[INDIANAPOLIS, JUNE 25, 1888.]
Nomination Day.
A few hours after the receipt of the news of the nomination of General Harrison for President, on Monday, June 25, 1888, delegations from neighboring cities and towns began to arrive to congratulate him. From the moment the result at Chicago was known, and for two days thereafter, the city of Indianapolis was the scene of excitement and enthusiasm unparalleled in its history.
The first out-of-town delegation to arrive was the Republican Club of Danville, Hendricks County, Indiana, three hundred strong, led by the Hon. L. M. Campbell, Rev. Ira J. Chase, Major J. B. Homan, Joel T. Baker, Capt. Worrel, and E. Hogate.
They came on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth and marched to the Harrison residence escorted by about five thousand excited citizens of Indianapolis, and it was to these men of Hendricks that General Harrison made his first public speech—after his nomination—which proved to be the opening words of a series of impromptu addresses remarkable for their eloquence, conciseness and variety, and generally conceded by the press of the day to have been the most brilliant and successful campaign speeches of his generation.
To the Danville Club General Harrison said:
Gentlemen—I am very much obliged to my Hendricks County friends for this visit. The trouble you have taken to make this call so soon after information of the result at Chicago reached you induces me to say a word or two, though you will not, of course, expect any reference to politics or any extended reference to the result at Chicago. I very highly appreciate the wise, discreet and affectionate interest which our delegation and the people of Indiana have displayed in the convention which has just closed at Chicago. [Cries of "Good!" "Good!" and cheers.] I accept your visit to-day as an expression of your confidence and respect, and I thank you for it. [Great cheering.]
Scarcely had the Danville visit concluded before another organization from Hendricks County arrived, the Republican Club of Plainfield, led by Dr. Harlan, William G. Ellis, Oscar Hadley, and A. T. Harrison.