The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1916-01-06
FROM NEWSbOY TO
NATIUNAL FIGURE
HON. KNUTE NELSON'S VARIED
CAnLHR aOLD IN CHICAGO
DAILY TRIBUNE
HARDSTRUGGLEASYO
PRESENT LAWS WOULD HAVE
BARRED HIM FROM ENTER
ING AMERICA

NelSOII, UullAlCoOI0 oSAhAOA ~
representative in the United States
senate, is the subject of nearly COL
umn length sketch in the Chicago
Tribune. The "story" as sent to the
paper by it's Washington correspond
cent, is in part as follows:
"As l look back over the years"
sthe senior senator from Minnesota
began leisurely, sit seems more like
"a dream, saga, a romance, II you
will, rather than an accomplished
fact"
Whatever Knute Nelson may call
mis- life in the retrospect, he looks
back upon a distinguished career
which began one July day more than
ssixty-fve years ago, when he, little
Norwegian boy, landed at Castle Gar
den.
81 was six years DID," he said "and
any mother was widow. We were
S45 in debt, and if the immigration
laws had been then what they are
snow we would not have got ln-but
we did, and went at once to Chicago
where my mothers brother lived.
There was little Norwegian set
element there on the North side, on
what was called the Point-a bit of
Wells and Kinzie streets-and my
uncle lived there with his wife and
children.
"Of course the town was mud
hole and my first recollection was
that awful horror of the cholera,
(which carried people off by the hun
edreds. My aunt got up one morning,
prepared breakfast for the family,
and at noon she was dead. The child
rren died Immediately after. | remem-
tber going to the funeral. They were
buried in the south end of what is
now Lincoln Park. l, too, was stricken
with the disease but managed to
survive some strange way or other"
The senator named school and
church as more cheerful things" of
those days. The senator took off his
gold-bowed spectacles and laid them
.on his desk. 81 recall the school l
attended on the north side somewhere
Il can't remember the location,
but the church l went to was on Su-
perior street, and the pastors name
was Paul Anderson.
"Of course, we were poor-we all
had to work hard" he continued.
~My mother lived out as house
keeper with some people on the north
side and went to live with a family
on the west side. One of my duties
was to drive the cows to pasture in
the morning and go after them at
might, out over the old plank road"
The plank roads Milwaukee avenue
NOW. In the house where lived was
a boy named Harrisville who used to
carry the Chicago Tribune. Once he
was sick and 1 took his job, deliver
ing the Tribune for three weeks"
"We lived in Chicago about year
and a half, and then in the fall of
1850 my mother married and we NOV
ed to Wisconsin-going to Milwaukee
by boat and the rest of the way in
lumber wagon"
Senator Nelson will be 70 years old
ON the End of February. His eyes are
a keen clear blue, his cheeks ruddy
his hair white, and his manner DELHI
crate and undisturbed.
81 was an unruly boy outside of
school," he unused on, "got into scraps
and various kinds of trouble, but man.
aged to behave myself in school,"
Newspapers were his only reading
outside of school, he said.
Senator Nelson was private and
noncommissioned officer in the Fourth
Wisconsin regiment during the war
of the rebellion and was wounded
and taken prisoner at Port Hudson,
La, in June of 1868. At the close of
the war he taught school and read
law.
1t was in July, 1871, twenty-five
years after he came to Castle Garden,
that he moved to Minnesota and be-
gan a career which has made him
one of the great factors in state and
national politics.
He was elected to the Forty-eighth
congress for the Fifth district of
Minnesota and was member of the
house of representatives for six years.
He was made governor of Minnesota
in 1892 and reelected in 1894. He
came to the United States senate in
1895, and although, according to his
Own confession, he has been Gin many
rcd hot political fights" he is unscar-
rcd.
81 have always thought that when ]
was 70 years DID," he declared, thot-
fully, I'D retire from public life. 1t
seemed to me that was a good and
appropriate time to slip out of the
political harness-but | suppose !
Nas over persuaded" A great many
p 9plc were used to me, so to speak,
a,d if serve out this term | shall
We been in the United States Senate
fcf twenty-four years"
FIRST "LTNCLE TOM" DEAD
The oriUinal nortraver of tba rola