I thank you for your cordial greeting to-day, and hope for the development of the industries of our country and for the settling of our institutions upon the firm base of a respect for the law. In this glad springtime, while the gardens are full of blossoms and the fields give promise of another harvest, and your homes are full of happy children, let us thank God for what He has wrought for us as a people, and, each in our place, resolutely maintain the great idea upon which everything is builded—the rule of the majority, constitutionally expressed, and the absolute equality of all men before the law. [Cheers.]
[CARTERSVILLE, GEORGIA, APRIL 15.]
The first stop after crossing the Georgia State line was Cartersville, where a citizens' committee, headed by M. G. Dobbins, W. H. Howard, and Walter Akerman, received the President, who in response to repeated calls said:
My Friends—I am very much obliged to you for coming here in this shower to show your good-will. I can only assure you that I entirely reciprocate your good feelings. I have had great pleasure to-day in passing over some parts of the old route that I took once before under very different and distressing circumstances, to find how easy it is, when we are all agreed, to travel between Chattanooga and Atlanta. I am glad to see the evidences of prosperity that abound through your country, and I wish you in all your relations every human good. [Cheers.]
[ATLANTA, GEORGIA, APRIL 15.]
"What War has ravaged Commerce can bestow,
And he returns a Friend who came a Foe."
The presidential party travelled over the Western and Atlantic route from Chattanooga to Atlanta, passing through historic battle-grounds with which the President and other members of his party were once familiar. General Harrison actively participated in the Atlanta campaign and held the chief command at the battle of Resaca. It was with keen interest, therefore, that he viewed this memorable field in company with Marshal Ransdell, who lost an arm there. Short stops were made at the battle-fields of Chickamauga, Tunnel Hill, Resaca, Dug Gap, and Kennesaw. At Marietta the President was met by a committee from the city government of Atlanta, consisting of Mayor W. A. Hemphill, Aldermen Hutchison, Woodward, Rice, Shropshire, and Middlebrooks; Councilmen Murphy, Hendrix, Lambert, Holbrook, Sawtell, King, Turner, McBride, and City Clerk Woodward. These officials were accompanied by a special committee of citizens representing the Chamber of Commerce and the veteran associations, comprising ex-Gov. R. B. Bullock, Gen. J. R. Lewis, Capt. John Milledge, Julius L. Brown, S. M. Inman, Hon. J. T. Glenn, and Hon. W. L. Calhoun.