Decatur tendered the President an enthusiastic greeting. Ten thousand citizens and school children participated in the welcoming demonstrations. The Committee of Reception consisted of Mayor Chambers, Hon. S. S. Jack, Hon. W. C. Johns, Dr. John T. Hubbard, Dr. William A. Barnes, W. H. Bramble, Maj. F. L. Hays, M. F. Kanan, Mrs. W. B. Chambers, Mrs. J. M. Clokey, Mrs. W. F. Calhoun, and Miss Belle Burrows. Hon. J. H. Rowell, of Bloomington, was also a member of the committee.
In response to Mayor Chambers' welcoming address President Harrison said:
Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens—We have been now something more than four weeks traversing this broad and beautiful domain which, without regard to State lines, we call our country. We have passed with such rapidity that our intercourse with the people has necessarily been brief and attended by many inconveniences to them. Everything that kind hearts could do to make the trip pleasant to us has been done, and yet I have always felt that our hasty call at these prosperous cities where so much pains have been taken in decoration to do honor to us gives us opportunity to make very inadequate returns to them. We have been shooting like a meteor as to rapidity, but without its luminosity. [Laughter.] It is very pleasant after seeing California, Arizona, Idaho, and Colorado, States in which the annual rainfall is inadequate to the annual crops, and where the dependence of the husbandman is wholly upon irrigation, to come again in these Central States, familiar to me from my boyhood, to see crops that the Lord waters in every season. The land of the blue grass is the land of my love. Nowhere can there be seen fairer landscapes, nowhere richer farms, than here in your own great State of Illinois, a State whose history has been full of illustrious achievements, rich in possibilities, where lived our illustrious sons; a State whose population is intelligent, contented, orderly, and liberty-loving; a State whose development has not yet begun to approach its possible limits; a State having advantages by the location, swept as it is by two of the great waterways of the continent, advantages of access and markets by lake and rail and river unexcelled by any State in the Union; a State that has not forgotten that the permanence of our free institutions depends upon the intelligence of the people, and has carefully, at the very beginning, laid a foundation for a common-school system in which every man's child may have a free education. [Cheers.] These are not simply schools of intelligence, but, as I have said before, they are schools of statesmanship. They tend as much as any other public institution to make our people a Nation of loving people. Here on these benches and on this playground the people of rich and poor mingle together, and the pampered son gets his airs rubbed off with the vigor of his playmates. ["That's so!" and cheers.] Our Government does not undertake to regulate many of the affairs of civil life. The bright blue sky of hope is above every boy's head, affording great opportunities for advancement, and then our people are left to themselves. Certain great duties are devolved upon the Government—to provide revenue and finance and in every branch of public interest to legislate in the general interests of all the people. I thank you most heartily for this great demonstration. We leave you with our thanks, our best wishes for your State, your city, and especially for these dear little ones from your schools who come to greet us. [Applause.]
[TUSCOLA, ILLINOIS, MAY 14.]
At Tuscola another large assemblage greeted the travellers most enthusiastically. The Committee of Reception consisted of Mayor Patrick C. Sloan, A. W. Wallace, J. J. Knox, Frank Pearce, Dr. S. V. Ramsey, O. H. Sloan, Hans Heurichs, A. C. Sluss, J. W. King, P. M. Moore, D. A. Conover, and Col. W. Taggart.
In response to a hasty but cordial welcome from Mayor Sloan the President said:
My Fellow-citizens—It is very kind of you to assemble here in such large numbers to extend to us a greeting as we hurry through your beautiful State. We can tarry with you but for a moment, for we are in true sense pilgrims. It is pleasant to look in your faces and to read there the same kindly thoughts and the same friendliness that seems to have covered this whole land as we have journeyed through it. I do not like to say anything anywhere that makes a line of division; for I know that these assemblages are without regard to politics, and that men of all parties have extended to us a cordial greeting. The flag, the institutions, and the general good of our people are themes which we appreciate, are themes which we honor, though we may approach them on different lines. I am glad to notice as I journey through your State the evidences of a coming harvest that I hope will be bountiful. Wishing for you every good, I bid you good-by. [Cheers.]