ness man, to meet with the business
men of Chicago on this very auspiciOus
occasion. l am glad to meet our old
Michigan man, Gen. Grant. Laughter
I find wherever go there are Michigan
men. remember the General very we'll
when he was stationed in Detroit in the
Fourth infantry. 1 haven't any doubt
he learned a great deal of the art of war
i'm that city. So l see in Chicago, when
ever come here, in this interstate COM
merce that you talk of. that you come
over into Michigan and gObble out of it
all our lumber kings and principle men
from the west side of the state, and bring
them over here to Chicago and boast Of
them. Now we boast in Michigan a great
deal. We feel that it has enlightened
and civilized the states that adjOin it.
We feel, as we look over the census, that
we have even done a great deal for New
England. There 10000 adults in the
state of Michigan who were born i'm New
England or the state of New York, and
most of those that were born in New
York were originally from New England.
You know they leave the country with
the most wonderful alacrity when they
get money enough to travel, and we have
taken them out to Michigan and have
taken the corners off them and rounded
them up, and made them smooth and
rotund, jolly and good natured. We have
taken that east wind look out of their
faces. And so, we call Michigan the
Massachusetts, of the west. In all our
trades with New England they get the
advantage of us. We send them down
our succulent corn, and they send us
back their salt Goldfish. We send them
pine boards and potatoes, and they send
us professors and preachers. We send
them wheat and wool, and they send US
back wooden hams. And yet after all
we are very proud of New England. We
are proud that we have done SO much for
her. We are proud that we are on the
line of travel, and we have interstate
commerce between Massachusetts, and
Michigan that will eventually bring
them all to us and make them good citi-