The Irish standard., 1911-07-01


Il being, he was just commencing that
marvellous career which has trans
formed the city of his home from a
settlement Of huts and wigwams into
this princely capital of commercial
empire, stretching far beyond the
limits Of American soil and bounded
only by the genius and enterprise of
man. And at the side of James j.
Hill at the very commencement of
their upward and onward journey
through fifty years of toll and pro-
gress, stood the companion of his
youth and of his later day,-on this
anniversary foremost in the foremost
ranks of American citizenship. SOL
Cier, priest and statesman, John Ire
land, Archbishop of st. Paul.
Ramsey and DonneIly.
Fifty years ago Alexander Ramsey
was governor. The last survivor and
one of the greatest of the
greatest of that remarkable body
Of war governors, his his
tory is known of all men and be-
longs not merely to Minnesota, but
to the nation. His absolute loyalty.
his executive ability, his promptness
of action in the darkest and saddest
period Of our nations history need
no recital here.
l except not even Abraham Lincoln
himself when I say that the awful
weight of war pressed no more heavi-
ly on the soul of any man than on
the soul of Alexander Ramsey, when
in the summer of 1862, without a note
of warning, the storm Of savage war
fare WIKI all its indescribable horror
burst upon the Minnesota border, and
never in all the records of duty we'll
performed did any man better face
a crisis.
lgnatius Donnelly was Lieutenant
Governor. Gifted with marvellous
graces of mind and person, endowed
with eloquence exquisite and rare. in
private and in public life and utter
,ance he ever stood for justice and
for right, and never cringed to place
or power
Tho Call and the Answer.
On Saturday. April IS, 1861, the
authorities at Washington were adj
vised that Fort Sumpter had sur
rendered. On the following morning.
Alexander Ramsey called at the Of
flee of Simon Cameron, Secretary Of
War and rendered to the government
in writing. one thousand men, armed
and equipped to put down the rebel
lion. On that very day the offer was
communicated to President Lincoln.
The one thousand men composed the
First Minnesota Regiment Of VOL
unteers, and it Is, therefore, entitled
to the splendid distinction Of being
the senior volunteer regiment of the
Union Army. On the following day
the President issued his call for
seventy-fiv thousand men and on the
evening Of that day at meeting of the
Pioneer Guards, a military organiza-
ton of st. Paul, a written agreement
was signed by number of it's men,
bers to enlist as volunteers in the
Union Army. The first man to sign
that agreement was the senior volun-
teer of the Army OF Liberty. AS g.
soldier and an officer Of the First
Minnesota he did a mans duty in the
Civil War. He is with us tonight, a
splendid specimen of physical and
mental manhood and modestly and
worthily wears the noblest badge of
honor that earth can give, the Senior
Volunteer of the Union Army, Josias
r. King
The Union Volunteer is the finest
figure in all the history of war. The
story of the world is in the main a
sad and dreary tale of blood and
tears. Stripped Of the tinsel of mill
tary glory the struggles of the past
reveal the sacrifices of the patient,
accompanying and unquestlontng null
titude to feed the vanity of Kings and
Rulers. To please the whinl of min
lister or favorite, to right fancied
wrong or to avenge a fancied insult,
the peoples of the past have filled the
earth with violence and blood.
1T was the English" Kaspar cried.
who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
could not we'll make out;
But everybody said' quoth he.
THAT twas a famous victory"
But these men who started for the
front fifty years ago today and their
comrades In arms comprehended
clearly and completely the meaning
Of the war for the Union. They an