MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, AND TERRITORIAL PIONEERS -- There are but few of us present, but I think if we will make an effort at the next state fair we will get the pioneers of the state together. I am satisfied that we are fortunate in having the officers we have, and I know the pride that our President takes in all such matters that concern Nebraska, especially not only in horticulture; but agriculture and history, and for that reason he takes pride in getting out the old pioneers; and what one doesn't know the other will. And it is not a bad thing to get together and have a systematic statement of how we came into existence and what we are doing now. It has not been very long, according to the old pioneer, as you grow older and I grow older, and consequently thirty or forty years does not appear to be much. Of course, I am a young man; I came ahead of the railroads to Chicago and to the Mississippi and to Nebraska, and I know when Ben Wade and Lyman Trumbull and his party came to Omaha they held a little reception in the old capitol building on the hill. Trumbull said he had been out over the state of Nebraska, and thought it was a beautiful country, and thought in a short time it would be intersected by railroads the same as Illinois. There was no such place as Lin-

coln in those early times, but Lincoln was the product, you might say, of the first legislature that had power to legislate, and while it met with some opposition in my city of Omaha, still I thought Omaha was having the capital placed in a central point, where it was liable to remain, and it had a healthy locality and would build up into a beautiful city. The original bill was for "Capital City" and the parties that were putting the bill through had agreed among themselves that they would not allow in another man, but I happened to be a member at that time, and my colleague was Hon. Nelson Patrick. We said if there was to be a capital for Nebraska that it ought to have a good name, consequently we agreed we would bring forward the name of "Lincoln," which was brought up, and it took one vote from the opposition to carry it, and consequently this city has the name of Lincoln today. It is one of the best names you could have. Capital City was too much of a one-horse place in the wilderness, but we are no longer in the wilderness. In fact, when you come to consider that since the Civil War the population of the United States has doubled, then it is no wonder that Nebraska has its million of people. We have got plenty of soil and acres of land, and it wants what this horticultural and agricultural society is doing and the state officers are accomplishing, and we want to encourage the people to engage in that which will benefit mankind. So far as our schools are concerned we have as good an educational system as anywhere in the United States, and I am glad to know that the Census of the United States shows us standing at the front in reference to average intelligence. If there was a property qualification I think they would all vote, women and all. If we all come to know and look over the situation and compare things it will benefit us. I was unfortunate in 1855, and came up the Missouri river to Nebraska City, and we didn't have to turn out for farms, but the country prairie and the Missouri river along the old road leading to Nebraska City from Rulo was the handsomest country in the United States. I have heard about the Santa Clara valley, but we excel it.

   We have got a western man for president that is going to perfect a system of irrigation that will bring fruitfulness to the soil and prosperity to the state. I hope we will all live until we find this water stored here, and it has to evaporate. Certainly the United States is doing what England is doing in Egypt. They are piling up head dams and stopping up that great river, and they are going to raise all the tropical products and some that grow in the temperate zone. There is no bad land from here to the mountains; consequently, we must consider that we are fortunate in every respect. There is good water in Nebraska. See our old time-honored Governor Thayer of Nebraska hero of many wars, he is still here, proof that it is fine water, but you must not go out and keep your mouth open during a blizzard. But everybody thinks it is good enough to live in and to die in, and we will stay together and put in our energies and put in the work we ought to do. You may talk about your rivers, but we can look upon the Missouri and Mississippi as the longest river in the world. We have got a prosperous and vigorous community, one that was got the elements to create a state equal to an old state like New York or Pennsylvania. While we must not pretend to say that we have got the best interests, we will have interests equal to any of them. [Applause.]
   PRESIDENT FURNAS: Will Governor Thayer favor the Association with a few words?
   GOVERNOR THAYER: I am in no condition to speak, or even stand up. I had a misfortune happen to my limb, and it is paining me this afternoon. Why not call on some of the older ones of this organization, that are older in age?
   PRESIDENT FURNAS -- You are one of the oldest in years.
   GOVERNOR THAYER -- I was here at an early day. I recollect, but I can not take the time or make the effort to speak at any length this afternoon. I am much pleased at the coming around of this Association occasion. When this Association comes together, -- I wish I could have seen more here than I do at present, for it is an organization which should

be continued by meeting every year, certain and often. I am glad to have a meeting at the time of the meeting of the State fair; perhaps we can draw more together then than now.
   I might give some reminiscences of an early day. I recall well of meeting yourself [Mr. Furnas], for instance, at an early day here in Nebraska, your secretary [D. H. Wheeler], and others. My old friend, Mr. Kennard, I see here. By the way, I think if I were called upon to say anything I should call upon him to act as a substitute for me. There was a time, years back, when substitutes were put forward to take the place of others who didn't feel like going forward, and I know from experience that Mr. Kennard would be a good substitute. It was with reference to bringing the territory in as a State. I can recall how naturally my friend Kennard talked to the people in favor of it, but I will hardly enter upon that, unless you have something to say, Mr. Kennard. (I shall call upon him when I sit down.) We traveled north and south and westward in order to do what we could to help forward the introduction of the admission of Nebraska as a state. That brings to my mind an instance which is, and was at the time, very interesting to me, and in place of anything which I can not offer better, I will relate it. It is rather of national character. After the legislature had met and elected two senators with the view to the admission of the state, it became my duty to take a trip to Washington to take the constitution which had been prepared. Well, we found that we had something of a task before us.
   My first call upon the members of the Senate was upon the old hickory senator, Ben Wade, of Ohio. He was chairman of the committee on territories. He received me with a great deal of apparent satisfaction, for they were desirous of getting two more republican senators into the Senate. He took hold of the matter with great earnestness. I found I would have to visit a number of senators, and the next morning I called upon Sumner. It had been intimated that he would be against admission, because the word "white" was in the constitution, and I anticipated hostility, but several senators

advised me to see him. Mr. Tipton was not there at first and did not take much part in the work of admission. I sent up my card to Senator Sumner, and the word came down, "Show him up." I entered his room and he was sitting at his desk. There was one person present, Ben Perley Poore, whom some of you have known by reputation or have read of. He was a very prominent Washington correspondent, especially of the Washington Journal. I stated to the Senator my object in calling. He turned upon me almost fiercely and said, "How can the people of Nebraska send their messenger here and ask for the admission of Nebraska as a state with the word 'white' in its constitution?" Well, it was a rather abrupt way of meeting me. (I don't desire this to be taken down, I may some time put it in print.) I said, "it is there in the constitution, not by my agency in any respect. I don't like it there, but I had to present it just as it was delivered to me by the legislature." It was a matter that I had to meet on that ground.
   I said, "Mr. Sumner, I have my own views on that point, and I am as much opposed to the word 'white' in the constitution as you are. I have had some experience with the black people (I thought I would use the strongest arguments I could with him), and my association with them in the late war has made me pretty strongly in favor of the right of suffrage being given to the black race."
   That seemed to mollify him somewhat, and I went on and explained that during my service in the war I had two colored regiments under my command for nearly a year, and three Indian regiments. There was no doubt about the character of the blacks, but the Indian regiments, my experience were, that I would not give a farthing for them. I would not trust them near an enemy unless well supported by black and white troops. I had observed these black troops regularly while in camp and on the march. The black troops had the tactics and while in camp they would study them. They were trying to be soldiers, and they succeeded. I never saw better soldiers in front of the enemy than your black troops, and I

said to the senator, "they determined me in favor of giving them the franchise. I then learned that the men who had been fighting on my side of the Union were worthy to vote by my side, and that, should I reach Nebraska again, I said it will be my aim to enact the word 'white' out of the constitution."
   These remarks seemed to make a decided impression on him. I said furthermore, "We live and learn in this country. The people have to be educated. I can remember in my boyhood days reading when William Lloyd Garrison was chased through the streets of Boston by a howling mob, when the mayor of that city and police got him into the jail and turned the key upon the multitude to protect him. That was in your city of Boston. That can not be done now; things have changed. The people have changed and have improved in their own views on public affairs and public rights, and we shall change in Nebraska. The people will be ready ere long to blot that word 'white' from the constitution." All of this conversation made a decided impression on him.
   In a day or two afterwards I made the suggestion first to Senator Fessenden, a man who was more respected than some of them. I suggested this: "Supposing the legislature of Nebraska should come together and agree to accept the conditions which you may impose, passing your resolution through Congress declaring that the state might be admitted if the legislature would pledge itself faithfully to treat that word 'white' as a nullity."
   I will make the story short as possible. You recollect that, at the instance of Governor Saunders, a resolution which had passed both houses of Congress containing that provision, was agreed to by the legislature by a special act, the act which I took back to Washington. I came back to Nebraska advised that whenever the President should receive the act of the legislature of Nebraska, pledging itself to treat the word "white" as a nullity, he should declare Nebraska as a state admitted into the Union. I brought the act back and delivered it to him, and he issued his proclamation. During the

quarrel between the President and Congress his hands had been tied so completely that he didn't dare to hesitate to issue the proclamation because the air was full of impeachments then of the President. Nebraska was admitted in that way. Now I have stood longer than I felt able to stand, and taken up more of your time than I intended to, but I have taken this course to get out of the way of making any lengthy speech. I am glad to meet with you, and hope you will have the privilege of coining together many years in the future. [Applause:]
   PRESIDENT FURNAS: We thank the Governor for his short address. I was about to call out the same gentleman he named, and now I will call on Mr. Kennard to follow up Governor Thayer.
   THOMAS P. KENNARD:¹ Mr. President, and fellow members of the Pioneer Association -- I hardly know what to say before an audience of this kind. Is there anything better than to compare the past with the present, and comparing the past with the present anticipate the future? Is that right? In 1857 I lived in central Indiana. I took Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country." I came across from Indianapolis to St. Louis on my way to Nebraska. I arrived there before the opening of the navigation, early in the spring. I waited for the first boat up the river. I took the old Albemarle. It was the first boat on the river from St. Louis north. How long could some of you imagine it took to go from St. Louis to Omaha? We go to

sleep now in the evening and get up in St. Louis. I was just fourteen days coming from St. Louis to Omaha. That is the contrast. I got to Omaha and landed there in the little village with my friend Hascall. I think it had a population of about 800 at that time. I think there was but one brick building in the little town. I stayed there over night, and the next morning I started out-afoot and I walked to De Soto, twenty-two miles north.
   I will be brief. Now just one other stop. I lived there for a short time, and I didn't imagine that I would ever live to see the time that Nebraska would even be knocking at the gates of the Union to become a state. I don't think there was hardly a man in a thousand, or one hundred I might say, in this territory at that time that looked forward to the time when Nebraska would be a state. Nearly everybody had come here with the idea of making something and going back to their old home, but they didn't go. Why? Why, each successive year demonstrated irresistibly the conclusion that Nebraska would be a state. The flow of immigration commenced coining in, and every avenue was filled with it, and in a few years, as the General there says, there was a proposition that we become a state. He alludes to this so I am warranted in alluding to it, I suppose. General Thayer and I, I think, did more than any other ten men in this state in the canvassing in favor of state organization. I don't mean that we had more finish, but we did more hard work than any other ten men in the state. We canvassed every county north of the Platte, and a good many of them south of the Platte, and we went out to Grand Island during that campaign, and we stayed all night with old father Hedde.
   And now I will tell you what is the gospel fact. We were then at the entire outside edge of civilization and we were virtually beyond practical agriculture. I saw a load of corn there, and it was produced from what they called a certain kind of corn that they brought down there from Canada, and the nubbins were about eight inches long, and they could produce that kind of corn and haul it to Kearney, and sell it

to the soldier and make something out of it. Why, they didn't think they would ever become a state, but they were willing to risk this little corn and sell it at Kearney. But the result was, through Governor Thayer's efforts, we became a state. The people voted in favor of it.
   Friend Hascall alludes to another point in the development of this country -- when the legislature in their wisdom decided that to build a state they must enlarge the foundations, and they must move the capital from the city of Omaha and place it some place in the interior. In the act of Congress admitting us to the Union they had given us 500,000 acres of land to aid and assist in internal improvements, building railroads, etc. The legislature in their wisdom then provided and passed a bill that Mr. Hascall alludes to, appointing commissioners to locate the capital, and a bill providing that any railroad company organized should have, I think, 2,000 acres a mile for the first fifty miles, or something like that, I forget exactly, but it was giving so much out of this munificent gift from the general government to aid in the development of the state. The commissioners came down here and located this capital. I happened to be one of the commissioners, and on the evening after our first day's sale of lots we had a big bonfire over here about where the postoffice now stands. Standing there before an audience I made a prediction that became quite notorious at that time. I said, "I stand here now in the center of what will, in the course of time, be the Indianapolis of Nebraska. It will be the railroad center of this state." How far my prediction was verified late history and your own observation will tell.
   At that time there was not a foot of railroad south of the Platte river and west of the Missouri. How did we get down here? I will tell you, brother Hascall, I lived twenty-two miles north of Omaha. The first day I would drive down to Omaha. The next day I went across the river and drove down by the way of Council Bluffs to Nebraska City, and stayed all night, and the third day I was able to reach the place

where we now stand. From where I lived at the outside it now takes about three hours; it then took three days.
   I don't wish to occupy your time, and I don't know but what I have said now more than I should, but I wish to bring up these facts to show you, as every man knows, if he stops to think what we have done in the past thirty years, what still we may do in the next thirty years. Nebraska is the best agricultural state in the Union, and I don't leave out any one. The wealth of this country is in its soil. What is its gold, its iron, its silver, its copper worth if there was not something to feed the man who works in the mine? It all depends upon the agricultural resources of the country to make it great and prosperous. There was not a state in this Union after the storm of 1893 and 1894 that swept over this country from ocean to ocean, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, that recuperated as quickly and rapidly and thoroughly as the state of Nebraska. I think it is the verdict of every thinking man, simply because we are an agricultural country, the men and women, too, and the boys that went out and dug the wealth out of the soil and fed the other people and operated in that way to pay our debts. [Applause.]
   PRESIDENT FURNAS: He spoke of Grand Island as being on the outskirts of this country at that time. I remember it well; I remember the men who were pioneers in and about Grand Island. We have one of them here this afternoon, William Stolley, who was one of the first men to make that region of country what it is today.
   STOLLEY:¹ I know you very seldom make mistakes, but this time I guess you have. I am not accustomed to addressing an audience and I will be very brief. I

guess I have to ask your pardon at the start, at the same time I will attempt to say a few words. Mr. Kennard he made one remark about nubbins of corn. A little before he got to Grand Island civilization stopped. In what year was that, Mr. Kennard? He says 1867. Now it was in the year 1857, ten years earlier, that I organized the colony of thirty-five men and three women in Davenport, Iowa, to pilot them through the state of Iowa. These thirty-five men were to be started by a town site company, which expected to make big money there. They agreed to furnish the money and buy 320 acres of land under the territorial law at that time, but later on found that they could not do it, and so the settlers had to get it themselves, but they sank about $6,500 there in that settlement, and everybody had to go on his own hook. Now that was in 1857. The next year we had ten teams, one wagon with two yoke of oxen, and the next year I took out ten teams from Davenport, Iowa, in 1858, and we went right to work digging into the ground. I made the first landmark in Hall county, and I live on the same 160 acres today, and I propose to die right there. That was ten years before Mr. Kennard was there.
   The second year after we came there I contracted with the quartermaster at Ft. Kearney for 2,000 bushels of corn to be delivered in shelled corn at $2 per bushel. In those days the government had to pay $3.75 and get it from Ft. Leavenworth, so it was quite a saving to the government, and it was fine for us. Many a load of corn I have taken myself up the Platte river into Ft. Kearney and got my $2. Now that was seven years before Mr. Kennard was there. By that time I had a grove of six acres of cottonwood trees growing. I now have a park of about thirty-five acres, and I don't believe there is a nicer park in the state of Nebraska for different kind of trees. I have been inviting our president, Governor Furnas, and Mr. Morton, but I can not get them to go. I would enjoy it to take them around and have them take a glass of my own wine. But they don't come! Why don't you?

    THE PRESIDENT: We will.
    Now we had a pretty hard road to travel, that is so, but then we have got a nice city now, of which I am proud. I guess I was the cause of it. There was a fight about our city. They wanted to call it New Kiel; I thought it wasn't just right. Grand Island was suggested. It is named after the large island over there, but Grand Island holds its own pretty well, I think, and going into instances, there are quite a number of them, but it would look too egotistical to go into that.
   I will relate one incident that happened after we had been there three years, the first run we made out to the Loup. We met two men there from Des Moines, who set the prairie afire and burned out, and they had only one part of their wagon. All their guns were burned. It was a trapping partly, and we met them twelve miles above Kearney on Wood river. The fire jumped Wood river and went to Kearney and destroyed 400 tons of hay for the government. Before we met them we thought they were buffaloes, and we watched for the buffalo coming over a hill, and when they crossed over that hill I saw horses against the sky and, though it was getting dark, saw their horses' ears. I says, "Boys, don't shoot." We took them in, nearly starved, and gave them something to eat. We went on to the Loup and killed lots of buffalo and caught an Indian pony, and then it turned very cold, and then we came down to about ten or twelve miles above where Grand Island was. There was a Mormon settler located there. He had a dugout 14 x 24 and took the dirt and put it into the river, and only kept enough to cover his dugout, so you could hardly see it, but you could drive over it. When we got there and had been in the wind all day, and as tired as possibly could be (you know how that is), when one gets into warm air on an occasion like this, he will go to sleep nearly instantly.
   We had to have our supper. He was a Mormon and he had a wife and seven children, and they were only a year apart, and one looked just exactly like the other, just about the same, it seemed to be, so that the father got mistaken in their

names. When we got up to the table the young ones were ranged all around, and he prayed as a Mormon to the Heavenly Father and blessed and thanked Him for the blessings of the day. There was a crash above us just then. I had gone pretty nearly to sleep, and instead of going on with his prayer, the dirt came down onto our tables, and he says, "God ----," right in the middle of his prayer, and then I came very nearly running my fork into my nose. It was a big ox that tried to cross over the dugout; the ox came down with all four legs on the table. We had to get out, and we could not get the ox at all except by putting a chain around his neck and hauling him out. There is more of that kind, but I guess this will do. Now please excuse me, I can not speak off-hand. [Applause.]
   GOVERNOR FURNAS: We have with its today a young man who has had a conspicuous part in the development of this commonwealth. In 1854 the Kausas-Nebraska act passed, and this young man in the state of Michigan embraced the first opportunity to cast his lot in this then untried region or country. I have known him intimately since the following year. He has been a pioneer, trying to advance the interests and promote the good of this country we now enjoy. That gentleman is J. Sterling Morton, who is with us this afternoon. I call on him.
   HON. J. STERLING MORTON: I don't know that I can add anything to this reunion. As I came in I heard this remark from my long-time friend relative to the times in this state, how public sentiment had changed -- our senators changed their minds. It was suggested by him that this resolution should pass, and a legislature -- not the people of the state should ignore the word "white" in the constitution. That was a very remarkable statement and it suggested to me that there were other changes. He insisted upon this legislative act in the state of Nebraska as an additional precedent to its admission into the Union, declining to admit Kansas because it had done the same thing. So there were a great many things, -- t was a pretty good thing in Nebraska to make a

constitution without submitting that question to the people, and it was a very wrong thing to do the same thing in Kansas. The secretary and acting governor and I¹ organized Hall county in 1858 and appointed Stolley one of the commissioners -- we appointed the whole thing from Omaha. Already they had begun the cultivation of corn, and they had sent in specimens to show what they could do, that there were no nubbins, so I repudiate that intimation that they only grew small corn there. As early as the Pawnee War, you remember it, gentlemen, there was a very successful and prosperous settlement at Grand Island. I remember we sent a man by the name of Thomas Johnson, who was an agent of the stage line at Omaha, to notify Colonel May for troops to protect our people on the Elkhorn against assaults of the Indians, and Grand Island was a station. I think he made the trip to Kearney in three days, and through him we secured a company of cavalry under W. H. Robinson, who came down to the assistance of General Thayer and the governor of the territory. Grand Island was then a source of supply. Now, Mr. President, as to this invitation that Mr. Stolley has extended to you and me, I remember that is true. I wish to go, but he never said anything to me, and I presume not to you, about the wine. I presume you would have gone out, I am not sure about myself.
   The settlement at Grand Island was, as Mr. Kennard suggested, the pioneer settlement, and it was instituted there by the Germans, and I question whether any other people would have stood what they did for four or five years -- raising corn when it will not pay. While you had $2 a bushel it was not so very bad employment for any one. But beyond that, afterwards and a long time before Kennard's subdivision, there was quite a large farm on the north side of the Platte from Kearney. J. E. Boyd raised quite a good deal of corn; I think he raised enough to run a brewery there. (I can not

see how Kennard came so near to Grand Island and did not smell that brewery.)
   The travel in those days from the river to the Mississippi required a great deal of fortitude. I remember in the winter of 1867 of going from Council Bluffs in a stage to Iowa City. We had three on a seat. The fare was $21, and meals at stations consisting of sausage and hot bread and coffee, one meal $1 each. I wish to say that there was less grumbling about the facilities and comforts of traveling by stage coach then than there is in the Pullman car now. People now demand everything that the imagination can conceive of. In those stage coach days there was less fault-finding with methods of transportation, with the rates of transportation. I remember pretty well that I filed an original paper with our State Historical Society some time ago. I had great good fortune in raising potatoes one year. I found that the Denver market demanded potatoes and I sent out two wagons loaded, and they sold in Denver at 22 cents a pound, but the cost of transportation was 12 cents a pound, and after I paid the commission man and the other expenses I had about $55 left, so that the extortion of the mule society of that time was as great as the railroads today. So that I think while I have a great regard for the good old times, that the present times are rather preferable to men of our age.
   The experience related by Mr. Stolley about the ox reminds me of a trip taken with Mr. Woolworth in 1867. We got to Nebraska City, arriving there at dark. At that time Woolworth had to appeal a case in the supreme court. In driving out we drove over a dugout the same as he describes, and knocked down the stove pipe, and the proprietor of the mansion emerged from under cover in great rage.
   There is one thing among the old timers, -- we all felt our isolated condition. There was more cordiality in those days than in these civilized times. We loved company, and it was a God's blessing when some one came to the home out on the prairie, a long ways from neighbors and you could shake a friendly hand. There was a certain open-hearted cordiality

that was heartfelt all over these prairies everywhere in the West. I am sorry to say that with the luxuries of more refined civilized life that cordiality that existed then has largely passed away.
   I remember Judge Bradford, whom we met in Iowa. He said it was a very cloudy night, and he and Judge Bennett arrived at a cabin and asked to stay all night. They said, "Yes, but we can not give you much. We have nothing but corn meal and salt and water," and he said the cake was made and they could judge of it. After supper he lighted his pipe and then heard the woman of the house say to her husband, "John, it those pups sleep in the meal much more it will not be fit for bread."
   PRESIDENT FURNAS: The women did their part well in pioneer days. I see before me a lady who was a pioneer school teacher on an Indian reservation. She is here with us as a pioneer today, Mrs. MacMurphy.
   MRS. MACMURPHY: It is true that I was a teacher in the very early days when I was a girl of fourteen, and moreover I was a teacher under one of the friends who is with us today. I taught in Governor Furnas's family on the Omaha Indian reservation, in the year, I think, of 1864. In fact, one of the pupils that I have just been passing the usual salutations with, that have been a pleasure between us for a good many years, never ceases telling me how I treated him and how I was under contract to make him behave, and I in turn tell him that he didn't seem to be under contract to behave, and now this we enjoy very much. This pupil was one year younger than I was.
   After riding over the prairies of Iowa, day after day, my father and his family, the most of them in a wagon, which he had covered and made comfortable, and back of it a buggy with one horse driven by myself, a girl twelve years old, with my little twin brothers beside me. We went as you have, starting in the morning from a house where we got shelter the night before, and would go perhaps all day long over the hills, not seeing another house until we reached some place

where we could get shelter at night. We came to the Missouri, and a vivid picture is before me -- beside it a young girl standing out there barefoot, a beautiful girl, as the average would make of that class. We learned afterwards that she was even then only about fifteen years old, and a widow of Jules, for whom Julesburg was named. We waited there for the ferryboat to come to the landing to take us across the river, and then we were in Nebraska. There are other pictures still more beautiful. I feel that I stand here as a representative of several generations of pioneers. One of them whom you know well.
   My husband was even earlier than I to come to Nebraska, up the Missouri river in the boats as it has been related, in the year 1867 to Decatur, the town almost the earliest to be settled and to which the first railroad was laid out, an air line from Chicago to Decatur. That town is still waiting for its railroad.
   My husband and I in the years after had planned that when the railroad reached Decatur we should go into Decatur on the first train. He has passed out, and it may perhaps be my pleasure yet to go if such an event should occur, because but very few of you can understand, unless you did live in that section, the stage difficulties, and the efforts and desires of a number of marked individuals who lived in that queer little town in their efforts to have a railroad there.
   PRESIDENT FURNAS: We haven't the acquaintance of the other ladies here. Those of you who have please call out their names that they may take part in these reminiscences. If not, I will call upon General Vifquain.
   GEN. VICTOR VIFQUAIN:¹ Mr. President -- We are not young men any more. Years have whitened our hairs, besides myself, and I hope for most of you that the heart is still

young, but I assure you I remember with the greatest pleasure the friends I made forty-five years ago in the state of Nebraska. I received my first lessons from Morton. I have been steadfast ever since; I will remain so. We made it a matter of pride then as voting men to honor the state by whatever we might be called upon to do. We didn't think to make money. We thought the world was going to take care of us. Some of us have been sadly disappointed. The world takes care of those who take care of themselves, because this is a very selfish world, Mr. President. And when I thought of this meeting this morning I was hoping that I would meet more of the old settlers of the state, of the continentals you might call us, the Old Guard. There are too few to hear our old friend, Mr. Cox. There are more that ought to be here. I don't know of a single one of the old citizens of the state that have been conspicuous who has disgraced the state; most of them have honored the state, and the young generation owe them a great deal, but they don't think they do. One thing that I regret very much is that some people don't take interest enough in the education of the fireside to teach their children what they owe to those who have made the state and who have kept it. This is a good time to speak of such matters. I think we have all thought of that, but know we have been derelict in teaching them that which they should know. I hope at some other time when we meet again there will be more of us. We will feel more free to talk because the number is larger. I thank you for your attention. [Applause.]

© 2000, 2001 Pam Rietsch, T&C Miller