In this is the secret of that great growth illustrating what I see about me here, and the promise of a future which none of us can fully realize. In all of these things we have a common interest, and I beg to assure you that in everything that tends to the social order of your people and the development and increased prosperity of the State of Virginia I am in most hearty sympathy with you all. [Cheers.]
[BRISTOL, TENNESSEE, APRIL 14.]
The town of Radford, Va., acknowledged the honor of the President's visit in a cordial way. General Harrison shook hands with many of the inhabitants. At Bristol, Tenn., a crowd of several thousand greeted the party at the station. The President was met and escorted to a high bluff overlooking the city by Hon. Harvey C. Wood, at the head of the following committee of prominent citizens: Col. E. C. Manning, Hon. I. C. Fowler, Judge M. B. Wood, A. S. McNeil, W. A. Sparger, A. C. Smith, C. H. Slack, Rockingham Paul, Esq., Capt. J. H. Wood, Judge C. J. St. John, Col. Nat M. Taylor, and John H. Caldwell.
Judge Wood made the welcoming address and introduced the President, who, in response, said:
My Fellow-citizens—I have found not only pleasure but instruction in riding to-day through a portion of the State of Virginia that is feeling in a very striking way the impulse of a new development. It is extremely gratifying to notice that those hidden sources of wealth which were so long unobserved and so long unused are now being found, and that these regions, once so retired, occupied by a pastoral people, having difficult access to the centres of population, are now being rapidly transformed into busy manufacturing and commercial centres.
In the early settlement of this city the emigrants poured over the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridge like waters over an obstructing ledge, seeking the fertile and attractive farm regions of the great West. They passed unobserved these marvellous hidden stores of wealth which are now being brought into use. Having filled those great basins of the West, they are now turning back to Virginia and West Virginia and Tennessee to bring about a development and production for which the time is ripe, and which will surprise the world. [Cheers.]
It has not been long since every implement of iron, domestic, agricultural, and mechanical, was made in other States. The iron point of the wooden mould-board plough with which the early farmers here turned the soil came from distant States. But now Virginia and Tennessee are stirring their energies to participate in a large degree in mechanical productions and in the great awakening of American influence which will lift the Nation to a place among the nations of the world never before attained. [Cheers.]
What hinders us, secure in the market of our own great population, from successful competition in the markets of the world? What hinders our people, possessing every element of material wealth and endowed with inventive genius and energy unsurpassed, from having again upon the seas a merchant marine flying the flag of our country and carrying its commerce into every sea and every port?