The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1885-04-03
A PEERLESS PRAIRIE LAND.
The Wonders Of Dakota Set Forth by Colonel
Pat Donan.

NJ Now OTleduS WIS tutuCu OFOi " VI
general management OF the Exposl
ton. Colonel Pat. Donan was tn
orator of the occasion. He is the NAL
who claims to have written Procto
KNOTS celebrated speech. The intro
ductory part of his breezy address il
given below:
Mr.. Commissioner General and La
dies and Gentlemen-In his short blu
eloquent address Colonel Howard has
struck the keynote of all Dakota
Longings and labors-her right tc
Statehood, and the wrong of denying
1t. The pleasant duty has been en-.
trusted to me to-day OF throwing open
Dakota's exhibit to the world and
formally turning it over to the man.
agement of this wondrous Exposition.
In doing 80 it seems not only fitting,
but necessary, that should speak for
q few moments of the great Territory
to which l bear a proud allegiance.
But, two difficulties confront me at
the outset-there is nothing can say
that have not said thousand times
before, and the facts in regard to that
faraway region are so marvellous that
Eastern and Southern people laugh
me to scorn when tell them. At the
annual banquet of the famous Clover
Club. of Philadelphia, last January;
at the opening of the Chicago, Mil
waukee & st. Paul Railways beauti-
ful display, just over there, ten days
ago; and at dinner party given me
p few evenings since by one of my
boyhood friends and playmates, the
accomplished editor of the New Or
leans Times Democrat, who sits upon
this platform, l made some simple,
commonplace statements about Dako-
TIA, and in each and every instance my
hearers roared their incredulity in my
very face. Everywhere l have been
since, l have found myself canonized
with Ananas, Baron Munchausen, and
Tom Uohiltree; although know that
4 can, here and now, produce at least
300 estimable and veracious Dako-
hans, like my friends Fleming, Grigs-
by, Sterling, Wallace, Scott and Skin
her, who will make affidavits, on a
btack OF Northwestern railway guide
books q mile high, to the absolute
truthfulness of every assertion made.
l told these scoffing unbelievers that
Dakota is a peerless but modest land,
that never sounds the fish horn of its
own fame. That it is the worlds true
wonderland, where no storms or tenn
pests ever blow, and where all the
breezes are trained to sing psalm
tunes in pianissimo style. Our wild
est billiards, as unenllghtened South
erners and down-Easters delight in
terming them, are used by gentle
to lull their babes to Sleep.
The sun shines ever with a mellow
splendor that calls to mind the far /.
famed Happy Valley of Rasselas,"
and there is just frost enough in our !,
" inters to turn the elm leaves golden. !
No summer droughts or winter floods
'pread devastation-over the fields and I
ropes of our husbandmen. No army
worms or grasshoppers sweep those {
ertile plains and valleys with nibbling I
lesolation. No hail storms rattle their G
destroying musketry upon the grains .
md fruits and plate-glass window Q
,anes of that elysium, except now a
md thon just enough to furnish bust v
less to our ambitious young home hail v
Insurance companies. Bananas bloom u
a November, and young oranges are g
uR the day before Christmas. Raisins, "
tripsd stick candy, tin horns and II
unjun rubber dolls ripen always Just o
l time for Santa Claus peddler wag- n
q, with his reindeer team and "his q
tile round stomach that shakes when u
0 laughs, like a bowlfull of Jelly" D.
ineapplos and figs grow spontane- p
lsly on Canada thistle bushes every- al
here, while the cottonwood and dog pl
mel trees yield brook trout, necta- n,
le'and persimmons oflarge SIC and d
avor, canalboat load to the acre. re
pring roses bloom on the plain, gen. m
Q Annie, for New Years posies, and al
,tatoes grow as big as beer kegs at ha
10 roots of every tuft of prairie grass. III
8 | have often remarked, it is no I'M an
'mmon thing for whole Dakota WI
mily to sit on one end of potato an
bile the other end is roasting in the lal
e. Cabbageheads, of full Con- VI,
essional and Senatorial size, give J"
nth the fragrance of the iessa.
inc and honeysuckle to humming
rds as large as canvasback ducks, OF
d clad in all the prismatic glories of "
Q aurora borealis. We batch our
IN wild geese, of such dimensions Ia
at Eastern and Southern tenderfeet =,
e liable to mistake them for winged IN
ppopotami, on lakes of never-freez-
2 rosewater and cologne. We wall wa
} for wells the holes from which we ao'
III with steam derricks and 1900 go'
rise power Corliss engines, our rad TO 10
les and beets, and make cow
eds and circus tents of our u
rnip rinds. We put rockers I'M
r our empty pea-pods and use them ne, ne
. cradles. When we want a new MS
ion depot for our constantly ex- sac
,ding railroads, we simply cut
ors and windows and lay sidetracks sac
d switches in one of our ordinary siif
Id pumpkins. We ship our corn go'
llks for bridge timbers and telegraph Ina
les. aud cut our wheat straw into
we wood and wagon spokes. Da- the
ia is the sole remaining quarter sec IloI
n of paradise in all the western ano
rid. There no wave of trouble ever awe
Is across the peaceful breast, and :.
prosperous people who raise from CIV
enty-five to seventy-fve bushels of ges
den wheat to the acre of land that "a''