OUR GUESTS March 24, 1880

Though eight o'clock was announced as the hour for beginning the banquet, it was forty minutes later before the doors were thrown open to the guests.
As to banquet, it was one of the finest and best managed affairs of the kind the country has ever seen. Seventeen hundred and seventy-six persons passed the doors and sat down to the tables, and 513 waiters and wine-servers officiated, and yet the hall was comfortable in its spaciousness, and the best of order prevailed. No one was cramped for room. Between every table there was space to be had and to spare, and no one was jostled. The waiters had been carefully selected to each table, and a head waiter had been assigned, and all having been carefully drilled, the work was done systematically and harmoniously. In no other way could such a large crowd have been handled, and the Messrs. Roth, by their forethought, well earned the reputation of first-class caterers.

On entering the hall, or from either the stage or the balconies, was a grand one. The long tables, loaded down with the material and aesthetic accessories of a banquet – dishes, eatables, and flowers; the large army of guests, and the smaller but still extensive one of waiters; the balconies crowded with a select gathering of spectators, the front rows glowing with the bright colors of the ladies' dresses, the glare of lights and the brilliant coloring of the flags with which the hall was decorated, formed an ensemble at once striking, beautiful and magnificent.

One of the features of the affair was the music. In addition to the grad organ, presided over by Professor Henry Carter, the Cincinnati Orchestra Reed Band was present, and under the leadership of Michael Brand contributed largely to the pleasure of the occasion. Many of the airs and selections rendered by both called out the loudest applause and were encored, but when the orchestra, by a happy thought, went out of the regular programme to play "Dixie" they fairly took the audience by storm. The best of order was prevailing, and hardly any sound louder than the regular hum of conversation had as yet been heard, but when the first familiar notes of the old tune reached their ears the vast audience, seemingly forgetting every thing else, rose as one man, and in one breath gave vent to that indescribable, wild and spirit-stirring sound, known to our soldiers as the "rebel yell," a form of expression of feeling peculiarly Southern, as the "Hip, hip hurrah!" is Anglo-Saxon. For several minutes this continued, the strains of the orchestra being unheard, and nought but that wild sound filling the ear. Finally, it stopped long enough to allow the musicians to play the air, but the moment they reached the chorus again it pealed forth shrill, sharp and long until the wails echoed the sound.
Immediately after "Dixie" the orchestra struck up the "Star-Spangled Banner," when for a moment, there seemed a pause of hesitation, followed instantly by the most tremendous applause. Up, on their feet, got the Southerners, and waving their napkins over their heads, again that "rebel yell" was heard, as, with loud acclaim, they greeted the old patriotic anthem. For several moments the scene was indescribable; the stage, the body of the hall and the balconies all joining in that whole-souled greeting of the "old flag," until suddenly the organ took up the chorus from the drowned out chords of the orchestra, and peal after peal the deep sounds came pouring out, reverberating from the ceiling and the walls, until the voices of the large audience were dulled into insignificance, the whole making a scene patriotic, grand and enthusing.

The speech-making did not begin until after eleven o'clock. Though the work of the banquet ran smoothly, very smoothly, the magnitude of the work precluded the possibility of great rapidity in serving the courses, and the result was a greater delay in reaching the speech-making portion of the programme than was expected. Soon after eleven o'clock, however, the toast-master called to order, and called upon Mayor Jacob to deliver.

        It was as follows:
        DISTINGUISHED GUESTS: On this occasion of celebrating the completion of the great enterprise commenced by our city, of having a direct connection by railroad with the South, I have a great pleasure, as well as distinguished honor, to bid welcome to you who feel that a great achievement has been accomplished by the city of Cincinnati in connecting our city with the fertile regions of the South.
        Let it not be said that we are sorry for what we have done because some may say our taxes have increased. It is not a work for the present, but for future generations. It is essential to our city that we should have Southern connections to place in the market our products, as well as merchandise manufactured by us, and receive a just reward from our kind friends.
        For many years our city has suffered for want of a direct connection with the South, and it may be characterized as a great enterprise on the part of a municipality to effect that end by the completion of the Southern Railroad, which, in my opinion, will conduce to your as well as our interests.
        I, therefore, on behalf of the City of Cincinnati, bid you welcome to our city.
        Mayor Jacob was followed by Governor Foster, who welcomed the guests in the name of Ohio.

        The event that brings you here is one of great interest to the State of Ohio; one in which our Queen City take especial delight, as testified by her splendid illumination upon your arrival, and the superb banquet which we are now so happily enjoying.
        The completion of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad brings into close business and social relations the people of great States which hitherto have had but little of such intercourse, or real knowledge of each other, except such as is gained upon the bloody field of war.
        We of Ohio boast of our great agricultural and mineral resources; of our extensive manufacturing industries; or our own splendid system of free schools; or our peerless charitable institutions; of our numerous thriving cities and villages; of our more than three millions of prosperous and happy people;
        You, too, gentlemen, can boast of your vast agricultural and mineral resources, which, when fully developed, will far exceed ours. You can boast of your manufacturing industries, and the wish of all of us in Ohio is that they will grow and expand until at last your cotton may be exported in cloths, and you are able to supply not only our own country with sugar, rice and tropical fruits, but also be able to contribute to the commerce of the world by their export. You can boast of your thriving cities and villages, your systems of free-schools, your charitable institutions, your sugar-cane, your rice plantations, your beautiful and luxuriant groves of oranges and other tropical fruits, and your rich and famous blue-grass region.

        Mr. President and Gentlemen: If it is possible for me to make you fear me, I want to say to you gentlemen, business men of Cincinnati that I 'want to take up the remarks that I made to you to-day on 'Change where I left of, for they were suggested by what I had seen. When I talked to you this morning I had not seen the fair ladies of Cincinnati. I have seen them to-night, and now I know that if we had succeeded in reaching Cincinnati when we tried it a number of years ago we would have had to surrender to their beautiful eyes. [Applause.]
        Cincinnati, looking southward, saw a city – the gateway of the South – a young and growing city of boundless possibilities, intervening were broad rivers, deep valleys, vast mountains and weary distance. Cincinnati said: "Let the rivers be spanned; let the mountains be leveled; let the distance be annihilated," and it was done. [Applause.] You have now a grand National highway, running through our grand old mountains. It is your grand work, a deeper and profounder significance which I dare not omit to mention to-night. It binds together the North and South with hooks of steel. It has relegated to commerce all sectional questions. [Applause and cries of "good, good."] It has relegated to commerce all sectional bitterness. Commerce is the grand inquest of truth. It tolerates no subterfuges. We shall know each other as we are. It will make us acquainted with each other, and standing in this presence to-night, speaking for my section, I am proud to declare that we are not afraid of the result. [Loud applause and cries of "Good! Good!"] The laurel of war is fertilized in the blood and tears of mankind, but the olive of commerce is the growth of fraternity as broad as humanity. [Applause.] To-night the Queen City of the West sits crowned with the olive, and she is celebrating to-night that event which at last ends war. [Applause and cries of "good, good."] she has turned the sword into a steel rail. [Applause.] She has stretched out her mighty arms, and lo! Peace, like a sweet benediction has fallen upon all the land. [Applause.]
        Governor Colguitt, of Georgia, was next on the list. He was more enthusiastically received. He responded to the toast, "The South Atlantic States."

        The following is a brief abstract of Governor Colquitt's address. It was in response to the toast, "The South Atlantic States."
        I confess to you that I'm at a loss how to respond to the sentiment which was uttered, or the welcome we have received. It is hardly to be expected that I should attempt now to speak of the resources of our South Atlantic State, that the multitude of men have from these States give their testimony of the great work Cincinnati has achieved. Grand as are the material results which may come from this they are as nothing beside the moral good which shall arise from this work. It may be a noble boast for the city to say that the result of this work will be a great financial return, but the greatest boast is that the city has undertaken in her courage that which for fifty years the North and the South have desired. I know that those who have families will join with me in this sentiment, that it is not good for man to be alone. Cincinnati has opened up a highway that we of both sections may come to learn how much of good there is in each other. You call Cincinnati a great Queen. If you would add to her fame, write of her that throughout this entire Union blessed is she, the peace-maker. Through the arts of commerce this city has opened a highway by which hearts of men may flow together. I will say for the encouragement of the men who have constructed this highway, that while Kentucky and Tennessee are great States, we think you will find Georgia a greater one. When you reach the borders of the State of Georgia that there all rivalry and all strife have ceased. You have seen the little rills as they rush down the mountain side, noisy and furious, how they become quiet as they run into the great river. So will the railroads. As they pass through the other States, they may quarrel, but when they reach Georgia they adjust their differences and join in mutual business profits. We recognize Cincinnati as the Queen City. We love her for what she has done. The work which she has done should be a bond of union between the two sections of country, and when that is accomplished, and we of the South shall prepare a toast, it will be one that will reach throughout the land. It will be
        "To the Queen of the West,
        In her garlands dressed,
        On the banks of the beautiful river."
[Great applause.]

        MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMAN: It gives me great pleasure to respond to this settlement. If there is any interest in the world that should share in the general rejoicing tonight it is the Northern Railroad. If its opening means renewed life and energy to this city, it certainly means it in a much greater degree to them. As the manufacturer and trader hopes that this grand highway will bring him trade and customers and profit, so do the railroads leading from this city to the North hope that it is the harbinger of better days to them. There is no interest in this city that shares your hour of triumph in an equal degree with that which I am called upon to answer for.
        Glance with me for a moment at the situation and you will understand this. Cincinnati is a central city. She lies half way between the great grain and provision markets of the North and the consumptive markets of the South. If you draw a circle of six hundred miles in diameter, with this city for the center, you will find upon the north-eastern edge the busy manufacturing City of Pittsburg, which your own Chattanooga is destined to rival. Upon the northern edge of this circle lies Chicago, the grain and provision market of the world. On the north-west lies Peoria, in the midst of the greatest corn-producing country on this earth. At the western line, at the junction of the mighty rivers is St. Louis. On the southern edge is Chattanooga. Within this circle lie all the busy manufacturing towns of Ohio, and the rich agricultural country of Indiana and Illinois. To every village and hamlet in this Northern land there are railroads from Cincinnati. They radiate from this city like the leaves of a fan – they have the capacity and willingness to do a large business, but it has never come. The manufacturers have been anxious to sell their wares, the dealers earnest to sell their grain or provision, the railroads to carry the traffic. The merchants of Cincinnati were possessed of undoubted capacity, capacity and skill. Just 500 miles to the south was Chattanooga, this gateway to the promised land of all our hopes, and just beyond a people rich and anxious to buy this surplus. There never were two communities more favorably situated for an interchange of commerce than the North-west and the South-east, and there never was a city more favorably located for the purpose of making and formulating this exchange than this city, but it never came, and why? Because between the City of Cincinnati and the City of Chattanooga stretched 500 miles of waste, no good highway covering it, no means of communication. And therefore it is that the railroads from Cincinnati to the North-west have not prospered, and their history for the last twenty years has been one of financial distress. They had an abundance at the North, but there was no demand here for it except what our own mouths consumed.
        And for twenty years Cincinnati and her railroads to the North have stood by and seen the great current of traffic to the East pass to the North, and that for the South go around them, with no power to join in the tide and obtain their share of the prosperity. For years they have waited and hoped for a change, and to-night the fruition has come. Between here and Chattanooga is a highway capable of carrying the traffic of the continent, well and thoroughly built. Do you wonder that we are rejoicing over the hour of deliverance? I rejoice to-night that for the first time in her history the commerce of Cincinnati is free. I thank God that our merchants can go to-day to their broad prairies of Indiana and Illinois and buy their products, and ship them through this city and sell them to the South without paying tribute to any Caesar. No rival city can longer claim toll from his trade. I congratulate the people of the South that a new source of supply is opened to them, and a new market where they can exchange their cotton for the merchandise and manufactures that they need, thus adding to the comfort and pleasure of life.
        But they tell me that this railroad is all right so far as it goes, but that it only extends to Chattanooga, and has no connections beyond; that another railroad owns all connecting lines; that certain individuals in the City of Louisville have bought all the railroads of the South and propose to reduce our road to a mere local highway; that they have their hand on all the arteries of trade south of the Ohio, and propose with an iron grasp to stop the pulse-beat of the commerce of the South. I am not alarmed by this. It is an impossibility. When they show me that these gentlemen can make the waters of the Ohio flow back to its source, or can move the hand back upon the dial, I will believe that they can change the laws of trade and commerce and compel the whole South to submit to their demands. No, gentlemen, it is too gigantic an undertaking, and I do not believe those shrewd gentlemen will try it. If they do they will fail, as every other combination of its kind has failed. There never has been but one man who wept for more worlds to conquer, and he did not live in this century or this country. I am not troubled about connections.
        From Lake Michigan to the waters of the Tennessee there are 600 miles of railroad in operation, though you might as well try to dam the Mississippi as to stop the tide of traffic that will flow over it and force its way to the gulf, to the ocean, and to every city of the South.
        After the mind that planned it, and the brain that plotted its ruin, are silent and cold, it will live and flourish and spread out its branches and afford prosperity and comfort to all the country around it. It will also add to the comfort and happiness of the two sections in promoting an interchange of travel between the North and South. Our people have often made visits of pleasure and business to the North, to Chicago, and met there pleasant faces and friends, but if one of them chanced to stray an equal distance to the South he found himself a stranger in a strange land.
        Our citizens have thought nothing of a round trip to the falls of the Mississippi, and yet an equal distance to the south are the orange groves of Florida and the pleasant resorts of Georgia and Carolina; but access to them has been so difficult, and the trip so wearisome, that the journey has been undertaken only as a last resort by invalids. This is all changed, and in the future we promise ourselves the pleasure of frequent and delightful visits to the South. We expect our Southern friends to come here and meet the citizens of the North, and this shall be the city were the North and South shall meet and become friends. By this a greater good than the commercial gain will come from our railroad.
        Gentlemen of the South, I tender you and your families the freedom of the northern railroad connections of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad.