Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/144

 144 Southern Historical Society Papers.

disfigure her. Virginians and other Southern people have no need to be ashamed of the part they took in the war. The northern people came here, bought Libby Prison, and carried it to Chicago to make money out of it. Why not dig up some field where Southern chivalry had been victorious and carry that away, too. Northern men say that they come from the North, but a Virginian does not say he comes from the South, but from "Old Virginia, thank God"; and even the negroes are proud of being Virginians and boast of it, even down to the exact county. Every man is raised free, and therefore they all belong to the "first families."

A Virginian never goes away from home with the intention of staying: he always hopes to make money and come back to the old Commonwealth.

POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE,

A friend of his, remarked the speaker, had told him a few days ago that he would so like to live fifty years more, not for the mere pleasure of living, but to see the wonderful progress that Virginia is bound to make in that time. The possibilities cannot be imagined. No man can tell what Virginia will be fifty years from now. Norfolk, Newport's News, Richmond, Roanoke, Glasgow, Buena Vista, Salem, Buchanan, Big- Stone Gap, must become inconceivably great.

Before fifty years have elapsed Virginia, now the fourteenth State in the Union in point of wealth and population, will walk a queen among her sisters.

But, concluded the Governor, no matter what the future has in store, no greater man would ever spring from her loins than the one whom they were then gathered to honor.

Mayor J. Taylor Ellyson responded to the third toast of the evening.

The City Through dark and trying years her barriers, guarded by her sons, kept at bay mighty armies. Now pushing her lines of hospitable homes and her hives of busy industry beyond the circle of dismantled forts, she beckons to skill and culture, to capital and enterprise, from North and South, from East and West, by open highways, to join in the march " On to Richmond."

In his role as toast-master, remarked the Mayor, he always preferred to make others talk rather than to do so himself. He was a little surprised when asked to reply to a sentiment; but he did so cheerfully, for he felt it was an honor to represent the city.