On arriving in the city the President was welcomed by the other members of the Reception Committee, headed by Mayor Roger L. Fulton, the Board of Aldermen, and the following prominent citizens: Leon Blum, R. S. Willis, J. C. League, H. A. Landes, J. E. Wallis, Col. J. S. Rogers, P. J. Willis, Robert Bornefeld, C. C. Sweeney, M. F. Mott, Albert Weis, M. Lasker, J. Z. Miller, Fen Cannon, Col. John D. Rogers, J. N. Sawyer, W. H. Sinclair, Joseph Cuney, Geo. Seeligson, Julius Weber, J. D. Skinner, Thos. H. Sweeney, James Montgomery, F. L. Dana, James Moore, W. F. Beers, J. H. Hutchings, Wm. H. Masters, M. W. Shaw, W. B. Denson, H. B. Cullum, C. H. Rickert, W. B. Lockhart, U. Muller, F. Lammers, H. F. Sproule, Judge C. L. Cleveland, Judge Wm. H. Stewart, R. T. Wheeler, N. W. Cuney, Thomas W. Cain, Samuel Penland, R. G. Street, J. Lobit, D. M. Erlich, C. M. Trueheart, L. Fellman, C. R. Reifel, Charles Vidor, George Butler, W. Vowrinckle, Joe Owens, C. E. Angel, Rev. S. M. Bird, Dr. A. W. Fly, Dr. J. T. Y. Paine, Dr. H. P. Cooke, J. R. Gibson, Howard Carnes, Charles Maddox, Bishop Gallagher, Rev. A. T. Spaulding, A. B. Tuller, Dr. J. D. Daviss, Rev. J. E. Edwards, A. B. Homer, Rev. Joseph B. Sears, J. Singer, R. C. Johnson, J. W. Riddell, B. Tiernan, T. A. Gary, John Focke, Joseph Scott, W. E. McDonald, Geo. Schneider, F. O. Becker, Thomas Goggan, J. D. Sherwood, O. H. Cooper, E. O'C. MacInerney, Thos. S. King, Robert Day, Daniel Buckley, J. J. Hanna, F. W. Fickett, Wm. Selkirk, and J. A. Robertson.
Immediately following their arrival the presidential party, escorted by Hon. Wm. H. Crain, Mr. Leon Blum, and other members of the Reception Committee, enjoyed a trip about the harbor aboard one of the Mallory line steamships, enabling them to view the extensive Government works for deepening the channel at the entrance to the harbor. This excursion was followed by a ride across the island amid a shower of flowers.
The parade was participated in by all the military and industrial organizations of the city; also by the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and other orders, and was a most imposing demonstration. The G. A. R. veterans acted as a guard of honor to the President on the march, and the day was just closing when the column arrived at the Beach Hotel, on the very shore of the Gulf of Mexico, where the formal address of welcome was ably delivered by Gen. T. N. Waul.
President Harrison's response was the longest speech of his trip, and attracted wide-spread and favorable comment. He said:
My Fellow-citizens—We close to-night a whole week of travel, a whole week of hand-shaking, a whole week of talking. I have before me 10,000 miles of hand-shaking and speaking, and I am not, by reason of what this week has brought me, in voice to contend with the fine but rather strong Gulf breeze which pours in upon us to-night; and yet it comes to me laden with the fragrance of your welcome. [Cheers.] It comes with the softness, refreshment, and grace which have accompanied all my intercourse with the people of Texas. [Great cheering.]
The magnificent and cordial demonstration which you have made in our honor to-day will always remain a bright and pleasant picture in my memory. [Great cheers.] I am glad to have been able to rest my eyes upon the city of Galveston. I am glad to have been able to traverse this harbor and to look upon that work which a liberal and united Government has inaugurated for your benefit and for the benefit of the Northwest. [Great and prolonged cheers.] I have always believed that it was one of the undisputed functions of the general Government to make these great waterways which penetrate our country and these harbors into which our shipping must come to receive the tribute of rail and river safe and easy of access.
This ministering care should extend to our whole country, and I am glad that, adopting a policy with reference to the harbor work, here at least, which I insisted upon in a public message [great and prolonged cheering], the appropriation has been made adequate to a diligent and prompt completion of the work. [Great cheering.] In the past the Government has undertaken too many things at once, and its annual appropriations have been so inadequate that the work of the engineers was much retarded and often seriously damaged in the interval of waiting for fresh appropriations.
It is a better policy, when a work has once been determined to be of national significance, that the appropriation should be sufficient to bring it speedily and without loss to a conclusion. [Great cheering.] I am glad that the scheme of the engineer for giving deep water to Galveston is thus to be prosecuted.
I have said some of our South Atlantic and Gulf ports occupy a most favorable position for the new commerce toward which we are reaching out our hands, and which is reaching out its hands to us. [Great cheering.] I am an economist in the sense that I would not waste one dollar of public money, but I am not an economist in the sense that I would leave incomplete or suffer to lag any great work highly promotive of the true interests of our people. [Great cheering.]