The Commissioners, Governor Dix, Count de Peretti de la Rocca, and other guests left the Hotel Champlain in automobiles at 10 o’clock, under the escort of the Reception Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Plattsburgh, headed by Mayor Andrew G. Senecal. They were driven to the Catholic Summer School at Cliff Haven, where they were formally received by Rev. Father D. J. Hickey, President of the Summer School, who delivered the following address:
Your Excellency: In the name of the trustees and patrons of the Catholic Summer School of America I welcome you to Cliff Haven. Through eighteen years of the twenty-one years of existence of this school we have been honored and inspired by the visits of all the Presidents of the country from the lamented President McKinley to the present President Taft. Through these years we have been also visited by every Governor of the Empire State, and it has been our happy privilege to extend to them the best reception possible. While we welcomed the Chief Executives of our country with joy, it has always been our supreme pleasure to welcome the Governors of our own state, as our school is under the charge of the State Board of Regents over which you preside. We have found in their visits an inspiration and encouragement in our educational work.
Your Excellency, I regret that your visit could not have been later. This is the first week of our summer session, and instead of hundreds, thousands would have joined in this reception. The scope of our work is high and broad. We have the best lecturers we can secure to bring before us in a learned and sound manner all that we should know in the domain of History, Literature, Art, Science, Political Economy and the leading social questions. Last year 3,500 visited the school during its session. Thirty-seven states were represented among its guests; so you see, the school and its work are well known and appreciated throughout our land. We combine here at Cliff Haven, the intellectual and the social in a high degree, and the intellectual and social are both protected and permeated by a religious spirit unobtrusive but all-pervading.
Whatever promotes the well-being and uplift of the citizens of this country, and especially of this great Empire State over which you preside; whatever goes to make an enlightened and safe people; whatever promotes, protects and preserves the sound principles of the founders of our great Republic, must be dear to your Excellency and deserve your inspiration. This we all feel to-day in your presence here, in spite of your many laborious and pressing duties. While I invited you, I feel that your presence to-day is due to the persuasive eloquence of one of our trustees, Judge John B. Riley, who is also a member of the Champlain Tercentenary Commission.
In the name of the trustees and patrons of the Catholic Summer School of America I again welcome you to Cliff Haven. (Applause.)
Appropriate response was made thereto by his Excellency, Gov. John A. Dix.
The party was then driven to the Plattsburgh Barracks, where the Fifth Infantry, U. S. A., on dress parade, under command of Col. Calvin D. Cowles, was reviewed, and the cannon thundered forth salutes in honor of the Governor and of Count de Peretti de la Rocca, of the French Embassy at Washington. It was an imposing sight and a reminder of the brilliant review of the same and other regiments and the Canadian troops, on the same parade grounds, by President William H. Taft, Ambassador Jusserand, Ambassador Bryce and Governors Hughes and Prouty, July 7, 1909.
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