My Friends—This is instructive and inspiring to us all as American citizens. It is my great pleasure to stand for a little while this morning in the political Capitol of this fresh and new State. I had great satisfaction in taking an official part in admitting Idaho to the Union of States. I believed that it was possessed of a population and resources and capable of a development that fairly entitled her to take her place among the States of the American Union. You are starting now upon a career of development which I hope and believe will be uninterrupted. Your great mineral resources, now being rapidly developed, have already brought you great wealth. Undoubtedly these are to continue to be a source of enrichment and prosperity to your State, but I do not forget that we must look at last for that paramount and enduring prosperity and increase which our States should have to a development of their agricultural resources. You will, of course, as you have done, carefully guard and secure your political institutions. You will organize them upon a basis of economy, and yet of liberal progress. You will take care that only so much revenue is taken from the people as is necessary to the proper public expenditure. [Applause.]
I am glad to see that this banner of liberty, this flag of our fathers, this flag that these—my comrades here present—defended with honor and brought home with victory from the bloody strife of the Civil War, is held in honor and estimation among you. [Great applause.] Every man should take off his hat when the starry flag moves by. It symbolizes a free republic; it symbolizes a Nation; not an aggregation of States, but one compact, solid Government in all its relations to the nations of the earth. [Applause.] Let us always hold it in honor. I am glad to see that it floats not only over your political Capitol, but over the school-houses of your State; the children should be taught in the primary schools to know its story and to love it. To these young children, entering by the beneficent and early provision of your State into the advantages of that great characteristic American institution—the common school—I give my greeting this morning. May every good attend them in life, and as the cares of life come on to take the place of the joys of childhood, God grant that, instructed in mind and heart in those things that are high and good, they may bear with honor the responsibility which you will soon lay down.
To these comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, survivors of the great war, upon whom the years are making their impression, I do not doubt that these who stand by me have borne an honorable part among your fellow-citizens in the development of the resources of this, their adopted State. Not long will we tarry; but, my comrades, the story of what you have done is undying, and I doubt not this morning that the satisfaction of having had some small part in redeeming this Nation and preserving its integrity will fill your hearts with gladness, even under adverse conditions of life. A grateful Nation honors you. Every community should give you its respect, and I can only add to-day a comrade's greeting and a hearty God bless you all! [Cheers.]
[POCATELLO, IDAHO, MAY 8.]
A great crowd, including several hundred Indians, greeted the President's arrival at Pocatello the night of the 8th. The Committee of Reception consisted of Frederick K. Walker, A. B. Bean, A. F. Caldwell, John S. Baker, O. L. Cleveland, R. J. Hayes, E. C. Hasey, George Dash, Frank Ramsey, J. J. Guheen, H. G. Guynn, and L. A. West. A large delegation from Blackfoot was represented on the committee by Hon. F. W. Beane, Col. J. W. Jones, and F. W. Vogler.
Chairman Savidge of the committee delivered the welcoming address and introduced the President, who said:
Fellow-citizens—In 1881, that sad summer when General Garfield lay so long in agony and the people suffered so long in painful suspense, I passed up the Utah and Northern Narrow Gauge Railroad through this place—if it was a place then—to Montana on a visit. The country through which we have passed is therefore not unfamiliar to me. I have known of its natural conditions, and I have seen its capabilities when brought under the stimulating influence of irrigation. I have had, during my term in the Senate, as Chairman of the Committee on Territories of that body, to give a good deal of attention to the condition and needs of our Territories. My sympathy and interest have always gone out to those who, leaving the settled and populous parts of our country, have pushed the frontiers of civilization farther and farther to the westward until they have met the Pacific Ocean and the setting sun. Pioneers have always been enterprising people. If they had not been they would have remained at home; they endured great hardships and perils in opening these great mines of minerals which show in your State, and in bringing into subjection these wild plains and making them blossom like gardens. To all such here I would do honor, and you should do honor, for they were heroes in the struggle for the subjugation of an untamed country to the uses of man. I am glad to see that you have here so many happy and prosperous people. I rejoice at the increase of your population, and am glad to notice that with this development in population and in material wealth you are giving attention to those social virtues—to education and those influences which sanctify the home, make social order secure, and honor and glorify the institutions of our common country. [Cheers.]
I am glad, not only for the sake of the white man, but of the red man, that these two extensive and useless reservations are being reduced by allotment to the Indians for farms, which they are expected to cultivate and thereby to earn their own living [cheers], that the unneeded lands shall furnish homes for those who need homes. [Cheers.]