election held February 20, 1894, to fill the vacancy in the fifty-third Congress caused by the death of William Lilly, one of the two representatives-at-large from Pennsylvania, Mr. Grow was chosen by a plurality of 188,294 votes, and in November following, he was re-elected representative-at-large from the state to the fifty-fourth Congress by a plurality of 246,462, and in November, 1896, was reelected to the fifty-fifth Congress by a plurality of 297,446 (being the largest plurality ever given in any state of the Union to a candidate for any office). In November, 1898, he was reelected to the fifty-sixth Congress, and in November, 1900, was reelected to the fifty-seventh Congress. He served on the committee on Education, and was chairman of that committee in the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh Congresses. His last term in congress expired March 4, 1903, when he retired from public life at the advanced age of eighty years, having held no other public office than that of member of congress, except the local office of school director. Previous to his retirement he made a speech on the "Relation between Labor and Capital." His other notable speeches before congress include: "Man's Right to the Soil," March 30, 1852; "Free Homes for Free Men," February 29, 1860; "Free Coinage of Silver," February 13, 1896; "War Widows' Pensions," February 9, 1897; "Rightful Ownership of the Soil," February 19, 1897; "Free Homes for Pioneer Settlers," March 10, 1898; "The Government's Plighted Faith in the Payment of Its Debts," May 26, 1898; and "Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands," June 14, 1898; and "The legislative Power of Congress Over the Territories," December 10, 1901.
Upon his retirement from congress, in 1903, upward of 5,000 of the citizens of Susquehanna county, in his old congressional district, assembled at Montrose, and a procession escorted the "Sage of Glenwood" through the streets, where the assembled thousands welcomed him home after his long service in public life. Letters were read from the president and members of the cabinet and from prominent members of congress, and speeches were made by the invited guests present, and the venerable statesman responded to the "Welcome Home," in a notable address, in which he recited the progress of the world in effecting the amelioration of human kind since he first took his place as a legislator in the United States congress, nearly fifty-two years before, and pictured his hopes for still greater achievements to be effected in the near future.
