My Fellow-citizens—We stop so frequently upon this journey and our time at each station is so brief, that I cannot hope to say anything that would be interesting or instructive. I thank you most sincerely for these friendly manifestations. I am glad to be permitted to stop at the home of your distinguished Senator and my friend. [Cheers.] I am sure, however you may differ from him in political opinion, the people of Mansfield and of Ohio are proud of the eminence which he has attained in the counsels of the Nation and of the distinguished service he has been able to render to his country not only in Congress but in the Treasury Department. [Cheers.] He is twin in greatness with that military brother who led some of you, as he did me, in some of the great campaigns of the war, and they have together rendered conspicuous services to this country, which we, as they, love with devoted affection. We have so many common interests and so much genuine friendliness among the American people that except in the very heat and ardor of a political campaign the people are kind to each other, and we soon forget the rancor of these political debates. We ought never to forget that we are American citizens; we ought never to forget that we are put in charge of American interests, and that it is our duty to defend them. [Applause.] Thanking you again for your presence and kindliness, I bid you good-by. [Applause.]
[WOOSTER, OHIO, OCTOBER 13.]
At Wooster, the seat of the well-known university, the presidential party received a rousing greeting, especially from the students with their college cry. At the head of the Committee of Reception was the venerable Professor Stoddard, formerly professor of chemistry at Miami University when Benjamin Harrison attended that institute. Among other prominent townsmen who received the President were: Hon. M. L. Smyser, Hon. A. S. McClure, Jacob Frick, Col. C. V. Hard, Capt. Harry McClarran, Dr. John A. Gann, Dr. R. N. Warren, Capt. R. E. Eddy, Lieut. W. H. Woodland, W. O. Beebe, Dr. J. D. Robison, Wm. Annat, John C. Hall, Enos Pierson, R. J. Smith, Samuel Metzler, Geo. W. Reed, C. W. McClure, A. G. Coover, A. M. Parish, Anthony Wright, Abram Plank, J. S. R. Overholt, Jesse McClellan, David Nice, Andrew Branstetter, Charles Landam, Wm. F. Kane, Capt. Lemuel Jeffries, Sylvester F. Scovel, D.D., O. A. Hills, D.D., Jas. M. Quinby, R. W. Funck, and Harry Heuffstot.
Congressman Smyser introduced the President, who said:
My Fellow-citizens—If anything could relieve the sense of weariness which is ordinarily incident to extended railroad travel, it would be the exceeding kindness with which we have been everywhere received by our fellow-citizens, and to look upon an audience like that assembled here, composed in part of venerable men who experienced the hardships of early life in Ohio, of some of those venerable women who shared those labors and self-denials of early life in the West, and in part of their sons, that gallant second generation, who, in the time of the Nation's peril in 1861, sprang to its defence and brought the flag home in honor [applause], and in part of these young men here undergoing that discipline of mind which is to fit them for useful American citizenship, full of the ambitions of early manhood, and, I trust, rooted in the principles of morality and loyalty [applause], and in part of these sweet-faced children, coming from your schools and homes to brighten with their presence this graver assembly. Where else in the world could such a gathering be assembled? Where else so much social order as here? The individual free to aspire and work, the community its own police officer and guardian.
We are here as American citizens, having, first, duties to our families, then to our neighborhood—to the institutions and business with which we are connected—but above all, and through and by all these duties, to our country and to God, by whose beneficial guidance our Government was founded, by whose favor and protection it has been preserved. [Applause.] Friendly to all peoples of the world, we will not thwart their course or provoke quarrels by unfriendly acts, neither will we be forgetful of the fact that we are charged here first with the conservation and promotion of American interests, and that our Government was founded for its own citizenship. [Applause and cheers.] But I cannot speak at further length. I must hurry on to other places, where kind people are impatiently awaiting our coming, and to duties which will be assumed and undertaken with more courage since I have so often looked into the kind faces of the people whom I endeavor to serve. [Applause.] Let me present to you now, and I do so with great pleasure, one of the gentlemen called by me under the Constitution to assist in the administration of the Government—one whom I know you have learned to love and honor as you are now privileged to know—Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy, the Secretary of the Navy. [Cheers.]