People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1895 — GREET THE PRESIDENT [ARTICLE]

GREET THE PRESIDENT

810 CROWDS AT THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. Hr. ClcTtlmd Deliver* t Short Address After Reviewing the Troops Gathered In HU Honor —The Presidential Party on Its Way to Washington. Atlanta, Ga„ Oct. 24.—N0 brighter or balmier sun ever shone over this particular portion of the southland than that which dawned yesterday, Presidential day at the Cotton States and International exposition, The thousands of visitors landed in the city early swelled the throngs on the street to immense proportions, and locomotion soon became difficult. In accordance with the carefully laid plans of the exposition management, the exercises of the day were concentrated within the exposition grounds, into which the cohorts of visitors and large proportion of the population of the city emptied themselves during the morning. The Presidential party spent the morning quietly at the Aragon, where they remained until 11 o’clock, when they were driven rapidly to the exposition grounds, without any parade whatever. Inside the gates the military was already gathered. The troops paraded around the board walk within the fair inclosure and were reviewed by the President from a stand in front of the government building. After the review the president delivered an address. He was introduced by President Collier of the Exposition company, who referred to him as the man who had been entrusted with the duty of wiping out sectional issues and lines. The most brilliant social function that has yet taken place in connection with the exposition was the reception tendered in the afternoon by Mrs. Joseph Thompson, president of the women’s board, to the women of the country who received their education at the convent school of the Nuns of the Order of Visitation, at Georgetown, D. C. It is to be doubted if there has ever been in the United States a more notable gathering of women than that present. The series of courtesies extended to the presidential party was concluded at night with a reception at the Capital City club, which put itself on record as the most elaborate social function ever undertaken in ,the South. The chief executive reached the club, accompanied by the cabinet and the ladies of the cabinet, between 9 and 10 o’clock and spent an hour or more receiving the 1,500 people present. MaJ. Livingston Mims, president of the club, did the honors of the occasion. After the reception, the president and his party boarded their special train and left for Washington. The national guard of Georgia refused to turn out in honor of the president. It wps not due to any desire to be discourteous to the president, but it was the outgrowth of mere petty jealousy between local companies. The result of this fight will in all probability be the disintegration of the present military organization of the state. It has been with great difficulty that the legislature has been induced to make annual appropriations for encampment purposes, and the action of the Fifth regiment, representing the volunteer forces, will doubtless have the tendency to weaken the position of the military organization before the legislature.