Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1897-04-29
WHERE THE RIVERS RUN NORTH.

Looking the clVlllzeu world all over
there are but few rivers whose waters
are borne northward#to the sea. The
Nile and the Rhine are perhaps the
most distinguished, but the Nile is in
a land where Jack Frost can never
reign, while the fountains of the
Rhine are held in their icy mountain
fetters till it's lower course has yielded
to vernal breezes and the sun. Several
Siberian rivers do, indeed, run north,
but they are out of the grain belt and
far from the hauDts Of man, SO that it
matters little where they run or wheth-
er they merely stand still and behold
the. glory of the Lord. In South
America the Amazon and the Orinoco
are 50 close to the equator that their
tides are never touched by Winters
chilling hand, and even the Parana
which runs far southwark from the
sun does not reach cline SO cold as
our own reindeer land.
It has been left for the unrivalled
northwest, this sui generis realm, to
furnish another Nile in the sphinxless
country where pyramids never get
ripe, where the soil is SO rich it needs
no inundation, and the banks are SO
insecure it is dangerous to make even
an alluvial deposit.
The Red River of the North, bound
for Boreas Land, hasa hardy pioneer
sound, an odor of winter furs, flavor
of romance and a haloof Indian glory.
A generation ago it was only streak
on the map, a drinking trough for
buffaloes and a piece of natural beau
ty to ravish the sight of only a Colum-
bus or a DeSoto. To-day it is gazed up
on from either side BY Halvor Steener-
son and Major Edwards, whose poetic
instincts are aroused by its purling
tide, and forthwith they go and drink
together elsewhere. ooirfesy we
say it runs, but as a.matter Of fact it
never runs and only mopes and dallles
along like the >Israelites in the wilder
ness till it reaches the promised land
of Manitoba and pours its consomme
into the liquid depths of Lake Winni-
peg. .:.~
It is this running northward in
wintry cline toward the frigid zone
that makes the Red River law unto
itself, and its valley the birth place of
populism. By running north for sew
eral hundred miles in this severe lati-
it is subject to peculiar spring time
penalty. Its headwaters thaw out
and burst their fetters while yet it's
mouth is closed, and like a populist
filled with emotions he can not ex-
press, it overfows its banks and
throws itself upon the mercy of the
country.
We have no doubt that it is this
freak of nature which has transformed
the Red River country from the old
faith to the new, and that it was the
glacial period that punctuated the
waters of the Red, turning them
northward to Hudson's bay instead of
pursuing their wonted course to the
Mississippi. It may be harsh to trace
the populist party back to the glacial
times and infer that all the seed
thoughts of such genial senators as
Cronkhite and Ringdahl have been
rocked in the icy cradle of the ages
for million years, only now coming
forth in life and vigor through the
warmth of liberty and the magic
wand of American citizenship. But
such is the inevitable conclusion after
careful study Of the mysteries of the
past, and the only hope for republi-
canism in the valley of the Red is to
ditch its waters into the Minnesota
and let them flow around via Fort
Smelling to the Gulf. Let Congress
man Eddy hear and heed this voice of
wisdom from the wilderness.
We have here given the origin and
only true cause Of great party which
from SO cold beginning has been
making it hot for its opponents. Like
the Children of Israel it got.its start