No. 4.] ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 19 



touching your life that touches every branch of life, and it 

 is not to be attributed at all to the decadence of the farming 

 occu})ation. It has touched the shoe shop ; it has touched 

 the factory. There has been a great inclination on the part 

 of the people, undoubtedly growing out of circumstances 

 over which they have no control, to go to the cities and to 

 the large villages, where they can have employment and 

 certain things in life that they are unable to get in the more 

 rural districts. It has touched every business, every branch 

 of life, so that it is not alone the abandoned farm in New 

 England, — it is the abandoned factory and the shop. The 

 tide has flowed toward the centres of population ; but the 

 time will come when it will flow back, when the advantages 

 of these places in the country towns will so over-balance 

 the advantages in the more concentrated form of living that 

 the tide will flow back again, and the factories will be occu- 

 pied and the farms will be used. 



You have met here in the centre of the county, in the 

 place where almost all bodies as they are organized for their 

 various purposes meet. You have a right to meet here. It 

 is appropriate that you should come to this centre of popu- 

 lation and the centre of the great industries of the county, 

 because, however much we may pride ourselves on the great 

 prosperity of Worcester and the phenomenal growth of 

 Worcester, at the same time we recognize the fact that 

 Worcester has drawn largely for her prosperity and her 

 success from those towns that circle round about in the 

 good old county of Worcester, and we shall never forget 

 how much our farms have done for the city ; we shall not 

 forget that outside of the circle of very successful farmers 

 in our city, making it prominent in its production of agri- 

 cultural merchandise, — that outside of that in the towns 

 throughout the whole county there is pouring into Worcester 

 every year that vigorous manhood and womanhood which is 

 founded and established l)y a sinewy life upon these farms 

 in the hilltops and the valleys of good old Worcester 

 County. 



We bid you welcome to this prosperous and beautiful 

 city, which is our pride and your pride ; the centre of a 

 virtuous and industrious people, the character of whom is 



