And State Papers 85 



AT THE COLISEUM, HARTFORD, CONN., 

 AUGUST 22, 1902 



Mr. Chairman, and you, my fellow-Americans, men 



and women of Hartford: 



I thank you, Senator Platt; through you I thank 

 the State of Connecticut; Mayor Sullivan, through 

 you I thank the city of Hartford for the greeting 

 extended to me. 



Before beginning the speech that I had intended, 

 and still intend, to make to you to-night, I wish to 

 allude to an incident that happened this afternoon. 

 In being driven around your beautiful city, I was 

 taken through Pope Park, and stopped at a plat 

 form where I was presented with a great horseshoe 

 of flowers, the gift of the workingmen of Hartford 

 to the President of the United States. In Father 

 Sullivan's speech he laid primary stress upon the 

 fact that it was a gift of welcome from the wage- 

 workers, upon whom ultimately this government 

 depends. And he coupled the words of giving with 

 certain sentences in which he expressed his belief 

 that I would do all that I could to show myself a 

 good representative of the wage-workers. I should 

 be utterly unfit for the position that I occupy if I 

 failed to do all that in me lies to act, as light is 

 given me to act, so as to represent the best thought 

 and purpose of the wage-worker of the United 

 States. At the outset of the twentieth century we 

 are facing difficult and complex problems prob 

 lems social and economic which will tax the best 



