On arrival at Birmingham, in the afternoon, the President was greeted by an enormous gathering and formally welcomed by Mayor A. O. Lane at the head of the following distinguished committee: H. M. Caldwell, Joseph F. Johnston, B. L. Hibbard, William Youngblood, W. J. Cameron, J. A. Van Hoose, R. H. Pearson, E. H. Barron, M. M. Williams, J. O. Wright, James Weatherly, Chappell Cory, Louis Saks, D. D. Smith, J. P. Mudd, Charles M. Shelley, Paul Giacopazzi, James A. Going, Joe Frank, T. H. Spencer, P. G. Bowman, J. M. Martin, G. W. Hewitt, T. T. Hillman, E. Soloman, F. P. O'Brien, Lewis M. Parsons, Robert Jemison, John McQueen, Geo. L. Morris, B. Steiner, Mack Sloss, J. A. Yeates, J. M. Handley, Fergus W. McCarthy, E. V. Gregory, F. H. Armstrong, Geo. M. Morrow, Thomas Seddon, E. W. Rucker, W. H. Graves, Gus Shillinger, M. T. Porter, Edwin C. Campbell, Eugene F. Enslen, R. L. Thornton, Charles Whelan, W. S. Brown, John M. Cartin, Wm. M. Bethea, I. R. Hochstadter, John W. Johnston, Wm. Vaughn, Jas. E. Webb, and Robert Warnock. George A. Custer Post, G. A. R., commanded by Ass't Adjt.-Gen. W. J. Pender, escorted the President on the march through the city. The following officers participated: W. H. Hunter, Department Commander; F. G. Sheppard, Past Department Commander; William Snyder, Commander; A. A. Tyler, Senior Vice-Commander; Henry Asa N. Ballard, Surgeon; Edward Birchenough, Assistant Quartermaster-General; A. W. Fulghum, Past Commander; and John Mackenzie, Officer of the Day.
Both the Governor and the Mayor delivered eloquent addresses of welcome, to which President Harrison responded as follows:
Governor Jones, Mr. Mayor, and Fellow-citizens—The noise of your industries will not stay itself, I fear, sufficiently to enable me to make myself heard by many in this immense throng that has gathered to welcome us. I judge from what we have seen as we neared your station that we have here at Birmingham the largest and most enthusiastic concourse of people that has met us since we left the national capital. [Great and prolonged cheering.] For all this I am deeply grateful. The rapidity with which we must pursue this journey will not allow us to look with any detail into the great enterprises which cluster about your city; but if we shall only have opportunity to see for a moment these friendly faces and listen to these friendly words, we shall carry away that which will be invaluable, and, I trust, by the friendly exchange of greetings, may leave something to you that is worth cherishing. [Great cheering.] I have read of the marvellous development which, in the last few years, has been stirring the solitude of these southern mountains, and I remember that not many years after the war, when I had resumed my law practice at Indianapolis, I was visited by a gentleman, known, I expect, to all of you, upon some professional business. He came to pursue a collection claim against a citizen of Indiana; but he seemed to be more interested in talking about Birmingham than anything else. [Laughter and cheers.] That man was Colonel Powell, one of the early promoters of your city. [Cheers.] I listened to his story of the marvellous wealth of iron and coal that was stored in this region; of their nearness to each other, and to the limestone necessary for smelting; to his calculations as to the cheapness with which iron could be produced here, and his glowing story of the great city that was to be reared, with a good deal of incredulity. I thought he was a visionary; but I have regretted ever since that I did not ask him to pay me my fee in town lots in Birmingham. [Laughter and cheers.]
My countrymen, we thought the war a great calamity, and so it was. The destruction of life and of property was sad beyond expression; and yet we can see now that God led us through that Red Sea to a development in material prosperity and to a fraternity that was not otherwise possible. [Cheers.] The industries that have called to your midst so many toiling men are always and everywhere the concomitants of freedom. Out of all this freedom from the incubus of slavery the South has found a new industrial birth. Once almost wholly agricultural, you are now not the less fruitful in crops, but you have added all this. [Cheers.] You have increased your production of cotton, and have added an increase in ten years of nearly 300 per cent. in the production of iron. You have produced three-fourths of the cotton crop of the world, and it has brought you since the war about $8,000,000,000 of money to enrich your people. But as yet you are spinning in the South only 8 per cent, of it. Why not, with the help we will give you in New England and the North, spin it all? [Cheers.] Why not establish here cotton mills that shall send, not the crude agricultural product to other markets, but the manufactured product? [Cheers.] Why not, while supplying 65,000,000 of people, reach out and take a part we have not had in the commerce of the world? [Cheers.] I believe we are to see now a renaissance in American prosperity and in the up-building again of our American merchant marine. [Cheers.] I believe that these Southern ports that so favorably look out with invitations to the States of Central and South America shall yet see our fleets carrying the American flag and the products of Alabama to the markets of South America. [Great cheering.]
In all this we are united; we may differ as to method, but if you will permit me I will give an illustration to show how we have been dealing with this shipping question. I can remember when no wholesale merchant ever sent a drummer into the field. He said to his customers, "Come to my store and buy;" but competition increased and the enterprising merchant started out men to seek customers; and so his fellow-merchant was put to the choice to put travelling men into the field or to go out of business. It seems to me, whatever we may think of the policy of aiding our steamship lines, that since every other great nation does it, we must do it or stay out of business, for we have pretty much gone out. [Cheers.] I am glad to reciprocate with the very fulness of my heart every fraternal expression that has fallen from the lips of these gentlemen who have addressed me in your behalf. [Cheers.] I have not been saved from mistakes; probably I shall not be. I am sure of but one thing—I can declare that I have simply at heart the glory of the American Nation and the good of all its people. [Great and prolonged cheering.] I thank these companies of the State militia, one of whom I recognize as having done me the honor to attend the inaugural ceremony, for their presence. They are deserving, sir [to the Governor], of your encouragement and that of the State of Alabama. They are the reserve army of the United States. It is our policy not to have a large regular army, but to have a trained militia that, in any exigency, will step to the defence of the country; and if that exigency shall ever arise—which God forbid—I know that you would respond as quickly and readily as any other State. [Cheers.] [The Governor: "You will find all Alabama at your back, sir!">[ [Continued cheering.]
I am glad to know that in addition to all this business you are doing you are also attending to education and to those things that conduce to social order. The American home is the one thing we cannot afford to lose out of the American life. [Cheers.] As long as we have pure homes and God-fearing, order-loving fathers and mothers to rear the children that are given to them, and to make these homes the abodes of order, cleanliness, piety, and intelligence, the American society and the American Union are safe [Great cheering.]
After the parade the President's party, the Governor and staff, and the citizens' Reception Committee sat down to luncheon. On the right of the President was Mrs. Jones, wife of the Governor; on his left, Mrs. Lane, wife of the Mayor. Mr. Rufus N. Rhodes proposed the health of the President of the United States, to which General Harrison responded briefly, saying:
We have seen something of the marvellous material growth of Birmingham, and seen evidence of the great richness of your "black diamonds" and your iron, and now we see something of your home life. The many beautiful women whom we have had the happiness to meet, and some of whom are now with us, are the angels of your homes, and right glad we are to be favored by their presence. After all, it is their homes which make a people great. We are glad to be here; for, really, you overwhelm us with kindness. [Long-continued applause.]