OHIO DAY

October 7, 1898.

The Governor of Ohio with his staff and numerous representative citizens from
the Buckeye State were met at the Paxton Hotel by the secretary of the Ohio
State Commission, President Wattles and members of the Bureau of Entertainment,
and conveyed in carriages to the Exposition Grounds.  The line of carriages was
preceded by the Toledo Marine Band.  The exercises at the Auditorium took place
at 11 o'clock A.M. and consisted of the following program:

Music     .    .    .    Toledo Marine Band
Address of Welcome  .    .    Gov. Silas A. Holcomb
Response  .    .    .    .    Gov. Asa S. Bushnell
Music     .    .    .    Toledo Marine Band
Address   .    .    .    .    Hon. John L. Webster
Address   .    .    .    .    Co. James Kilbourne
Address   .    .    .    .    Mayor Jones of Toledo

Governor Bushnell spoke as follows:  Your Excellency,- Ladies and Gentlemen: 
It affords me heartfelt gratification to respond on behalf of the State of
Ohio, to the generous words of welcome that have been uttered by the
representative of this great State and great undertaking and charming city, to
those who have come to witness and participate in the honors to be paid the
State and the people, of whom we are so proud.

It seems to me, your Excellency, that you have gathered welcomes from the
hearts of all your people and have tossed them from your lips over this
beautiful audience and I can assure you they will abide with us as sweet
for-get-me-nots of the occasion and of our visit here, and your words of
welcome will be sweet memories to us as they come floating down into our hearts
with thoughts of love, of home and country.

Ohio rejoices in this exploitation of the marvelous development of the
Trans-Mississippi States.  Ohio applauds the energy and enterprise, the ability
and zeal, the courage and consummate skill which has given to our Nation and to
the world this splendid manifestation of the triumphs of civilization during
hardly half century of progress.  Ohio recognizes the distinction given when
the Trans-Mississippi States in their great Exposition program set apart this
sister State to pay their tribute of respect and their homage for a deed well
done.  No praise or homage can be more sincere than ours; we realize the
significance and the intent of this vast and magnificent demonstration in glory
of this rich domain and its people; we are mindful of the righteous claim you
have to the approbation of all who love advancement in the affairs of men.

The great west and Ohio are indeed bound by a fraternal chain; a common
ancestry unites many of our respective people, and the States have progressed
along the same lines.  The enormous expanse west of the Mississippi teems with
Ohioans, or the sons and daughters of Ohioans.  No arm has been more potent in
the redemption of that which was a vast wilderness, than that of Ohio.  Her
colonists have only stopped at the Pacific, and I am now told that much Ohio
enterprise is manifest in Japan and the far east.  I know that you will not
resent this claim of ours to some of the credit that is due for the
achievements now before the eyes of all men.  The first settlers of our State,
whether from old Connecticut, or old Virginia, were conscientious people;
people who brought with them not only industry and perseverance, but also those
religious principles which go so far to stamp the history of a State.

"Fresh from the Revolution's fire,
They came to hew the empire's way,
Through trackless wastes, and to inspire
The sunlight of young freedom's day."

They founded a peerless State, and not content with such an achievement as
Ohio, some of these pioneers and their children straightway kept up the noble
work and carved four more great States out of the northwest territory.  The
example thus set by Ohio's pioneers has, I verily believe, been imitated
persistently down to this day.  Her children are to be found everywhere in this
matchless agricultural area.  They are of sturdy stock and I know I voice the
sentiments of all when I say that their adopted States have profited by their
coming and by their staying.  There is an Ohio colony in this State and an Ohio
Society of this city.  Like its distinguished sister organization of the city
of New York, it is composed of strong men--those who have made their mark in
the business and professional world and who enjoy the esteem and confidence of
their fellow-men.  It is, I assure you, a great pleasure to all of us who come
from the land of their birth to know that these former Ohioans have had an
active part not only in this work, but in much that has preceded it.

I beg of you to believe that this laudation of Ohio and Ohioans is only
inspired by my desire to obtain some credit for agency in this grand work by
which you put before all the world a plain and truthful, yet glorious, exhibit
of the wonderful fertility of your land, the strength of your industries, and
the ability of your people.  Surely in such a cause one can lay stress upon any
fact or theory which will enable the claim that some of the virtue is owing to
your kindred.

Speaking for myself, and yet as I well know, showing the innermost thought of
many of the Ohioans who are here with us today, I must say that I cannot
express the wonder of my mind when dwelling upon the history of this Indian
country of old and its present day development.  In approaching such a subject
one must, in a measure, feel some awe.  It is more like the work of an Aladdin,
or a magician, who, with his wand transforms the crude into the finished
product, or from the rough material makes a splendid creation.  When Ohio, in
the dignity of a youthful State, was pluming herself upon her Constitution,
upon her representatives in Congress, and upon her Government, the great region
of which in this year Omaha is now the central point, was a portion of the
District of Louisiana.  When much of the history of our State had been written
this was known as the Indian country; when Ohio was plunged into the
dissensions that sometimes come with a supposed advanced state of civilization,
these were but territories.  It is hard to realize, and yet we all know that it
is true.

Not long ago, in a convenient little book which seems to have been written for
the especial benefit of Governors of States, I came across some paragraphs
expressing opinions of those who cannot be called people of very remote age and
relating to this very district.  I cannot forbear to quote a few of these, as
they seem to furnish the best means of introducing the standard by which the
Trans-Mississippi States are to be judged today.  That is, they show how little
man knows of the future and how vain are his theories when dealing with mighty
nature.  Let me quote now:

"In his Universal Geography, Jedediah Morse remarked that 'It has been supposed
that all settlers who go beyond the Mississippi River will be forever lost to
the United States.'  Lieutenant Pike reported to the War Department, that 'From
these immense prairies may be derived one great advantage to the United States;
namely, the restriction of our population to some certain limits, and thereby a
continuation of the Union.  They will be constrained to limit their extent to
the West, to the borders of the Missouri and Mississippi, while they leave the
prairies, incapable of cultivation, to the wandering and uncivilized aborigines
of the country.'  Major Long reported that this region bore 'a manifest
resemblance to the deserts of Siberia.'  The Edinburgh Review said:  'There
lies the desert, except in a few spots on the borders of the rivers, incapable,
probably forever, of fixed settlements.'  The North American Review (in 1858)
said:  'The people of the United States have reached their inland western
frontier, and the banks of the Missouri River are the shores at the termination
of a vast ocean desert over 1,000 miles in breadth, which it is proposed to
travel, if at all, with caravans of camels, and which interpose a final barrier
to the establishment of large communities, agricultural, commercial, or even
pastoral.'"

And I can add to these remarks the suggestion which I think will be borne out
by the Congressional Record, that it was the great and wise and eloquent Daniel
Webster, who, in a speech opposing the institution of the wagon road across the
plains, said that no good would ever come out of the region; that it was
incapable of civilization, or cultivation.  These I know are not the precise
words, but I believe the effect has been rendered faithfully.

You all know, in a general way, what a startling transformation has ensued in
the Trans-Mississippi country, for I do not limit the impractical line of old
to the Missouri River.  It was all the same to these deluded men, who saw
nothing in the rich prairie country.  At the risk of repeating facts and
figures, which may be well understood by the citizens of this region, and which
may, therefore, be trite observation, I wish to put before your minds some
statements which will give a truer conception of the immensity of the change. 
I will leave unspoken all reference to your manufacturing, to your commerce,
and to trade in general, and will deal only with that portion of the general
subject which concerns the true foundation stone of our national prosperity --
I mean AGRICULTURE.  And even in agriculture I must limit the scope, for in
this country it becomes too broad for ordinary discussion.  I find, according
to the Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture, that in 1896 the
states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and North
Dakota--which we commonly call the Trans-Mississippi States, when considering
them in an agricultural sense,-- had an acreage of corn, wheat and oats under
cultivation which was very nearly 38 per cent of the whole acreage of the
United States devoted to such purposes.  Furthermore, I find that upon this
acreage in the Trans-Mississippi States I have named, there was produced a
combined crop, which was over 40  per cent of the whole of such production in
the Union.  And again, as I have figured it, I discovered that this crop
represented very nearly 30  per cent of the total value of such production in
the Union.  The figures run into stupendous amounts and are almost beyond
comprehension.  The wealth of Golconda could hardly have been considered in
connection with such financial results as these broad prairies produced.  What
feeble efforts are those of the mining regions of the world, when one considers
them in comparison with the wealth of the cereals of these states.  Again, the
thought comes, how little do we know the possibilities of the soil, or the
resources of man.  To the north of us a thousand miles from here lies the
territory of our neighbor, the Dominion of Canada.  But a few years ago it was
supposed that the vast expanse north of the divisional line was practically
unfit for serious effort in the way of agriculture.  And yet the work is going
bravely on with great returns.  It is now very nearly to the Athabasca River,
and who knows how much farther north it may go in the future.  Even climatic
conditions may not be able to stop the march of progress and of civilization. 
We must not forget that the men who pronounced this region as valueless to the
white man looked only through the spectacles of the period.

I cannot express the degree of praise I feel for those who have accomplished
the mighty and marvelous task of making this region one of the garden spots of
the world.  Even if nature was kindly in her response to the zeal and every of
the husbandman, there were yet tremendous difficulties to be overcome.  The
comfort and the luxury that now surrounds many of your citizens are only
indicative of bounteous nature and hard work.  There are many still who are in
the throes of the beginning, but I have every confidence that the result will
be the same in all cases where equal conscientious endeavor marks the effort. 
This Exposition speaks well for every industry of your region; it typifies, as
no other monument or enterprise reared by human hands could, the virtues of
your aims and purposes, and the success which has crowned your efforts.  It is
wonderful to see, and yet it teaches a lesson plain to all men.  It is the
result of the American character and, therefore, we all can share in the just
pride.

My countrymen, can any of us, thinking not in a vain-glorious, but in a truly
appreciative and patriotic way, form any proper conception of the strength and
power, the ability and the resourcefulness, of our great nation?  Students of
all records of man have acknowledged that the American result--the direct
product of the Anglo-Saxon race--has no parallel and we have become accustomed
to the praise and wonder and perhaps the envy of the older nations as such have
been expressed from time to time.  Would that we ourselves could be able to
reach some just estimate.  Not that it might be used in self laudation, which
is ever unbecoming, but that all should know how great our gratitude to God
should be and how much we should value the work of our fellow-men in this
blessed land.  The history of America is replete with the stories which tell
the triumphs of our people over obstacles.  had any other illustration or
incident been needed it was supplied this year when the Nation, busy as it was
with its own affairs and vast interests, espoused a good cause and astonished
the world by an exhibition of quick transformation from a state of peace to
that of war.  The result, as is usual with us, has been significant and
valuable.  Another side of the all-conquering American nature has been shown,
and again the world is wondering and waiting for the next development.  It has
seemed strange to those abroad that with such momentous matters in hand, the
nation should be able to continue business without serious interruption or
effort and that, among other evidences of unconcern, the people could take an
active part in such an affair as this, which is always supposed to be an
incident of peace. We can be proud of our country, but my fellow-citizens, even
we cannot understand her.  As well might the average man attempt to estimate
the force and power of a cataract as to reach a true realization of the
colossal resources and the marvelous conditions of our republic.  This creation
before us is but one exhibit--one demonstration of the power that lies behind. 
It is a striking example and a finished product, but even its human authors,
despite their hard labor, will admit that it but represents one of the fingers
of the deft and mighty hands of a nation, which under the guidance of a Divine
Providence seems destined to act for the good and the teaching of the world in
the future as it has done in the past.

The view we have had, and will have, today, of the achievements exhibited by
this great Exposition cannot but move us to the spirit of emulation.  Not in a
boasting spirit, nor that of rivalry, but in that of fraternity, let me say
that Ohio can and must do as well at a later date.  Ohio, when her century of
time shall have come, must send her greeting and her bidding to this
progressive people that they may journey eastward, even as we have come
westward, to worship at another shrine of progress and development.  Five years
hence Ohio will have her Centennial, at the beautiful city of Toledo, the
metropolis of our state's northwest, whose face is bathed by the waters of the
River Maumee, and her feet by the restless waves of Lake Erie-- ever coming and
going--.  A multitude of her enterprising citizens from all walks of life are
now here to second the invitation I extend you and to anticipate the assurance
of the welcome to you all by some future Governor of the State.  Come to us
then as we have come to you today, with hearts swelling with pride and joy that
such a spectacle and an occasion as this can be, with generous thoughts and
words of kindness and good will, with willing eyes to see the triumphs you have
achieved and with ready hands to help lead the way to still higher paths of
honor for all our people.

In closing let me say that Ohio has exulted in this opportunity to do even a
small part toward making this undertaking the glowing success it has proven to
be.  It is our hope that the bond between the States may grow stronger year by
year by reason of this closer communion.  Cordially and heartily we accept and
treasure the assurances of amity that have been spoken.  As earnestly and
sincerely do we repeat the pledges for our part.  I congratulate you all upon
the result of your labors and wish you unbounded success and the utmost
realization of your hopes in every way.

May your States, strong as they are in the elements that go so far to place
commonwealths in the front in the never-ending race for renown and reward, gain
still greater fame.  May they is the years to come feel that there has been the
same steady advance and the same virility and power which made possible the
remarkable results which are chrystalized in the Exposition that lies before us
today.
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