The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-01-02
IGNATIUs DONNELLY, AUTHOR,
ORATOR, LEADER OF MEN, IS
CALLED VERY SUDDENLY
HEART FAILURE THE CAUSE
DEATH CAME AT MIDNIGHT. WITH
BUT A FEW HOURS
NOTICE
HE SEEMED WELL AT MIDDAY
When He Went From His Country
Home to minneapolis to Do
Some Literary
Work.

Ignatius Donelly, world famous as an
author, nationally famous as an orator.
and figure in the political affairs of his
country for over forty years, died sud-
denly at midnight last night at the home
of his father-in-law, Martin Hanson,
1922 Eighteenth avenue South Minneapo-
lis
Mr.. Donnelly has been apparently in
good health for man of his years and
left his country home at Nininger, near
Hastings, where he has lived since 1857.
about noon yesterday to go to Minneapo-
lis to read some proof sheets on his pa
per.
About nine o'clock last evening he was
taken i'll and at midnight he died
Ignatius Donnelly had taken position
in American literature almost pre- eminent
for it's versatility and for the iconoclas-
tic disregard of old traditions, literary or
economic, which he exhibited in his writ
ings.
DONNELIYS CAREER.
Born in Philadelphia Nov. 5 1881 he
was educated in the public schools ana
studied law, but shortly after his adj
mission, at the age of &c, he removed te
Minnesota. This was in 1857. He rap
idly took a front rank at the bar of the
then territory, and when the first cleo
ton under statehood was held he was
the nominee>of the Republican party for
lieutenant governor. In 1861 he was re-
elected and at the next election he was
sent to congress from the then Second
district, which he represented during thu
days of reconstruction. "'
On locating at Nininger, Dakota eoun-
ty, in 1857, he had established a weekly
paper, mainly devoted to the encourages
ment of immigration and on his return
from congress he again devoted himself
to literary pursuits, although retaining
an active interest in affairs politically.
From 1874 to 1878 he was state senator,
and his wide knowledge and keen wit
made him even more feared in the state
forum than he had been in the national.
Among his first pretentious literary
works was an essay ON the sonnets of
Shakespeare, which aroused much inter-
est, but which was to bear greater fruit
later when his thorough study of the
Shakespearan early editions led
him to write his work on the Baconian
cipher, which has been the subject of
the most severely critical study by the
men of letters in English speaking coun-
tries ever since. In 1882 he gave to the
world Atlantis, the Antediluvian
World" in which he endeavored to de-
monstrate that in what is now the At
lantic, southwest of the straits of Glib
raltar, there had existed an island almost
continental in its dimensions, which had
been the tabled garden of the Greeks.
the Hesperides The wealth of legends
of all the races under the sun which
We're presented in support of the pre-
historic existence of this island was mar
velously intricate, well connected and
ingenious, not to say plausible. The next
year a public, which had taken Atlantis
ravenously. was free with Ragnarok, in
which he endeavored to prove that the
deposits of clay, gravel and decomposed
rocks characteristic of geology's drift age
were the result of a collision between
this earth and a comet
With the advent of the Farjers all
lance in the early SOS and the subse-
quent development of the originally nom
partisan body into an effective factor
in the politics of Minnesota, Mr. DON
nelly was an eminent factor, AMI this
brought down upon him the vtuperative
maledicitions of the leaders of both the
old parties, without swerying him, how
ever, from his own beliefs. Caesars
Column" one Of the most vigorous of the
flood of purposeful, but earnest volumes
that followed upon the labor troubles of
the SOS; Tho Golden Bottle" CDR HUI
guet," ''The American Peoples Money
and hest of other works come drirp-
ing from his facile pen and reached
editions Of five figures, almost before the
ink was dry on their pages
In 1887 he was returned to the house OF
representatives and in 1891 to the state
senate, where he was the central figure
in a series of debates such as have not
been heard there since. His last politi-
cal service was in 1897. as a member of
the state house of representatives
He was several times nominated for
governor of Minnesota, but failed of ele,-
ton, and last fall he was the nominee OF
the Mid Read Populists for the national
vice presidency.
Keen in perception. and marvelousiy
ready in reply, Mr.. Donnelly was, per-
haps, the most merciless Of al the de-
ture of his state while in the nat onaI
congress he demonstrated to colleagues
that the then fronti-r had no apologies
to ask in comparative ability of its older
neighbors in the slsterhood of stat s.
Gifted with a memory almost marvel
Gus, an indefatigable reader, and with all
the wealth of poetry that a long line Of
Irish ancestry ccud give him, his or tons
were almost faultless in diction, and in
his powers as an orator he was always
as forceful and as facila as with his
pen. His lectures brist.ed with wit and
glistencd with hun.or; his impromptu adj
dresses were apt and always iaterest-
1ng. =
For several years Mr.. DonnelIy lad
been proprietor and chief ed t5r OF
weekly paper, The Repre- zen a I've, and
the reports Of his death received from
Minneapolis indicate that he died almost
in the literary harness. having gone f ON
his farm to Minneapolis to red proof