of material wealth and commercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth. Look at it, sir! [pointing to the map]. Here are inexhaustible mines of gold; immeasurable veins of silver; impenetrable depths of boundless forest; vast coal-measures; wide, extended plains of richest pasturage-all, all embraced in this vast territory, which must, in the very nature of things, empty the untold treasures of its commerce into the lap of Duluth. Look at it, sir! [again pointing to the map]. Do not you see from these 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 will be bound to go there whether it would or not? And here, sir [still pointing to the map], I find within a convenient distance the Piegan Indians, which, of all the many accessories to the glory of Duluth, I consider by far the most inestimable. For, sir, I have been told that when the smallpox breaks out among the women and children of that famous tribe, as it sometimes does, they afford the finest subjects in the world for the strategical experiments of any enterprising military hero who desires to improve himself in the noble art of war, especially for any valiant lieutenant-general whose- Trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting has gone rusty, Of somebody to hew and hack. Sir, the great conflict now raging in the Old World has presented a phenomenon in military science unprecedented in the annals of mankind—a phenomenon that has reversed all the traditions of the past as it has disappointed all the expectations of the present. A great and warlike people, renowned alike for their skill and valor, have been swept away before the triumphant advance of an inferior foe, like autumn stubble before a hurricane of fire. For aught I know, the next flash of electric fire that shimmers along the ocean cable may tell us that Paris, with every fiber quivering with the agony of impotent despair, writhes beneath the conquering heel of her loathed invader. Ere another moon shall wax and wane, the brightest star in the galaxy of nations may fall from the zenith of her glory never to rise again. Ere the modest violets of early spring shall open their beauteous eyes, the genius of civilization may chant the wailing requiem of the proudest nationality the world has ever seen, as she scatters her withered and tearmoistened lilies o'er the bloody tomb of butchered France. But, sir, I wish to ask if you honestly and candidly believe that the Dutch would have ever overrun the French in that kind of style if general Sheridan had not gone over there and told King William and Von Moltke how he had managed to whip the Piegan Indians! And here, sir, recurring to this map, I find in the immediate vicinity of the Piegans "vast herds of buffalo" and "immense fields of rich wheat lands." [Here the hammer fell. Many cries: "Go on! Go on!" No objection being heard, the speaker was permitted to continue.] I was remarking, sir, upon these vast "wheat fields" represented on this map in the immediate neighborhood of the buffaloes and the Piegans, and was about to say that 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. But to my mind there is no difficulty in the matter whatever. The phenomenon is very easily accounted for. It is evident, sir, that the Piegans sowed that wheat there and plowed it with buffalo bulls. Now, sir, this fortunate combination of buffaloes and Piegans, considering their relative positions to each other and to Duluth, as they are arranged on this map, satisfies me that Duluth is destined to be the beef market of the world. Here, you will observe [pointing to the map] are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth; and here, right on the road to 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. I think I see them now, sir, a vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their eyes glaring, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails curled over their backs, tearing along toward Duluth, with about a thousand Piegans on their grassbellied ponies, yelling at their heels! On they come! And as they sweep past the Creeks they join in the chase, and away they all go, yelling, bellowing, ripping, and tearing along, amid clouds of dust, until the last buffalo is safely penned in the stockyards of Duluth! 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 too short and the time of this House far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme. I think every gentleman on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no patriotic Representative of the American people, who has a proper appreciation of the associated glories of Duluth and St. Croix, will hesitate a moment to say that every able-bodied female in the land between the ages of eighteen and forty-five who is in favor of "women's rights" should be drafted and set to work upon this great work without delay. 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 ! FRANKLIN KNIGHT LANE MAKERS OF THE FLAG1 Franklin Lane, Secretary of the Interior during the Wilson Administration, was born in 1864 and died in 1921. He moved to California in early childhood and was engaged first as newspaper man and then as lawyer. He was a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission from 1905 to 1913, when he entered the cabinet of President Wilson. Mr. Lane was a man of marked originality and vigor, qualities which are revealed in his speeches. The address, "Makers of the Flag" was delivered on Flag Day, 1914, before the employees of the Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. It was soon published in the daily papers and attracted attention everywhere in the country. It is insured a place in the body of literature which has grown up about our national emblem. Another address by Mr. Lane is given in Volume XII. THIS morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The Flag dropped me a most cordial saluation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say: "Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker." "I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said, "aren't you mistaken? I am not the President of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a general in the army. I am only a Government clerk." "I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice, "I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois "This address and that which follows, "The American Pioneer," are reprinted here with permission of the publishers from "The Spirit of America," copyright Doubleday, Page and Co. more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter; whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker." I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with these words: "Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club prize this summer. "Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag. "Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag." "But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working!" Then came a great shout from The Flag: "The work that we do is the making of the flag. "I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow. "I am whatever you make me, nothing more. "I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a People may become. "I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles. "Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest work, fitting the rails together truly. "Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward. "Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment. "But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for. "I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope. "I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring. "I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the stat |