Minnesota, the North Star State

by William Watts Folwell

In the fall of 1869 an effort was made to give Mr. Donnelly the regular nomination for the governorship. This was not opposed by the Ramsey leaders, who were willing to bring back into the fold so dangerous a rival. That effort, however, had but slight recognition in the nominating convention, which chose for the party candidate a gentleman as yet not widely known in state politics, the Hon. Horace Austin of St. Peter.

The removal of the state capital from St. Paul, which would have been accomplished in 1857 but for the high-handed exploit of Councilor Rolette, though frequently broached informally, was not seriously taken up by any legislature till 1869. A bill for removal to Kandiyohi County, on to land belonging to the state, was passed through both houses so easily and rapidly as to invite the surmise that the necessary votes had been secured in advance. Superfluous debate was shut out by the operation of the previous question. The vote in the house was 39 to 7, that in the senate 12 to 10; but the house could not muster enough votes to pass the bill over Governor Marshall’s veto. The veto message was moderate in tone; suggesting that it would be wise to hear from the people on the question, that there should be no haste about a final location of the capital, and that it was no time to expend a great sum of money on buildings.

Two years later a final proposal to remove the capital from St. Paul to the imagined city of Stanton met with a prompt indefinite postponement.

CHAPTER XVI
STORM AND STRESS

Horace Austin was inaugurated governor January 9, 1870. A native of Connecticut, who had lived and married in Maine, he had come to Minnesota in 1855 at the age of twenty-five and settled at St. Peter. He had studied law and taught school, but had taken no college course. In the campaign of 1863 against the Sioux he commanded a company of Minnesota Mounted Rangers and gave a good account of himself on the march and battlefield. His neighbors had elected him a district judge and were more than content with his wise and fearless conduct on the bench. It was a piece of good fortune for the state that the warring Ramsey and Donnelly factions of the Republican party in the convention of 1869 compromised upon a candidate unobjectionable to both, but no especial favorite with either. His majority was less than two thousand over the popular candidate of the Democrats, George L. Otis. Ingenious, hopeful, independent, Mr. Austin in successive messages showered upon the legislatures projects of reform and development. In many of them he was doomed to disappointment because he relied entirely on the merit of propositions, and was not politician enough to understand that it is only by timely and happy combination of interests that measures can be carried in legislative bodies. Among these abortive recommendations may be mentioned the one in his second message, urging a revision of the state constitution, which he declared to be a motley of inconsistencies. His desire was that a revised constitution should contain such provisions as these: (1) Restriction of special legislation; (2) prohibition of exclusive franchises; (3) limitation of local taxation; (4) restriction of municipal debts; (5) ample power to regulate railroads; and (6) abolition of the grand jury. Neither the legislature to which the recommendation was addressed nor any subsequent one has been willing to propose to the people a revision of the constitution. Casual amendments have been frequent, but a late amendment to the amending article, requiring an affirmative vote of a majority of all the electors to adopt a proposed amendment, will certainly render it difficult, and it may be impossible, to make further casual changes in the state’s organic law. A happy illustration of Mr. Austin’s independence may be found in his action on the disposition of the so-called “internal improvement lands” of the state. An almost forgotten statute of the United States, passed in 1841, authorized the gift to any new state of five hundred thousand acres of public lands for “internal improvements.” The claim of Minnesota to this grant had been tardily conceded by the Secretary of the Interior. In his inaugural address Governor Austin recommended that the disposition of the lands should be submitted to popular vote. The legislature then opening (1870) was of a different mind, and listened to suggestions that the end of the law would be served if the lands should be bestowed on certain railroad corporations willing to accept them. When the legislature of 1871 convened that proposition seemed much in favor, and a bill to divide the whole grant, then possibly worth ten millions of dollars, in eleven parcels among seven corporations was passed in so summary a manner as to suggest a careful rehearsal for the purely formal proceedings. The support of the bill was so evenly derived from the two political parties that neither of them could claim the greater credit for guarding the public interest.

The veto message of Governor Austin will long remain a landmark in the political history of the state. In the plainest of English he told the legislators that they had been either cajoled or bullied into passing a measure they dared not submit to the people, that the minute parceling of the lands would be ridiculously ineffective, that they had no power to divide the lands, but only the proceeds thereof, and that they had voted to divert the national gift from its intended object. From this date there was no question of a reëlection, should he desire it. In the following year an amendment providing that no disposition should be made of those lands until after the ratification of any proposed measure by vote of the electors was submitted and, at the election, adopted. The use to which they were put ten years later will be related in its place.

For Minnesota as for the country at large, the early seventies belong to one of the most notable “boom” periods in our economic history. The census of 1870 verified the hopes of enthusiastic promoters in many lines. The total population footed up 439,706. The native born in round numbers were 279,000, of whom 126,000 had been born in the state. The foreign born were 161,000, of whom the Scandinavian kingdoms had sent 59,000 and Germany 41,000. The English-speaking immigrants numbered 47,000. The swelling number of inhabitants was inspiring and the high quality of the population was equally satisfactory. One hundred and thirty-one thousand coming from the north Atlantic and north central states had brought with them American traditions and culture, capital, brains, and ambition for an enlarged career in a land of opportunity. The foreign accessions were Christians, willing workers, and many of them passionate lovers of free government.

The rapid extension of railroads was both a cause and a consequence of this increase of people; of their distribution, their productive power, and their demands for the comforts and luxuries of other skies. Rail connection eastward by way of the head of Lake Michigan, established in 1867, had given quicker mails and shortened the passenger journey to the seaboard. No produce save that of highest value in smallest bulk could stand transportation charges to New York. The completion of the railroad from St. Paul to the head of Lake Superior in 1870 brought that city almost as near salt water as Chicago, and opened the great waterway of the lakes for Minnesota’s grain and lumber, and returning coal and merchandise. Later her annual millions of tons of iron ore have passed down through “The Soo” to Lake Erie ports.

The year following (1871) was abundant in railroad extension. The main line of the Great Northern was extended to Breckenridge on the Red River of the North; the River division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, prolonged to Winona, shortened the journey to Chicago by many hours; and the Northern Pacific had reached the Red River at Moorhead. Meantime the Southern Minnesota had been pushed out to the Blue Earth, and the Winona and St. Peter to the Minnesota. The 350 miles built in 1872, though reaching no important terminals, brought the total mileage at the close of the year up to an even 1900.

In those years of plentiful money and multiplying fortunes, railroad building was rapid and easy in Minnesota. Investors were keen for bonds secured by land grants of enormous extent, and bearing a liberal interest, especially when offered at a seductive discount. The controlling spirits of the companies found some profit in financing construction companies, but more in town lot and land speculations. Railroad building out on the open prairie far in advance of settlement was a novelty then. The gentlemen whose privilege it was to determine the lines and locate the stations were in position to make profitable selections of lots and lands, and to let their friends “in on the ground floor” for a consideration. Around the selected stations considerable villages would arise in a single season. In some cases the town would be built before the track had reached it. There were instances in which settlements were made on mistaken calculations of actual location, and then the houses and shops were literally put on wheels and hauled over to the chosen spots.