Kepoet of Boaed of Geneeal Managees. 59 



Address op His Grace, the Most Reverend M. A. Coreigan, D. D., 



Archbishop of New York. 

 Your Mccellenoy, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



Four hundred years ago, Columbus, sailing in the soft southern seas of 

 the Bahamas, first touched the soil of the New World. Day by day, 

 afterwards, as in that limpid atmosphere, amid the luxuriant verdure of the 

 tropics, new beauties captivated his admiring gaze, his enthusiasm rose 

 higher and higher, and he marveled how any one, who once visited that 

 charming spot, could tear himself away from such an earthly paradise. 

 Thus, in his diary for the 21st of October, 1492, he says : "All these 

 objects fill me with astonishment and admiration, and seem as if they ought 

 to retain in this abode every man who has once beheld them." Fascinat- 

 ing as was that scene of loveliness, could his eyes scan America to-day, 

 resplendent with the best products of human industry, and teeming with 

 inexhaustible resources, could he witness the rich results of his discovery, 

 with all their untold future development superadded, his soul, thrilling 

 with ecstatic pride, could not contain its unbounded gratitude to God. To 

 us it is given to behold, in its full splendor, what Columbus, like another 

 Moses on the borders of the land of promise, could only discern in dim 

 and distant outline. And, therefore, appreciating ttis fact, with Italy, 

 the land of his birth, with Spain, the land of his adoption, with the other 

 nations of the globe, who are debtors to his daring, we gladly swell the 

 universal chorus in his honor, of praise and of thanksgiving. 



To-day everything combines to make this quadri-centennial celebration 

 peculiarly appropriate . Obstacles that existed a hundred years ago have 

 happily disappeared. A century ago the ocean separated us by a journey 

 of seventy days from Europe ; our self-government, whose unparalleled 

 success has since electrified the world, was looked upon as a problem of 

 uncertain solution ; at home facilities of travel and of intercommunication 

 were yet to be provided. More than this, the disparaging innuendoes, 

 the base as well as baseless charges, against the fair fame of Columbus, 

 had not yet been removed by patient historical research and critical 

 acumen. Fortunately these clouds have since been almost entirely dis- 

 pelled, thanks especially to the initiative of a son of our Empire State — 

 the immortal Washington Irving. But most of all, the name and the fame 

 of Columbus, and the story of his life will be proclaimed throughout the 

 world by the proceedings solemnly inaugurated yesterday, and to continue 

 and culminate in the exposition to be held in this phenomenal and typi- 

 cal American city. Coming from abroad to Chicago, the visitor will be 

 puzzled which most to admire, the magnificence of the World's Fair 



