Chapter XXV

Return Home.--Ovations on the Way.--Address at Hiram
Institute.--Impromptu Speech at Washington.--Incident of the
Eagle.--The Tract Distributor.

The next morning, Garfield left Chicago for his home in Mentor. The journey thither was one continual scene of ovations. An immense throng followed him from the hotel to the station, and a large committee from Cleveland met the train at Elyria.

As the car containing Garfield and Governor Foster of Ohio, entered the depot at Cleveland, a salute of a thousand guns was fired. A procession of the militia and the Garfield clubs accompanied them to the Kennard House, and among the transparencies borne by the crowd was one with the happy inscription:--

"Ohio's senator, Ohio's Major-General, Ohio's President. The
true favorite son of Ohio is the favorite son of the Union.
He who at the age of sixteen steered a canal-boat will steer
the ship of state at fifty."

Garfield had promised to deliver an address at the commencement exercises of Hiram College.

The morning after his arrival in Cleveland, therefore, he left as quietly as possible for the little town, where thirty years before he had held the humble position of college janitor.

"I have sought but one office in my life," he said one day to a friend, "and that was the office of janitor at Hiram Institute."

As he approached the college grounds the students came out in a body to greet him. It was a touching scene, and his beautiful address to them is given in full, in the latter part of the volume.[B] With all his honors he never forgot this place so "full of memories."

After a short stay at Hiram, he went on to his home in Mentor, to take a few days' rest before returning to Washington.

His address to the enthusiastic crowds that gathered around him when he reached the Capitol, is so full of his peculiar magnetic power that we give it entire:--

"FELLOW-CITIZENS:--While I have looked upon this great
array, I believe I have gotten a new idea of the majesty of
the American people.

"When I reflect that whenever you find sovereign power,
every reverent heart on this earth bows before it, and when
I remember that here for a hundred years we have denied the
sovereignty of any man, and in place of it we have asserted
the sovereignty of all in place of one, I see before me so
vast a concourse it is easy for me to imagine that were the
rest of the American people gathered here to-night, every
man would stand uncovered, all in unsandalled feet in
presence of the majesty of the only sovereign power in this
Government under Almighty God.

"And therefore to this great audience I pay the respectful
homage that in part belongs to the sovereignty of the
people. I thank you for this great and glorious
demonstration. I am not, for one moment, misled into
believing that it refers to so poor a thing as any one of
our number. I know it means your reverence for your
Government, your reverence for its laws, your reverence for
its institutions, and your compliment to one who is placed
for a moment in relations to you of peculiar importance. For
all these reasons I thank you.

"I cannot at this time utter a word on the subject of
general politics. I would not mar the cordiality of this
welcome, to which to some extent all are gathered, by any
reference except to the present moment and its significance;
but I wish to say that a large portion of this assemblage
to-night are my comrades, late of the war for the Union. For
them I can speak with entire propriety, and can say that
these very streets heard the measured tread of your
disciplined feet, years ago, when the imperilled Republic
needed your hands and your hearts to save it, and you came
back with your numbers decimated; but those you left behind
were immortal and glorified heroes forever; and those you
brought back came, carrying under tattered banners and in
bronzed hands the ark of the covenant of your Republic in
safety out of the bloody baptism of the war, and you brought
it in safety to be saved forever by your valor and the
wisdom of your brethren who were at home, and by this you
were again added to the great civil army of the Republic.

"I greet you, comrades and fellow-soldiers, and the great
body of distinguished citizens who are gathered here
to-night, who are the strong stay and support of the
business, of the prosperity, of the peace, of the civic
ardor and glory of the Republic, and I thank you for your
welcome to-night.

"It was said in a welcome to one who came to England to be a
part of her glory--and all the nation spoke when it was said,--

"'Normans and Saxons and Danes are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee.'

"And we say to-night of all nations, of all the people,
soldiers, and civilians, there is one name that welds us all
into one. It is the name of American citizen, under the
union and under the glory of the flag that led us to
victory and peace. For this magnificent welcome I thank you
with all my heart."

A singular incident occurred in Washington, upon the day of Garfield's nomination at Chicago. Almost at the very moment the ballot was cast, a large bald eagle circled around the Park, and finally swooped down and rested upon the little house on the corner of I and Thirteenth Streets.

It was seen by Mr. George W. Rose, Garfield's private stenographer, who occupied the house during his absence, and he says that "before the eagle rose from its strange perch a dozen people had noticed and commented upon it."

Another curious coincident is worthy of notice. On that memorable Tuesday morning as Garfield entered the Exposition building, where the convention was assembled, a slip of paper was thrust into his hand by a tract distributor.

He put it mechanically into his pocket without reading, and was not a little astonished that evening when it dropped out and he found upon it these words:--

"This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner; neither is there salvation in any other."

FOOTNOTES:

[B] See page 478.