48 New Yoek at the World's Columbian Exposition. 



our hospitality to the exile from foreign lands, and the absorbing and 

 assimilating power of our institutions. The Jew and the Gentile, the 

 Catholic and the Protestant of every shade of creed, the atheist and the 

 infidel, the agnostic and the pagan, receiving a free education from the 

 State, marching under the same flag, keeping step to the same music, 

 the flag of the republic and the music of the Union, exhibited the bene- 

 ficial influenoei of American liberty. They were prophetic of the per- 

 petuity of institutions foanded upon just and equal laws. They revealed 

 that marvelous process by which the raw material of Europe, when placed 

 in the crucible of American liberty, develops patriotism and intelligent 

 citizenship. 



The greatest steamships of commerce and the armored battle ships of 

 the new navy, as they proudly ploughed through our harbor and the Hud- 

 son, and saluted with salvos of artillery the memory of the discoverer, 

 demonstrated the advance in navigation, commerce and invention since 

 1492. Their greater significance was that the finding of the new world 

 had emancipated the mind and conscience of man. But the national 

 salute from the frigates of Italy and Spain to the American flag was a 

 recognition of the historic fact that the people of the great republic had 

 utilized for their own happiness, and the benefit of the world, the inesti- 

 mable advantages of the new continent. The naval, the military, the civic 

 and the allegorical processions, told the story in object lessons of the 

 evolution of modern civilization through the success of the little fleet 

 of Christopher Columbus. The million or more of happy, contented and 

 prosperous men, women anl children who viewed the parade of the citizen 

 soldiery, mingled with their pride in this suggestive exhibition of our 

 resources for war, a deep and lasting gratitude for the peaceful event to 

 which the day was dedicated. 



There will be a gathering during the next year in this beautiful park of 

 the citizens of every State of our Union, the representatives of the sister 

 republics of North and South America and of the Dominion of Canada, 

 and visitors from all the nations of the globe. Some will find here hospi- 

 tality in their national structures. Others, whose countries have no 

 houses, will be homeless. The New Yorker, coming from any part of our 

 State, or attracted from abroad to this spot, as ho passes the portals of 

 this building, will recognize the infinite hospitality which characterizes the 

 Commonwealth of his birth or adoption, and will also feel in these appoint- 

 ments, surroundings and the friends gathered here that, though far from 

 his residence, he is at home. 



Through her Governor and State officers, through the commission 

 appointed by our Legislature to see that our State was properly repre- 



