JAMES PROCTOR KNOTT

James Proctor Knott was born near Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky, August 29, 1830. The family removed shortly after his birth to Shelbyville, where he received his first education. He began the study of law at the age of sixteen and four years later went to Memphis, Missouri, to accept an appointment in the county clerk's office. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one. Elected to the Legislature in 1858, he was soon made chairman of the judiciary committee, and, in 1860, was appointed Attorney-General.

At the beginning of the Civil War Knott refused to take the test oath and was debarred from practice. He soon afterwards removed to Lebanon, in Kentucky, and was elected to Congress in 1867. His first speech was against the constitutionality of the test oath in its applicability to members of Congress. His "Duluth " speech, delivered in opposition to a bill for building a railroad to Duluth, Minn., with government money, gave him a reputation as a humorist. Knott served again in Congress from 1875 to 1883 and was repeatedly appointed chairman of the judiciary committee. He declined another congressional renomination and was elected Governor of Kentucky in 1883.

Knott was a delegate to the Kentucky constitutional convention in 1891. Of late years he has been professor of law and dean of the law faculty at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

The Glories of Duluth" ranks as one of the best humorous speeches ever delivered in Congress. It was laughed at all over the country, and extensively quoted in the public press. Knott, however, suffered the penalty of being classed as a humorist, which practically ended his career in national politics. Thus did his famous speech prove a boomerang. It killed the railroad bill against which his shafts of ridicule were so cleverly directed, but it also killed him politically so far as his ambition as a national statesman was concerned. Congress would not take him seriously thereafter. He was looked upon as the funny man of the House, just because he happened to have been the author of one humorous speech.

THE GLORIES OF DULUTH

Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 27, 1871, on the St. Croix and Bayfield Railroad Bill

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R. SPEAKER: If I could be actuated by any conceivable inducement to betray the sacred trust reposed in me by those to whose generous confidence I am indebted for the honor of a seat on this floor; if I could be influenced by any possible consideration to become instrumental in giving away, in violation of their known wishes, any portion of their interest in the public domain for the mere promotion of any railroad enterprise whatever, I should certainly feel a strong inclination to give this measure my most earnest and hearty support; for I am assured that its success would materially enhance the pecuniary prosperity of some of the most valued friends I have on earth-friends for whose accommodation I would be willing to make almost any sacrifice not involving my personal honor, or my fidelity as the trustee of an express trust. And that fact of itself would be sufficient to countervail almost any objection I might entertain to the passage of this bill, not inspired by an imperative and inexorable sense of public duty.

But, independent of the seductive influences of private friendship, to which I admit I am, perhaps, as susceptible as any of the gentlemen I see around me, the intrinsic merits of the measure itself are of such an extraordinary character as to commend it most strongly to the favorable consideration of every member of this House-myself not excepted-notwithstanding my constituents, in whose behalf alone I am acting here, would not be benefited by its passage one particle more than they would be by a project to cultivate an orange grove on the bleakest summit of Greenland's icy mountains.

Now, sir, 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. It is true they may afford some trifling advantages to local traffic, and they may even in time become the channels of a more extended commerce. Yet I have never been thoroughly satisfied either of the necessity or expediency of projects promising such meagre results to the great body of our people. But in regard to the transcendent merits of the gigantic enterprise contemplated in this bill, I never entertained the shadow of a doubt.

Years ago when I first heard that there was somewhere in the vast terra incognita, somewhere in the bleak regions of the great Northwest, a stream of water known to the nomadic inhabitants of the neighborhood as the River St. Croix, I became satisfied that the construction of a railroad from that raging torrent to some point in the civilized world was essential to the happiness and prosperity of the American people, if not absolutely indispensable to the perpetuity of republican institutions on this continent. I felt instinctively that the boundless resources of that prolific region of sand and pine shrubbery would never be fully developed without a railroad constructed and equipped at the expense of the government-and perhaps not then. I had an abiding presentiment that some day or other the people of this whole country, irrespective of party affiliations, regardless of sectional prejudices, and "without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," would rise in their majesty and demand an outlet for the enormous agricultural productions of those vast and fertile pine barrens, drained in the rainy season by the surging waters of the turbid St. Croix.

These impressions, derived simply and solely from the "eternal fitness of things," were not only strengthened by the interesting and eloquent debate on this bill, to which I listened with so much pleasure the other day, but intensified, if possible, as I read over this morning the lively colloquy which took place on that occasion, as I find it reported in last Friday's "Globe." I will ask the indulgence of the House while I read a few short passages, which are sufficient, in my judgment, to place the merits of the great enterprise contemplated in the measure now under discussion beyond all possible controversy.

The honorable gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Wilson), who, I believe, is managing this bill, in speaking of the charac

ter of the country through which this railroad is to pass, says this:

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We want to have the timber brought to us as cheaply as possible. Now, if you tie up the lands in this way so that no title can be obtained to them-for no settler will go on these lands, for he cannot make a living-if you deprive us of the benefit of that timber."

Now, sir, I would not have it by any means inferred from this that the gentleman from Minnesota would insinuate that the people out in this section desire this timber merely for the purpose of fencing up their farms so that their stock may not wander off and die of starvation among the bleak hills of the St. Croix. I read it for no such purpose, sir, and make no such comment on it myself. In corroboration of this statement of the gentleman from Minnesota, I find this testimony given by the honorable gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Washburn). Speaking of these same lands, he says:

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Under the bill as amended by my friend from Minnesota, nine-tenths of the land is open to actual settlers at $2.50 per acre; the remaining onetenth is pine timbered land that is not fit for settlement, and never will be settled upon; but the timber will be cut off. I admit that it is the most valuable portion of the grant, for most of the grant is not valuable. It is quite valueless; and if you put in this amendment of the gentleman from Indiana, you may as well just kill the bill, for no man and no company will take the grant and build the road."

I simply pause here to ask some gentleman better versed in the science of mathematics than I am to tell me if the timber lands are in fact the most valuable portion of that section of the country, and they would be entirely valueless without the timber that is on them, what the remainder of the land is worth which has no timber upon it at all.

But further on I find a most entertaining and instructive interchange of views between the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Rogers), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Washburn), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Peters), upon the subject of pine lands generally, which I will tax the patience of the House to read:

Mr. Rogers: "Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?" Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: Certainly."

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Mr. Rogers: "Are these pine lands entirely worthless except for

timber?"

Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: "They are generally worthless for any other purpose. I am perfectly familiar with that subject. These lands are not valuable for purposes of settlement."

Mr. Farnsworth: "They will be after the timber is taken off."

Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: "No, sir."

Mr. Rogers: "I want to know the character of these pine lands." Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: "They are generally sandy, barren lands. My friend from the Green Bay district (Mr. Sawyer) is himself perfectly familiar with this question, and he will bear me out in what I say, that these pine timber lands are not adapted to settlement."

Mr. Rogers: "The pine lands to which I am accustomed are generally very good. What I want to know is, what is the difference between our pine lands and your pine lands."

Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: "The pine timber of Wisconsin generally grows upon barren, sandy land. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Peters), who is familiar with pine lands, will, I have no doubt, say that pine timber grows generally upon the most barren lands."

Mr. Peters: "As a general thing pine lands are not worth much for cultivation."

And further on I find this pregnant question, the joint production of two gentlemen from Wisconsin:

Mr. Paine: "Does my friend from Indiana suppose that in any event settlers will occupy and cultivate these pine lands?".

Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin: "Particularly without a railroad?”

Yes, sir, "particularly without a railroad." It will be asked after a while, I am afraid, if settlers will go anywhere unless the government builds a railroad for them to go on.

I desire to call attention to only one more statement, which I think sufficient to settle the question. It is one made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Paine), who says:

"These lands will be abandoned for the present. It may be that at some remote period there will spring up in that region a new kind of agriculture which will cause a demand for these particular lands; and they may then come into use and be valuable for agricultural purposes. But I know, and I cannot help thinking, that my friend from Indiana understands that for the present, and for many years to come, these pine lands can have no possible value other than that arising from the pine timber which stands on them."

Now, sir, who, after listening to this emphatic and unequivocal testimony of these intelligent, competent, and able-bodied wit