Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-06-16
RECEPTION and PARADE
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experience of an after-dinner speaker,
he entertained and edited his hear
ers and was particularly effective in
his reference to the early history of
this section of the country, with which
he had long been acquainted. He re-.
ferred to the time when he first went
to st. Paul, when there were but a
few hundred people there, and it was
necessary to depend on Joe Rolette,
OF Pembina, to bring in enough on the
census rolls to make a decent show
ing. He caused much laughter by
telling the story OF how Rolette saved
the capitol to St. Paul and haw, by
that fact, he had laid the people Of
Minnesota under lasting obligations to
the Dakotas. Proceeding to the more
serious aspects of his address, the
archbishop said:
With the dying of the applause that
greeted the conclusion of the arch
bishops address. Judge Carmody an
nounced the conclusion of the cere-
monies and the meeting broke up
the extension of further personal con-
graduation to the archbishop and tho
bishop.
Gentlemen: | thank you for your
cordial welcome extended me by the
preceding speakers. 1t is very
great pleasure for me to be in Bis
marck this evening to see before me
representatives of this promising
state. I have, l deem it, some merit
In being present, for had something
to do in bringing around the occa-
sion which we are gathered together
to honor In looking over the north
west, discovered the greatness and
the possibilities of Bismarck and of
North Dakota and l did my best to
have a bishop placed in Bismarck,
and it is very gratifying to know that
that action was approved by authori-
ties higher up and that it is accept
able to yourselves.
AS a Minnesotan and being from
st. Paul, ought to be very grateful
to this part of the country. I remem-
Der very we'll when the troops that
had followed General Sibley as far
as Fort Lincoln returned. We were
told by nearly all Of them that North
Dakota would never be anything but
desert, because it was all alkali.
Now see what we have. The state
of North Dakota alone forms half of
the old territory of Dakota, with a
population between six and seven
hundred thousand, with cities like
Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake,
Bismarck and Minot, put on the map
within the last few years. Public in
situations, hospitals, academies, rail-
roads in every direction-marvelous
What is the cause The fertile soil
and the salubrious atmosphere What
is the cause? The age, an age of
electricity, steel, railroads. What is
the cause? That spirit of personal
initiative that is so characteristic of
America. If I were to define in one
word the difference between America
and other countries, l should say it
was personal initiative. Every Am
erican goes right ahead, provided, of
course, that the general discipline
and general rights be respected. In
other countries men depend upon the
government to tell them what to do
and where to go. In America the in
dividual tells the government itself
what to do and where to go. This is
characteristic of America and that is
what has made this country. That is
what brought the first pioneers from
the Atlantic across Ohio Indiana, H.
linOis and up the Mississippi and that
is what has created in so few years
this great state of North Dakota
that spirit of personal initiative. 1t
is this which animates men of all
classes in these new countries. You
find toiler, farmer and professional
men, and right here in Bismarck, in
North Dakota, when it was necessary
to organize governments of cities, of
the state, when it was necessary to
open up the state house and put men
at the helm of the ship of state. you
find scholars, statesmen, men of pro-
gressive ideas, so much so, that your
state all at once, within a quarter of
a century, rose up among the other
states of this great country.
Give credit to your great Creator,
who gave fertility to the soil and
healthfulness to the air, who scat
tered lakes and rivers through this
region; but give credit to the spirit
of america, this great country which
today numbers her citizens nearly by
the hundred million and which in the
near future is destined to be in popu-
lation the first country in the world
as it is today, and God grant that it
ever be the first country in the world
in liberty, and thank God that there
is an America and let us particularly
thank God that we are citizens of that
great country.
There is no doubt whatsoever but
that North Dakota and Bismarck, it's
capital city, are just entering, might
say, seriously upon the pathway of