Bismarck tribune., 1883-09-14

the waters of . continent between
THE TWO GREAT OCEANS
of the world. It binds together by one
more indisso,uble bond the destinies of great
people, who look from the windows of their hab-
itation upon the horses Of the sun as they rise
from the stormy waves of the Atlantic, and again
when they quench their fire in the smooth waters
the water-borne commerce which plies between
Europe and Asia. 1t brings new fields of 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 aud America in this age of industry. 1t
will help to assuage inequalities of nature and
disparities of fortune among our own people,
and to spread peace, plenty and prosperity to
other nations. Nor does it lessen our gratitude
and gra,ulations 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 ef-
fort and benefcence.
As our flying footsteps leave these heights of
moral and natural vision, am sure this COM
pany will feel this occasion not unworthy of an
which the secretary of the interior
honors with his attendance, and after the illus
trious soldier, after following his own fame
around the world, finds attractive in its inter-
ests; to which the ministers OFF the powers OF
Europe 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 Mr.. Willard, in few words, introduced
SECRETARY TELLER,
who spoke of the great energy and capital re-
quired to complete the various transconti
mental lines and the prospective benefits to the
nation. This enterprise of the Northern Pacific
along whose lines there would be in few years
nine millions Of people could not be called local
in character, it was more than national. 1t
concerned the welfare of the people. 1t
now remains for the managers to Justify
in the future the wisdom of the government in
what it has done and that will be if the policy
announced by President Willard is carried out.
Secretary Teller was followed by
Ex.pREs1DENT BILLINGS
who spoke as follows:
THE GREATEST SPIKE OF ALL
There were brave men before Agamemnon.
There have been Transcontinental Roads before
this one. There have been last spikes and last
spikes, but there never was more significant
last spike driven on the continent than this one;
never one which had more work and faith be-
hind it; never one with greater future before
it, 1t has been long way up to it. 1t is more
than forty years. longer period than the
children of Israel were wandering in the Wilder
ness before reaching their Promised Land-since
heard Asa Whitney discourse on Pacific
Railroad before the Legislature of Vermont
It is thirty years since Congress authorized
surveys for practicable and economical rail-
road route from the Mississippi to the Pacific
Ocean. 1t is more than quarter of century
since heard Governor Stevens discuss this
identical Northern Pacific route before an au.
dience in San Francisco. 1t is nearly a score of
years since this road was chartered. 1t is thir-
teen years since its first spike was driven. And
this long way has at times been very dark one.
It was gigantic undertaking, and had peculiar
difficulties.
The Union and Central Pacific was child of
the war; In that crisis public sentiment de-
manded that the Eastern and Western parts of
our country should no longer be connected
simply by way of Cape Horn or the Isthmus, but
by railway right across and right through
THE HEART OF OUR OWN TERRITORY.
And that line had almost the governu ent treas
ury behind 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 familiar to emf
grafton, and had been advocated by Senator
Benton and others for years. The Texas Pacific
on the thirty second porallel, was the one rec
commended in 1855 by the then secretary of war,
Jefferson Davis, who claimed it to be the best
of all routes according to his interpreta tion of
the government surveys.
The Door Northern Pacific had no such lodg-
ment 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 ice and snow and sterilty.
1t belonged to the widest of Indians and
and the north pole. Though it started fr,m
Lake Superior, how few thought anything of
Lake Superior. 1t was out of the world. How
brief time is it since Proctor Knott convulsed
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 marvellous trip of the
missionary Whitman across the continent, and
his appearance in the state department at Wash.
ington to make known that imperial Pacific
northwest-allt that region north of the Columbia
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 hu-
man beings on the line save fierce Indians, and
here and there few soldiers shut up in forts,
h.