Speech on Duluth.

By JAMES PROCTOR KNOTT.

James Proctor Knott was born in Kentucky on August 29, 1830. He went to Missouri in 1850 and there began the practise of law. In 1858 he was elected to the Missouri Legislature and subsequently he became attorney-general. He returned to Kentucky in 1862 and was elected to Congress from that State in 1866. It was while in Congress that Mr. Knott attained national fame as a humorist. As a satirist he had no equal among his fellow members, and he was responsible for several bills being "laughed out of the House."

Mr. Knott's most famous speech was delivered in the House of Representatives, January 27, 1871, on the joint resolution extending the time to construct a railroad from the St. Croix River to the west end of Lake Superior. At that time Duluth was a small and almost unknown village. Knott's grandiloquent forecast of its future, intended as a satire, has since been in great part verified by the city's wonderful development. It now has a population of more than fifty-five thousand persons, and as one of the principal shipping points of the great Northwestern grain-fields it is world-famous.

Of this speech, which has long been regarded as a model of its kind, an abridged version is given below. The complete text may be found in the third section of the appendix of the Congressional Globe for 1870-1871, beginning on page 68.

Mr. Speaker: As to those great trunk-lines of railway spanning the continent from ocean to ocean, I confess my mind has never been fully made up. But with regard to the transcendent merits of the gigantic enterprise contemplated in this bill—to construct a railroad from the St. Croix River, or lake, to the west end of Lake Superior and to Bayfield—I never entertained a shadow of a doubt.

Now, sir, who that is not as incredulous as St. Thomas himself will doubt for a moment that the Goshen of America is to be found in the sandy valleys and upon the pine-clad hills of the St. Croix?

Sir, I have been satisfied for years that if there was any portion of the inhabited globe absolutely in a suffering condition for a railroad, it was these teeming pine-barrens of the St. Croix.

At what particular point on that noble stream such a road should be commenced I knew was immaterial, and so it seems to have been considered by the draftsman of this bill. It might be up at the spring or down at the foot-log, or the water-gate, or the fish-dam, or anywhere along the bank, no matter where. But in what direction should it run, or where should it terminate, were always to my mind questions of the most painful perplexity, until I accidentally overheard some gentlemen the other day mention the name of "Duluth."

Duluth! The word fell on my ear with a peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accent of an angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence.

Duluth! 'Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks. But where was Duluth?

Never in all my limited reading had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. And I felt a profound humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. I was certain the draftsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been designated as one of the termini of this road.

I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the library and examined all the maps I could find. I discovered in one of them a delicate, hair-like line diverging from the Mississippi near a place called Prescott, which I supposed was intended to represent the river St. Croix; but I could nowhere find Duluth.

Nevertheless, I was confident that it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times.

Thanks to the beneficence of that band of ministering angels who have their bright abodes in the far-off capital of Minnesota, just as the agony of my anxiety was about to culminate in the frenzy of despair, this blessed map was placed in my hands; and as I unfolded it a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured vision of the wandering peri through the opening gates of paradise.

There, there for the first time my enchanted eye rested upon the ravishing word "Duluth."

If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth not only in the center of this map, but represented in the center of concentric circles one hundred miles apart, and some of them as much as four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous sweep the fragrant savannas of the sunlit South, and the eternal solitudes of snow that mantle the ice-bound North.

I find by reference to this map that Duluth is situated somewhere near the western end of Lake Superior; but as there is no dot or other mark indicating its exact location, I am unable to say whether it is actually confined to any particular spot, or whether "it is just lying around there loose."

But, however that may be, I am satisfied that Duluth is there or thereabout, for I see it stated here on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred and ninety miles from Liverpool, though I have no doubt, for the sake of convenience, it will be moved back ten miles so as to make the distance an even four thousand.

Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unquestionably the most salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord's earth. Now, I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have, that in the regions around Lake Superior it was cold enough, for at least nine months in the year, to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive.

But I see it represented on this map that Duluth is situated exactly half-way between the latitudes of Paris and Venice; so that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating airs of the one or basked in the golden sunlight of the other may see at a glance that Duluth must be a place of untold delights, a terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever-blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of Nature's choicest songsters.

As to the commercial resources of Duluth, sir, they are simply illimitable and inexhaustible, as shown by this map. I see it stated here that there is a vast scope of territory, embracing an area of over two million square miles, rich in every element of material wealth and commercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth.

Look at this map; do not you see from the broad brown lines drawn around this immense territory, that the enterprising inhabitants of Duluth intend some day to enclose it all in one vast corral, so that its commerce would be bound to go there whether it would or not? And on this map, sir, I find within a convenient distance the Piegan Indians, which of all the many accessories to the glory of Duluth I consider the most inestimable.

For, sir, I see vast "wheat-fields" represented on this map in the immediate neighborhood of the buffaloes and the Piegans; and though the idea of there being these immense wheat-fields in the very heart of a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of miles beyond the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to some gentlemen as rather incongruous, as rather too great a strain on the "blankets" of veracity, to my mind there is no difficulty in the matter whatever.

Here, you will observe, are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth, and here, on the right of Duluth, are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buffaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on these immense wheat-fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their friends, the Creeks, and go into Duluth in the morning.

Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours and expatiate with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth as depicted upon this map. But human life is far too short and the time of this House far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill.

Ah, sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place, my constituents for whom I am acting here have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now perhaps agitating the public mind of Dominica as to whether the illustrious commissioners who recently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted; and in the second place, these lands which I am asked to give away, alas! are not mine to bestow.

My relation to them is simply that of trustee to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust?

Never, sir! Rather perish Duluth! Perish the paragon of cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the bleak Northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging St. Croix.