Gen. Thomas M. Browne, on behalf of the citizens, delivered an eloquent address of welcome, and closed by introducing President Harrison, who said:
My Friends—It gives me great pleasure to hear from the lips of your honored fellow-citizen, my old-time army comrade, these words of welcome, spoken in your behalf. I thank you and him for his assurance that your assembling here together is without regard to difference in belief, and as American citizens having common interests and a common love for the flag and the Constitution. Now, to these good people of Randolph County I render this morning my sincere thanks for their hearty and cordial welcome. No public servant, in whatever station, can ever be indifferent to the good esteem of men and women and children like these. You do not know how much these kindly faces, these friendly Indiana greetings, help me in the discharge of duties that are not always easy.
I bid you good-by and God-speed. I do wish for Indiana and all her people the greatest happiness that God can give. [Prolonged cheers.]
[UNION CITY, INDIANA, OCTOBER 13.]
The President found another great crowd awaiting him at Union City, including several hundred school children, each waving a flag. Between rows of children he was escorted to the park near the station by a committee consisting of Hon. Theo. Shockney, B. F. Coddington, J. S. Reeves, and Geo. W. Patchell. Arrived at the park he was met by James B. Ross, S. R. Bell, L. C. Huesman, J. F. Rubey, W. S. Ensign, L. D. Lambert, J. B. Montani, C. S. Hardy, J. C. Platt, Judge J. W. Williams, R. G. Clark, H. H. Le Fever, H. D. Grahs, Chas. Hook, and other prominent citizens. Senator Shockney made the welcoming address. The President, responding, said:
Senator Shockney and Fellow-citizens—The conditions are not such here that I can hope to make many of you hear the few words that it is possible for me to speak to you. I have found myself in this tour through these Western States, undertaken for the purpose of meeting some of my comrades of the late war, who had invited me to be with them at their annual gatherings, repeating the words "Thank you" everywhere. I have felt how inadequate this word or any other word was to express the sense of gratitude I should feel to these friendly fellow-citizens who everywhere greeted me with kind words and kinder faces. I feel very grateful to see you, and to realize that if there are any fault-finders, sometimes with reason, and sometimes without, that the great body of our people are interested only in good government, in good administration, and that the offices shall be filled by men who understand that they are the servants of the people, and who serve them faithfully and well. If it were not so a President would despair. Great as the Government is, vast as is our civil list, it is wholly inadequate to satisfy the reasonable demands of men, and so, from disappointment, reasonable or unreasonable, we turn with confidence and receive with encouragement these kindly greetings from the toilers of the country—the men and women who only ask from the Government that it shall protect them in their lives, their property, and their homes; that it shall encourage education, provide for these sweet young children, so that they shall have an easier road in life than their fathers had, and that there shall be an absence of corrupt intent or act in the administration of public business.
And now, standing on the line which divides these two States, the one for which I have the regard every man should feel for his birthplace, and the other to which I owe everything I have received in civil life or public honor, I beg to call your attention to the fact how little State lines have to do with American life. Some of you pay your taxes on that side of the line, some on this, but in your intercourse, business, and social ties you cross this line unknowingly. Above both and greater than both—above the just pride which Ohioans have in that noble State, and above the just pride which we have in Indiana—there floats this banner that is the common banner of us all. We are one in citizenship; we are one in devotion to the Government, which makes the existence of States possible and their destruction impossible. [Cheers.] And now, to these children, to my Grand Army friends, and to these old citizens, many of whom I have met under other conditions, I beg to say God bless you every one, and good-by.