Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-09-10


sober-minded New Englanders, as a
wonder! This last achievement of
the intelligence and energy of our people
climbs over the lofty range of mountains
which divides the waters of a continent
between the two great oceans of the wsrld.
1t binds together by one more indissolu-
BILE bond the destiDies of a great people
VINO look from the windows of their haki-
tation upon the horses of the sun as the
rise from the stormy waves of the Atlantic
and again when they qunch their fire in
the smooth waters of the Pacific. 1t forms
one more portage for the water borne
commerce which plies between Europe
and Asia. 1t brings new fields to tillage
adequate to feed tens of millions, under
whose healthful and happy toll their seed
time and harvest shall never fail, and tens
of millions more, less fortunate, who
crowd the workshops and the factories, the
cities and the mines of Europe and
America in this age of industry. 1t will
help to assuags inequalities of nature and
disparities of fortune among our own peo-
pie, and to spread peace, plenty and pros
perity to other nations. Nor does it lessen
our gratitude and CALCULATIONS that this is
not the first, and that it will not be the
last, that this wide land of ours witnesses
on the same great scale of effort and bene-
fcence.
AS our flying footsteps leave the
heights of moral and natural vision, am
sure this company will feel this occasion
was not unworthy of an assemblage which
the secretary of the interior honors with
his attendance, and the illustrious soldier,
after following his own fame around the
world, finds attractive IN its interests; to
which the ministers of the powers of Eu-
rope lend the favor of their countenance,
and which collects so many eminent men
of our own country and of the old world to
assist in this international celebration.
The orator was very heartily applauded.
After music Willard in few words INTRO
duced Secretary Teller, who spoke of the
great energy and capital required to COM
piete the various transcOntinental lines and
the prospective benefits to the nation.
This enterprise of the Northern Pacific,
along whose lines there will be in few
years 100000 of people, could not be
called local IN character. 1t was more
than national. It concerned the welfare
of other people. 1t now remains for the
managers to justify in the future the wis
dom of the government in what il has
done, and that will be if the policy an
nounced by President Willard is carried
out.
Secretary Teller was followed by Ex-
President Billings.
ADDRESS of Ec-Presi6ent Frederick Bill
finDs.
There were brave men before Agamem-
Il
roads before this one. There have been
last spikes and last spikes, but there was
never more significant last spike driven
on the continent than this one; never one
which had more work and faith behind it;
never one with greater future before it.
period than the children of Israel were
wandering in the wilderness before reach
| ing their Promisedi Land-sinceI heard Asa
Whitney discourse on a Pacific railroad
| before the Legislature of Vermont. It is
| thirty years since congress authorized sur
lveys for practicable and economical rail-
road route from the Mississippi to the
Pacific ocean. 1t is more than a quarter
of century since I heard Governor
Stevens discuss this identical Northern
Pacific route before an audience in San
Francisco. It is nearly score of years
since this road was chartered. 1t is
thirteen years since the first spike was
driven. And this long way has at times
| been very dark one. 1t was
gigantic undertaking, and had peculiar
difficulties.
The Union and Central Pacific was
child of the war. In that crisis public SEN
! timent demanded that the eastern and
| western parts eff our country should no
| longer be connected only by the way of
Cape Horn or the Isthmus, but by a rail
way right across and right through the
| heart of cur own territory. And that line
had almost the government treasury be-
hind it, and it followed we'll known trail
across the continent. and ended in the rich
California at the Golden Gate.
The Atlantic and Pacific route on the
| thirty fifth parallel by Santa Fe was fami-
liar to emigration, and had been advocated
| by Senator Benton and others for years.
The Texas Pacific, on the thirty-second
parallel, was the one recommended in 1866
by the then secretary of war, Jefferson
Davis, who claimed it to be the best of all
routes according to his Interpretation of
the government surveys.
The poor Northern Pacific had no such
lodgment in the public thought. There
was no trail across the continent here.
Emigrants to Oregon, even, went by the
central route. This was called region of
desolation. It was in everlasting bondage
to snow and ice and sterility. 1t belonged
to the widest of Indians end the North
Pole. Though it started from Lake Su-
perior, how few thought anything of Lake
Superior. 1t was out of the world! How
brief time is it since Proctor Knott con-
vulsed a continent by deriding Duluth as
the zenith of the unsalted seas. And
though the road went to Puget Sound, the
magnificent northern Mediterranean sea,
what was Puget Sound? Why, will you
believe tit is said that but for the mar
velous trip of the missionary, Whitman,
across the continent, and his appearance
! in the state department at Washington to
make known that imperial Pacific north
west-all that region north of the Column
bia river might have been lost to this
country in the Ashburton treaty.
With all this dense ignorance OF this
northern belt, and denser prejudice, and
hardly any human beings on the line save
| fierce Indians, and here and there few
soldiers shut up in forts, and with no gov
eminent subsidy-how was this road to be
built? To be sure it had land grant,
to become of immense value, IN time. But