You have gathered the sons of Ohio, and those who have been identified with its history, into a society where you may meet together and preserve and revive the recollections of Ohio boyhood and Ohio manhood.

Our friends and fellow-citizens from old England's shore, from Ireland and Scotland and Germany, form their societies of the city of New York; and why should not the State of Ohio, more important than any of these countries by this…

No Arab in his tent, restless and uneasy, feels more uncertain and movable than a man from Ohio, who can better his condition anywhere else.

Ohio is the first fruit of the Federal Union.

It is true that Vermont and Kentucky and Tennessee were admitted into the union of these states before Ohio was, but they were offshoots of New York and Virginia, while Ohio was the first fruit of that great commonwealth.

They went there to redeem that land from a wilderness, and they made of Ohio the most prosperous, the richest and fairest commonwealth the world has ever known.

In Ohio was the beginning of that magnificent march of progress which adds luster to the history of the northwest, as an evidence of growth and progress unexampled in the previous history of mankind.

Why, my countrymen, I can show by statistics--and statistics never lie--that Ohio never had her fair share of the public offices.

The reason was that 'Westward the star of empire wends its way.' But latterly the star of empire seems to have settled about this city of New York, until more than 200 Ohio men can sit down to an Ohio feast in the city of New York.

Not that our people have a fondness for money, but they have come here to better their condition--and I hope in God they will.

They not only better their own condition, but the condition of all around them, and I can pick out from all over this community, and from this little dinner party, men who came from Ohio poor, but with an honest endeavor to do what was…

We love Ohio as our mother who nurtured us and fed us in our in our infancy; and, under any circumstances, although we may hear ill of Ohio, we never fail to remember all that is good that can be said of Ohio, and to be true and honorable…

But we love our country more, and no man from Ohio would ever be true to his mother unless he were more true to his country all around, from one end of the land to the other.

If the many millions of farmers in the United States have had my experience in farming they would have to get more than seventy-five cents a bushel for wheat to make the two ends meet.

Still, Judge Thurman and I have learned enough to know that farming is the chosen employment of a large proportion of the human race, and is, besides, the chosen recreation of nearly all who have been successful in other pursuits.

The river counties are associated with my early recollections and the people are uniformly generous and kind.

The election of a Republican House of Representatives is of vital importance, because if we can have not only a Republican Senate, but a Republican House of Representatives, we will tie up Cleveland and his administration so that he and it…

It is to make this discovery that I come here to-night, and I will speak to you, not for the purpose of reviving past controversies, but to see whether, after all, the people of Ohio and Kentucky ought not now to stand side by side in…

What I would like to find out is whether it is you or I who have switched off from the councils of our political fathers, and whether the causes of the difference of opinion still exist.

My heartiest sympathies go with the gallant Republicans of Kentucky, who, in an unequal fight, have shown the courage of their race and the patriotism of their ancestors.

Let them persevere in appealing to their neighbors for co-operation, and they can fairly hope that, as the passions of the war pass away, Kentucky will be, as of old, on the side of the Union, the constitution and the impartial enforcement…

Such a light shining from Louisville will be a star of hope, a beacon light of safety and prosperity to the extreme bounds of our country.

I trust that in the future, as in the past, this trait of the Senate of the United States will be preserved intact, and I invoke for my successor the same courtesy and forbearance you have extended to me.

Florida was the part of the United States to be first touched by the feet of white men, and yet it seemed to me to be the most backward in the march of progress.

This, however, does not apply to all points in Florida, especially not to the Indian River region, where fine oranges and other semitropical fruits are raised in great abundance.