St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-08-20
NATIONAL REpuBLIcAN COMMITTEE !

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE
Rooms New YORK, Aug. s, 'S4.
To the Editor of the GLOBE:
have lust seen a9copy of your paper of
July 30, containing communication from
some unknown friend at Devils Lake. Da-
kota, suggesting my name in connection
with the congressional delegateship.
While l appreciate the evident kind inten-
ton of the article toward myself, and am
duly grateful for the handsome tribute paid
me, am sorry to find it coupled with an at
tack upon the present delegate, Capt John
B. Raymond. Personally, I am friendly to
Capt. Raymond, and l am satifed that, dur
ing his term in congress he has
done everything in his power for the
territory. If the results have not been
all that some of our sanguine people may
have wished or expected, it must be remem-
bered that, in the past few years, number
of unfortunate circumstances have conspired
to hinder the political progress of Dakota,
and to cripple the best efforts of her friends
She has been harassed by feuds within and
foes without. Sectional and personal wran-
giles have distracted her attention and di-
vided her strength at home, while a hostile
congress and an Indifferent federal admins
tration have heaped obstacles in the way of
every movement calculated to advance her
interests abroad. Delegate Raymond should
not be too heavily blamed for failure, where
success was almost impossible.
/ gratefully acknowledge your cores
pondent's generous presentation of my
claims, or supposed claims, to the place
of territorial delegate; but beg to say
that / am not, and never have
been an applicant or candidate for any
position in the gift of the government or the
people. was educated under an old fash
ioned regime, to hold, as fundamental
article of my political creed, that ''the office
office" 1 have all my life been taught to
regard professional ofice-seeking, or office
beggary, as the most pernicous form of
public mendicancy. In republic such as
ours, every good citizen should hold himself,
and all he has and is, ever at the service of
country and his countrymen, but they, not
he, should decide when his hour of service
has>come. The mere fact of mans seek
ing an office should be deemed the surest
evidence of his unftness for it, and should
be made a legal disqualification for hold
ing it.
There are not half dozen men living
who can say ever asked favor Of them,
and it is hardly to be supposed that shall
now plant myself, hat in hand, by the road
sides of the country, to solicit either suf-
frages or aims. Permit me to add that, in
my opinion, south Dakota should, in great
measure. control the selection of the next
territorial delegate She has at least two
thirds of the population OF the territory: her
interests are vast and varied: and, If divis-
ion of the territory is secured within the next
two years, she viii certainly be first organ
ized and admitted as state. In view of
these facts, the delegate, it seems to me,
should be a south Dakota man. OF one at
least on whose fairness to them and their
interests the people of that section can rely
with absolute and implicit confidence.
He should be q man great enough
to soar above and beyond all
petty sectional jealousies, and labor for the
advancement and the welfare of all Dakota
and all Dakotans-great enough to command,
at home or abroad, the respect due. to the
grandest OF al the territories of the Union.
Apologizing for occupying so much of
your space and trusting that the nominee,
whoever he be, may be one who shall deserve
the full and undivided support of all true
Dakotans, and shall WELD an influence at
Was hington worthy Of the proud territory
that sends him there as its representative,