The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1871-03-30
KNOTT, OF KENTUCKY, ON DULUTH.

Below, we give extracts rom tie
speech in Congress of Mr.. Proctor
Knott Of Kentucky; upon a joint reso-
LUTON extending the time to construct
a railroad front the St. Croix river or
lake to the west end of Lake Superior.
After a few preliminary remarks, ne
proceeds thus:
+ Now, sir, as to those great trunk
lines Of railway, spanning the CONT
|nent from ocean to ocean, confess my
mind has never been fully made up. 1t
is true they may offer some trifing adj
vantages to local traffic. and they may
even in time become the channels OF a
more extended commerce; yet | have
never been thoroughly satisfied either
of the necessity or expediency OF pro-
iects promising such meager results to
the great body of our people. But
with regard to the transcendent merits
of the gigantic enterprise contemplated
in this bill l never entertained the
shadow of a doubt. Laughter.
Years ago, when | first heard that
there was somewhere in the vast terra
ancoqnita, somewhere in the bleak re-
gions of the great Northwest, a stream
of water known to the nomadic inhab-
itants of the neighborhood as the river
St. Croix, l became satisfied that the
construction of railroad from that
raging torrent to some point in the ely
ilized world was essential to the happi-
ness and prosperity of the American
people, if not absolutely indispensable
to the perpetuity of republican institu-
tons on this continent. Great laugh
ter. felt instinctively that the bound
less resources of that prolific region of
sand and pine shrubbery would never
be fully developed without a railroad
constructed and equipped at the ex-
pense of the Government, and perhaps
not then. Laughter | had an abid-
ing presentiment that some day or 9TH
er the people of this whole country, IT.
of party affiliations, regard
less of sectional prejudices, and with
out distinction of race, color or previ-
Gus condition of servitude," would rise
in their majesty and demand an outlet
for the enormous agricultural produc-
tons of those vast and fertile pine bar
rens, drained in the rainy season by
the surging waters of the turbid st.
Croix. Great laughter. = y
Then, sir, think of the long and pain
full process Of reconstruction that must
follow, with its concomitant amend
ments to the Constitution: the seven
teenth. eighteenth and nineteenth arti-
cles. The sixteenth, it is of course un-
derstood, is to be appropriated to those
damsels who are, day after
day, beseeching us to let them vote.
hold Office, drink cocktails, ride astral
die, and do everything else the men do.
Roars of laughter. But above all,
sir, let me implore you to re fleet for a
single moment on the deplorable con-
1ition of our country in case of for
eign war, with all our ports blockaded
all our cities in state of siege, the
gaunt specter of famine brooding like
a hungry vulture over our starving
land; our commissary stores all ex-
hausted, and our furnishing armies
away in the field, helpless
prey to the insatiate demon of hunger;
our navy rotting in the docks for want
of provisions for our gallant seamen,
and we without any railroad communi-
cation whatever with the prolific pine
of the St Croix. Laughter.
X x X
Nevertheless, l was confident that it
existed somewhere, and that its discov-
cry would constitute the browning glo-
ry of the present century, if not of all
modern times. Laughter l knew
it was bound to exist in the very nature
of things; that the symmetry and per-
lection of our planetary system would
be incomplete without it. Renewed
That the elements of ma
tcrial nature would long since have re-
solved themselves back into natural,
original chaos if there had been such a
hiatus in creation as would have result
ed from leaving out Duluth. Roars
of laughter. In fact, sir, was over
whelmed with the conviction that Du-
l. T. ~