St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-06-08
JAMES j. HILL.

During the past quarter or century
ST. Paul and the Northwest have pro-
duced many men of ability, strength OF
character, wide intellectual attainments
and power to achieve important results.
But they have produced only one great
man, and he is JAMES }. HILL, to the
story of whose career the GLOBE de-
votes many of its columns this morning,
and whom the people of this city do
proud to honor today.
Mr.. HILL is great man in the mod
ern sense. He belongs to the class which
in the histories of the future will occu-
by the pages devoted by the annalists
of old so exclusively to the doings of
statesmen and the details Of military
conquests. The development Of the
American continent has given new di-
recton to the efforts of masterful minds.
In an earlier age broadly creative ge-
MUS found no adequate scope for its ac-
tivities, and no commensurate reward
save in the arena of public life. To
make and unmake kings, to govern
principalities, to consolidate empires
iuto political unity. whether by craft or
strength, at the head Of armies to crush
their countries foeS-theSe were the
pastimes and the ambitions of the best
of the generations which are gone. The
brows of those who did the most in
things of this sort wear the wreaths Of
the worlds memory.
In this hour and in our country it
is all different. The forum and the
senate chamber do, it is true, invite the
presence of men of respectable parts.
There are still, too poets and writers of
books, with acute brains working In
their studies and venerated by their
fellows as were their prototypes of a
hundred years ago. In the sacred cir
Gle of the church priests of sanity lives
labor now as ever for Gods glory and
humanity'S good. No one enclosure
pens up the aspirations of powerful
souls. Every avenue is thronged with
busy masses of earnest, toilful men.
But in America during these decades the
best men are enlisted in the ind ustrial
army. The men who can do the most
with resistless attractiYen eSs by the
factory. the counting room and the
railway Office. The problems Of i'll
duStrial consolidation and expansion
are the problems which engrOss the
energies of the nations strongest minds.
TO be the head of great enterprise
smoothly running and successfully pro-
ducing, gratifes nowadays the same
feelings, in the corresponding type of
mankind which found its salts
faction once upon time in states
craft and wars aIarmus.
Among many captains and princes
Mr. HILL stands king in this, the
highest form of contemporary life. The
same genius which has enabled him to
build a railroad from st. Paul to the
Pacific coast would in another age
have made of him a HILDEBRAND or a
RICHELIEU. He has had faith in him
self and in the country where he has
worked. He has had the strength to
command and the skill to persuade.
With no initial equipment except a
stout body and the capacious brain
God had placed in il. he came to the
front like the young Corsican of the first
empire, because he eXcelled in foresight,
in power to work, In self-confdence and
in courage.
He has built his own monument, and
it speaks his praises. We of st. Paul
and the Northwest raise arches and set
bunting flying to the breezes. which
will last for, perhaps, day or two. But
the real glory of such a man is in his
own abiding haudiwork-and what we
do is only like an index finger designed |
to point attention to the greater struct--
ures which he himself has reared, and |
which are the wonder and the admira-
ton of the world.