The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-10-08
Nice President Of United States
Speaks At Cornerstone
Program
LAUDS PIONEERS OF WEST
Declares Predictions of Even
Most Fore-Sighted Have
Been Outdone

The text Of the address given by
Vice President Charles Curtis in con-
necticn with the laying of the cor
nerstone of North Dakota's new state
capitol building here Saturday after
noon follows:
Governor Shafer and ladies and
gentlemen:
1T is a pleasure to be invited to
attend the ceremonies Of the laying
OF the cornerstone of the new capitol
building of your splendid state. It
is an honor to be asked to come from
the great agricultural state of Kan
sas TO the great agricultural state of
North Dakota. 1t is not my purpose
to tell you of your wonderful growth
since your admission into the sister,
hood of states, nor to tell you of your
crops and your many good qualities
and advantages. There are others
here who will address you today who
are better informed and better pre-
pared to do this.
Being from the central west, may
I be pardoned If I refer to the fact
that in the early days of our country
there were those who wanted to be
colonists, to sit idly on the shores of
the Atlantic with the great West watt
ing for them.
Years later there were certain
great leaders who were blind to the
possibilities of the new world and
had no idea of its great opportunities.
One of the United States senators
wanted to fix the Rocky Mountains
as the western limit of the republic
He afterwards became the father-in-
law of the great pathfinder, John G.
Fremont.
Senator Was Wrong
1T was a senator from the great
state Of Massachusetts, who said: I'VE
will not be strained for elbow room
in the west for thousand years."
These were great and wise men but
they did not know of the wonderful
possibilities of the central west, the
farther west, and the northwest.
Then came the splendid advice given
by one of the able editors and lead
ing men of his day. Horace Greeley,
Go West, Young Man, Go West"
I'm the days that followed, the then
west had captains by the hundreds
whose heads and hearts and dearest
hope went into the doing of the i'm
mediate task they saw around and
before them, men who never dreamed
of compensation, never worked for
reward, never thought of the recon-
pense of fame-what they wanted
was to open up a new country and
develop its great resources.
Peace to their aSheS-Where they
sleep on green hillsides in unknown
graves in every state.
"Unheralded they came. and unre-
warded they have passed away, liv-
ing now in the blood and courage of
their sons and daughters, who in this
new age and day are doing their part
as their parents did before them!
There is another period in our
history to which I feel justified in
referring-that is the time when in
vention was opposed.
But today the people favor inven-
ton and discovery, they no longer
look upon new and novel things as
dangers, but rather as instruments
out of which are to flow blessings in
agriculture, industry, and to distrib-
ute wealth and happiness and to give
comfort and pleasure to the people
OF the world.
Read Pioneer Speeches
II have read with great interest
the speeches of public men in the
earlier days, in which were made
various predictions, all of which have
Leen verified, but none of the men
OF that day ever dreamed of the tele-
phone, the wireless, the radio, the