St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-05-30


PRESIDENT CYRUS NoRTHRoP,
OF the state university, was introduced
and delivered the Grafton of the day, in
which he first reviewed the inception of the
project to establish our exposition Sept IA,
and the subscribing at 500, 600 on the 18th
day and the holding of meetings subse-
quently resulting in the raising of the bal
ance of 1888, 33S by the first of January.
Next the selection of a location and mag
nifcent gift from East Minneapolis of the
present site, comprising five acres of land
worth S125, 600. In this connection he
gave brief description of the details of
the building when completed, as follows:
THE FRONTS OF THE BUILDING
on Main street and on Ortman street are each
356; those on Bank street and on First ave-
nue. are each 1886 feet. The heighth of the
building from the ground line to the main
corn1ce is SO feet, and to the top of the dome
on Main street is IA feet. The heighth to
the top of the pavilion, on the corner of Main
street and First avenue is 128 feet. The
smaller pavilions are each liz feet high. The
great tower, on the corner of Main and Bank
streets, is 34% feet square. The first balcony
OF this tower is 100 feet from the ground and
large enough to accommodate 400 people.
The upper balcony is about 200 feet from the
ground. The tower extends still above this
and the mast which surmounts it will have at
its summit an electric light, which will be
about 260 feet above the level of Main street.
May 1t be symbol of the exposition itself,
seen from affair, and shedding it's light
all around it in every direction.
Within this building there are three floors,
and there will be more than seven and half
acres of floor space for the accommodation of
exhibits. And here will be gathered together
and exhibited for the delight and amusement
and education Of the people, in the bright
days OF Minnesota autumn-and there are
no brighter days than Mimi esota's bright
days-the products of the useful and the fine
arts-all that bring comfort to the body, de-
light to the mind; and, as most people do not
do as well as they might, because they do not
know what other people have done, this ex-
position is to be most effective stimulus to
invention and most influential industrial
school. teaching by example, and making
men conscious at the same moment of wants
never before felt and of powers never before
known. And it is this increase of want, with
I the increase OF power to supply them, that
always marks progress from barbarism to
,-, HIGH CIV LIZATION.
But what, it may be asked is the city of
Minneapolis that thus takes upon herself the
erection of palace for the exhibition of the
products of industry, and of genius, as well
as the curious and instructive products of
nature; that snatcheS the sceptre from Chi
cago by erecting building that far surpasses
tured, but inefficient New Orleans that what
she has accomplished after long months of
alternate hope and dispair on the part of her
visitors. can be more than equaled in few
weeks by the application of the ordinary
vigor and nerve of the Northwest; that warns
that ancient, that most complacent, that
most sef-appreciative and self-satisfed, that
calmest and most passionless of all American
old ladies, the city of Philadelphia, that the
laurels which she gained a few years ago by
the Worlds Centennial exposition are with
cred and faded compared with those which
Minneapolis is about to bind about her own
fair brow? What is this city of Minneapolis
that thus steps to the front, and demands
the
ATTENTION OF THE WORLD.
But little more than thirty years ago the
territory on the other side of the Mississippi,
where now you see the larger part of the city
of Minneapolis, was an Indian reservation,
with no trace of the white man, or of the civ
ilization which he brings. The settlement on
this side of the river was small, scattered and
but few years old. Minneapolis was incor-
porated as a city twenty four years ago. To-
day its property is assessed at $50, 0O0 600; its
real value is much greater. Its population
/. five years ago was $4,000. To-day it is $780,
600. Its new buildings erected last year num-
bered 1870 and were Of the value of SO, u.s.
600. Its real estate sold during the last
year amounted to $24, 78S, O00 Its saw mills
along the banks of the Mississippi produce
313, 99S, 600 feet of lumber in a year. Eighty
thousand carloads OF wheat, amounting to
80, 900 bushels, came to the city in 1885,
and the 25 flour mills converted q large por-
ton of this into 100000 barrels of -four. 1t
is city with more than S20,000,000 invested
in manufactures, city in which more than
1880 new firms engaged in business the last
year. A city whose wholesale jobbing trade
rises into the hundreds of millions. A CITY
whose flour mills can produce 32,475 barrels
foundation of noble building, at a cost of a
Quarter of million dollars, to meet the wants
of free public library, art gallery
and academy of sciences. A city with
more than so churches. A city with
$4,000 children enrolled in the public
schools, and taught by $50 teachers, city in
which the press is represented by twenty
nine publications, city in which there are
two medical colleges and there is soon to be
another, city in which are gathered people
from almost every quarter of the globe, who
yet live together in peace and rejoice in the
good name and prosperity of Minneapolis
All where thirty-two years ago was little be-
side an Indian reservation. on which the COW
etous eyes of the white man had long looked
but on which no white man could then build
a, dwelling. The change is almost I'M
paralleled in the history of the world
1t is no mushroom growth, like some
mining city springing up on the dis
coveryl of ore, and destined to decay as
speedily as it has grown when the ore is ex-
hausted. 1t is O permadent growth, and the
foundations of permanent prosperity have
been laid here. For with enterprise and
wealth all that constitutes civilization and all
that tends to ennobe people in culture and
in character, have also come here to bless u.s.
rejoice in the prosperity of which see such
abundant proof, because l believe that the
moral forces necessary to make this country
what nation should be are actively at work
and in due time will produce here a civiliza-
ton different indeed in many respects from
that which exists in the older states and coun-
tries but by no means necessarily inferior to
that. 1 do not believe that poverty is neces-
sary to purity, nor that squalor and want are
|. the necessary landmarks OF education, nor
that rigid confinement to the absolute essen
tials of life tends to the development of taste
or the growth of literature of power. On
the contrary, 1 believe that all good infu-
ences operate most powerfully when men are
lifted above the grinding exRctions OF hope
less and endless toll. welcome therefore,
every accession of real wealth to the state as
a contribution to the general fund by which
humanity is to gain leisure for the develop
ment of something besides muscle, and for
the qualification of something besides appe-
tite. The true grandeur of q nation is not in
material wealth, however, but in the charac-
ter and culture of the people in their free
dom from ignorance, and vice, and
bigotry, and prejudice, and selhshness.
Such character and culture are not
by any means the necessary at
PENDANTS of wealth. Yet people who enjoy
general prosperity are in far more hopeful
condition for securing even these, than peo-