Daytonians hold in profound reverence the memories of their forefathers,
who risked their lives and their fortunes in subduing the unbroken
forest and its savage denizens, and in laying strong, wide, and deep the
foundations of a city which to-day contains as many elements of
advancement, and is endowed with as many of the attributes of genuine
happiness, as any city in the United States. There is a just cause for
congratulation in the growth and development of Dayton. Its magnificence
is a crowning monument to the enlightenment and progresssiveness of its
citizens--a devout, law-abiding, and upright people, whose stalwart and
robust Americanism constitutes their chief excellence. It is no such
Americanism as turns up its pantaloons every time it rains in London, or
affects a pronunciation of our glorious tongue unknown to lexicons, but
presumed to be an echo of the British Isles. Far from it. Dayton proudly
boasts of an exalted citizenship, imbued with the spirit of an undying
loyalty to country, whose pride and inspiration are not in Frederick the
Great, or Louis XIV, or William the Conqueror; not in a hero of England,
or of Germany, or of France, or of Ireland, but in George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln.
