Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States

by Benjamin Harrison

When the demonstration subsided President Harrison responded as follows:

Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens—I can accept without question and with very deep gratitude these cordial words of welcome which you have spoken on behalf of the people of this great city. Twice before it has been my pleasure to spend a brief time in this great commercial metropolis of the great Valley of the Missouri. I have had opportunity, therefore, to witness the rapid development which your city has made. I recollect it as I saw it in 1881, and as I see it to-day I feel that I need to be told where I am. [Applause and cheers.]

These magnificent structures dedicated to commerce, these magnificent churches lifting their spires toward the heavens, these many school-houses consecrated to the training of those who shall presently stand in our places to be responsible for these our public institutions, these great stock-yards, where the meat product of the great meat-producing States of the Missouri Valley is prepared for market, and, above all and crowning all, these thousands of happy, comfortable homes which characterize and constitute your great city are a marvel and tribute to the enterprise and power of development of the American people, unsurpassed, I think, by any city in the United States. [Cheers.]

As I turn my face now toward Washington, as I hasten on to take up public duties partially laid aside during this journey, I rejoice to receive here in Omaha that same kindly greeting with which we were welcomed as we journeyed from Washington through the South to the Pacific. If anything were needed to call for a perfect surrender of all personal thought in an absolute consecration of public duty to the general good of all our people, I have found it in these magnificent demonstrations. [Cheers.] We shall always have parties—it is characteristic of free people—we need to have party divisions, debate, and political contention; but it is pleasant to observe in all this journey we have taken how large a stock of common patriotism we find in all the people. [Cheers.]

You have here in Nebraska a State of magnificent capabilities. I have seen the orange grove, and all those fruits which enrich and characterize the State of California. I have seen Leadville, the summit city, these mining camps upon the peaks where men are delving into the earth to bring out the riches stored there, but I return again to the land of the cornstalk with an affection that I cannot describe. [Cheers.]

I am sure these friends who have delighted us with the visions of loveliness and prosperity will excuse me if my birth and early training in Ohio and Indiana leads me to the conclusion that the States that raise corn are the greatest States in the world. [Cheers.]

We have a surplus production in these great valleys for which we must seek foreign markets. It is pleasant to know that 90 per cent. or more of our agricultural productions are consumed by our own people. I do not know how soon it may be that we shall cease to be dependent upon any foreign market for our farm products. With the rapid development which is being made in manufacturing pursuits, with the limitation which the rapid occupation of our public domain now brings to our minds as to the increase of agriculture, it cannot be a very distant day when the farmer shall realize the ideal condition and find a market out of his own farm wagon for what he produces.

It has been a source of constant thought and zealous effort on the part of the Administration at Washington to secure larger foreign markets for our farm products. I rejoice that in the last two years some of those obstructions which hindered the free access of our meat products to American markets have been removed. I rejoice to know that we have now freer, larger access for our meats to the markets of England and of Europe than we have had in many years. [Applause.] I rejoice to know that this has brought better prices to the stock-raisers of these great western valleys. I believe, under the provision looking to reciprocal trade in the law of the last Congress, that we shall open yet larger and nearer markets for the products of Nebraska farmers. [Cheers.] So distant as you are from the Atlantic seaboard, it may have seemed to you that your interest in the revival of our trade, in the re-establishment of an American merchant marine, was not perceptible or direct.

Not long since an inquiry was made as to the origin of the freight that was carried by one of the Brazilian steamers from the port of New York, and it was found that twenty-five States had made contribution to that cargo, and among those States was the State of Nebraska. [Cheers.] And so by such methods as we can it is our purpose to enlarge our foreign markets for the surplus productions of our great country. And we hope—and we think this hope fills the great West as well as the East—that when this increased traffic and commerce is found upon the sea it shall be carried in American bottoms. [Cheers.]

A few days ago, sailing in the harbor of San Francisco, I saw three great deep-water ships enter the Golden Gate. One carried the flag of Hawaii and two the British flag, and at Portland they took the pains to tow up from the lower harbor and to deck in bunting an American ship that was lying in the harbor. It was a curious sight—one they thought important to exhibit to strangers visiting that city. Why, my countrymen, I hope the day is not far distant when the sight of great American ships flying the Stars and Stripes at the fore will be familiar not only in our own ports, but in every busy mart of commerce the world around. [Cheers.]