Notwithstanding the heavy downpour, 1,000 or more sturdy citizens of historic old Charlestown welcomed the President to New Hampshire. The Reception Committee consisted of Hon. George Olcott, George S. Bond, Frank Finnigan, Col. Samuel Webber, Herbert W. Bond, and Frank W. Hamlin. Lincoln Post, G. A. R., Lyman F. Partridge Commander, also participated in the reception. Colonel Webber delivered an eloquent address of welcome.
The President, responding, said:
Colonel Webber and Fellow-citizens—I think it might be said to-day that New Hampshire has "gone wet," as they say when the election returns come in on a vote against prohibition. I am very much obliged to you for this extraordinary manifestation of your interest, for to stand in this downpour of rain is certainly an evidence that you have a most friendly interest in this little party of tourists, who touch in a journey through Vermont the mainspring of the State of New Hampshire. I have been talking about Vermont for the last two or three days, but if you will take the pains, in the comfort of your own homesteads, to read all the good things I have said about Vermont, and then understand that they are all said of New Hampshire, it will abbreviate my speech and will be expressive of my opinion of that sturdy, enterprising, masterful New England character which you share with them. [Applause.]
[BELLOWS FALLS, VERMONT, AUGUST 27.]
When the train arrived at Bellows Falls, the rain was pouring in torrents and the President was conducted to the Opera House by the veterans of E. H. Stoughton Post, G. A. R. The Committee of Reception consisted of Hon. Wm. A. Russell, Hon. A. N. Swain, Judge L. M. Read, Barnes Cannon, Jr., Wyman Flint, John T. Moore, C. W. Osgood, Thomas E. O'Brien, George H. Babbitt, and Capt. Walter Taylor, the latter a veteran of eighty years, who marshalled the hosts for Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison in 1836 and '40. The building was packed.
Mr. Swain introduced President Harrison, who said:
My Fellow-citizens—I will wait a moment until they turn out the footlights. They put a barrier between us, and I always prefer to get my light from above. [Applause.] We can only tarry in this busy city a few moments. The inclement character of the day has driven us to shelter, and the finding of a shelter has consumed some small part of the allotment of time which our schedule gives to you. I greatly appreciate the value and importance of these manufacturing centres, which are now, fortunately for us, not characteristic of New England alone, but are found west of the Ohio and of the Mississippi and of the Missouri. I am one of those who believe that in a diversification of pursuits we make most rapid increase in wealth and attain best social relations and development. I am one of those who believe that Providence did not set apart the United States to be a purely agricultural region, furnishing its surplus to supply the lack of other people of the world while they do all the manufacturing for us. I think there are suggestions in our very geographical position, and a great many of them in our history and experience, that we may well desire and reach for that condition in which we shall raise our own food and in which a manufacturing class, withdrawn from agriculture and other pursuits, shall furnish the farmer a market for his surplus near to his fields and gardens, while he exchanges with the farmer the products of the shop and the loom.
I would not introduce politics. I do not intend to cross any lines of division, but I think we all agree, though we may differ as to the means by which it is to be done, that the nearer together the producer and the consumer can be brought the less waste there is in transportation and the greater the wealth. [Applause.] It is known to you all that our 65,000,000 people furnish per capita a larger market than any other like number of people. This grows out of the fact that our capacity for purchasing is larger than is found in those countries where poverty holds a larger sway. The workingman buys more, has more to buy with in America than in any other land in the world. [Applause.] I mentioned the other day at St. Albans that this was the era of the battle for a market. The whole world is engaged in it. The thought was suggested to me by a sentence in the address of President Bartlett at the observance of the centennial of the battle of Bennington in 1877. He says, "Trading Manchester furnished two regiments to Burgoyne to conquer a market." The foreign policy of the United States has never been selfish. There has always been, if you will trace it through the struggles of Greece and of our South American neighbors for independence and a free Government, a brave, generous tone of sympathy with struggling people the world round in our diplomatic policy. I think we may well challenge comparison with the foreign policy of any other great Government in the world in this regard. It has never been our policy to push our trade forward at the point of the bayonet. We have always believed that it should be urged upon the ground of mutual advantage; and upon this ground alone are we now endeavoring, by every means in our power, to open the markets of our sister republics in Central and South America to the products of American shops and farmers. [Applause.]
We do not covet their territory. The day of filibustering aggression has gone by in the United States. We covet their good will. We wish for them settled institutions of government, and we desire those exchanges that are mutually profitable. We have found that we were receiving from some of these countries enormous annual imports of sugar, coffee, and hides, and we have now placed these articles on the free list upon the condition that they give to the products of the United States fair reciprocity. [Applause.] If our own laws, or any aggressive movement we are making for a larger share in the commerce of the world, should excite the commercial jealousy and rivalry of other countries we shall not complain if those rivalries find only proper expressions. We have come to a time in our development as a Nation when I believe that interest on money is low enough for us to turn some of our accumulated capital from the railways into steam transportation on the sea; that the time has come when we shall recover a full participation in the carrying trade of the world, when under the American flag steamships shall carry our products to neighboring markets and bring back their exchange to our harbors. Larger foreign markets for the products of our farms and of our factories and a larger share in the carrying trade of the world, peaceful relations with all mankind, with naval and coast defences that will silently make an effective argument on the side of peace, are the policies that I would pursue. [Applause.]