The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1913-02-20
Petition Now Before
Committee at Capitol
MUCH ENTHUSIASM Is CALLED
FORTH OVER PROPOSED
LINCOLN MEMORIAL


ed during the latter part OF last week
states that the memorial and petition
Of the students and faculty of the State
. Normal school had been received and
referred to the proper committee in
the legislature. Since the first action
was taken up last week, the memorial
has caused much comment, and it has
called forth no little enthusiasm. On
Thursday during the general exercises
the entire student body signed the pc
tition drafted by Prof. Andrews, and
appropriate addresses We're made by
President Mcfarland and several
members of the faculty. Miss Paula
Kittel spoke in behalf Of the students
The memorial reads as follows:
To the Honorable Governor and
Members of the Legislature of the
State of North Dakota, Greeting:
The undersigned members of the
faculty and the student body OF the
State Normal School, of Valley City,
North Dakota, assembled to celebrate
the birthday of Abraham Lincoln,
have the honor to present the follow
ing memorial. We desire to call to
your attention most excellent oppor-
tunity that is afforded the citizens OF
North Dakota permanently and ap'
propriately to express their gratitude
and friendliness to the citizens OF a
nation with which our State is es-
pecially bound by indissoluble ties of
sympathy and brotherhood.
In 1914 there will be celebrated in
Norway the one-hundreth anniversary
of the adoption of the Norwegian Con-
stituion and the establishment of
Norwegian liberty. This great cen
tennial will be fittingly observed with
national homecoming of the citi-
zens and former citizens of Norway
and with an exposition which will es-
pecially relate to the splendid body OF
Norwegians who have emigrated to
United States.
The State of North Dakota is ever
free to acknowledge its vast obliga-
tons to those Norwegian settlers and
pioneers who have done so much to
develop our state industrially, com.
mercially, and politically. We cannot
but experience feeling of sympathy
and pride when we know that, next
year, the centennial of Norwegian free
dom, the citizens of Norway will cele.
brate in Christiana our own day of pa
triotic and humanitarian rejoicing,
the birthday of American indepen.
dence, the Fourth of July.
The State of North Dakota can
we'll afford formally to recognize the
inestimable contributions Norway has
made to our population and our pros
perity. Certainly it should be our
aim in all ways to foster and to inten.
SHY the good feeling existing be-
tween that nation and our state.
If any one American citizen fully
sums up in his own life and character
the ideals of human freedom and
equality which Norway is to celebrate
so deliberately in 1914, that man is
Abraham Lincoln. ", }.3,;
Among the citizens OF North Dako
ia is numbered gifted young sculp'
tor, of Norwegian ancestry, Paul
Fjelde, himself the son of a noted
Norwegian sculptor and the product
in large measure, of North Dakota
schooling and inspiration. This tai
ented young man is at present working
with dorado Taft, the leading Ameri
can sculptor, in whose studio and by
another of whose pupils was designed
the splendid statue Of Sakakawea
which adorns our State Capitol
grounds.
al VIC" VI oAA LACoO IdCIo, lie
dersigned respectfully petition that
the present Legislature of North Da
kota authorize the preparation by the
sculptor Paul Fjelde of statue, not
less than life.sized, of Abraham Lin.
coin; that two copies of this statue
be cast in bronze; that on the Fourth
-of July, 1914, these two statutes be
unveiled simultaneously, one in the
city Of Christiania, Norway, and the
other at Bismarck, North Dakota, the
gifts Of the state of North Dakota
that these dwellings be accompanied
by noted orators and with all appro.
by nted orators and with all appro.
p" ate ceremony.
and, in order to make possible this
fitting expression of our friendship for
the Norwegian people, we further pc.
tition that the present Legislature ap-
propriate for the purpose the sum of
seven thousand dollars wherewith to
IVY costs roughly estimated at $1,000