Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-02-05
Colonel Donan on Dakota.

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At the annual banquet of the Clover
club of Philadelphia, Colonel Pat D0nan
of Dakota, who is said to have written
Proctor KnOtt's famous speech on Du-
luth, responded to the toast, dakota" in
the following happy speech:
Dakota is the newest. worst-treated,
and grandest of the territories of the
Union, the garden spot of the continent,
the imperial wheat belt of the globe. 1t
is more than royal realm, which ten
years ago was unexplored and almost
unknown, which but five years ago was
almost wholly region of romance and
of fable. 1t is the land of all lands of
No. hard wheat. 1t is peerless but
modest land that never sounds the fish
horn of its own fame. 1t is the worlds
true wonderland, where NO storms and
tempests ever blow, and where all the
breezes are trained to sing psalm tunes
in pianissimo style, and in even better
time and rhyme than the rendering Of
The Order of Full Moons 1 heard just
now.
"Our widest billiards, as unenlight-
ened n-easters-inelrding sope' Phil
adelphia journalists who ought to know
better-sometimes term them, are used
by gentle mothers to lull their babes to
sleep. The sun shines ever with meI-
low splendor that calls to mi. he far
famed Happy Valley of Rasselas,' and
there is just frost enough in cur winters
to turn the elm leaves golden. No sum-
mer droaths or winter floods spread de-
VISITATION over the fields and hopes of our
husbandmen. No army worms or grass
hoppers sweep these fertile plains and
valleys with nibbling desolation. No
hail storms rattle their destroying NUS
kerry upon the grains and fruits and
plate glass window panes of that elyseum
except now and then just enough to
furnish business to our ambitious young
Hail Insurance Companies.
Bananas bloom in November and
young oranges are picked the day before
Christmas. Raisins, striped stick candy,
tin horses, and India rubber dolls ripen
always just in time for Santa Claus's
peddler wagon, with his reindeer team
and his little round stomach, that shakes
when he laughs like a bowlful of jelly
Pineapples and igs grow spontaneously
on Canada thistle bushes everywhere,
while the cotton woods and dog fennel
trees yield brook trout, nectarines, and
persimmons. of large size and flavor, a
canal boat load to the acre. Spring roses
blossom on the plain, gentle Annie, for
New Years posies, and potatoes grow as
big as beer kegs at the roots of every
tuft of prairie grass. Cabbage heads, of
full congressional and senatorial size,
give forth the fragrance of the jessamine
and honeysuckles to humming birds as
large as canvaS-back ducks and clad in
all the prismatic giorles of the aurora
bOrealis. We hatch our own wild geese.
of such dimensions that tenderfeet from
CuuSl llNdulcs lO1 inoIduCc, dNc ldDic "
mistake them for winged hippopotami.
on lakes of never-freezing rosewater and
cologne.
"Blizzards, tempests, tornadoes, and
political breeZes come to that
modern Eden only as dimly understood
wailings from distant regions and peo+
pies who do not know enough to find
their way to the sole remaining quarter
section of paradise in all the western
world. There no wave of trouble ever
rolls across the peaceful breast. and the
prosperous people who raise infallibly
from twenty-five to seventy-6ve bushels
of No. hard wheat to the acre of land,
that costs them nothing. and get S1.S5
bushel for it, can calmly smile at Sataa's
rage. and face frowning, because less
world"