Bismarck Daily Tribune

OUR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS.
Twenty-five years of our statehood
will be rounded out on February 22.
President Cleveland signed the bill
creating the states of North and
South Dakota, Montana and Washington,
February 22, 1889. That was the
final act which ended a long struggle
for division.
Many of the men who took part in
the statehood fight are guests of Bismarck
today and The Tribune, which
paper under the leadership of the
Late M. H. Jewell, took a prominent
part in the issue, welcomes these men
who labored hard in the creation of
this state.
The Minneapolis Journal headed its
Washington dispatch on the creation
of North Dakota with these words:
"Sound the loud timbrel
O'er Egypt's dark sea;
Dakota has triumphed.
Her people are free."
Enthusiasm was intense in Congress
when the new state was created. Quoting from The Tribune files
of twenty-five years ago:
There was a wild scene in the
house when the bill passed. Barnes,
the big Georgia kicker, was the only
member voting no. The more enthusiastic
members took from their seats
great bundles of papers, congressional
records, books, and anything in
sight and hurled them high in the
air. The delegation of visiting North
Dakotans prominent among them
Delegate Mathews held an informal
jollification meeting in the main corridor."
The Tribune said editorially, February
23, 1889:
It is North Dakota now. Newspapers
should place it so in their
date lines, and business men on
their stationery, and people should
accustom themselves to S. D., and
N. D. for the Dakotas.'
Following his own admonition, the
editor dated his issue of the morning
of February 23, Bismarck, North Dakota.
The Tribune and its distinguished
editor took a leading part in that
memorable fight. Mr. Jewell spent
six winters in Washington laboring
for division, four of them before any
South Dakota delegation put in an
appearance and up to 1882. The Tribune
had published more columns of
matter in relation to division than
all the papers of South Dakota combined.
As early as 1874, the publishers of The Tribune issued a special
edition of eight pages devoted wholly
to division.
In the early stages of the fight Hon.
M. K. Armstrong closed his speech
urging division with these words:
All they ask is that congress shall
deal fairly by them and throw
around them the shield and protection
of local laws and self-government,
which, as American citizens
they are entitled to expect. Give them
this, and they will build up a territory
which shall be an honor to
themselves and a credit to the nation."
The state has fulfilled the prophecy
of Armstrong.
It is closing
a quarter of a century of progress second
to that of no other state in the
union.
It is fitting that the members of the
constitutional convention should hold
a reunion here with the members of
the first legislature. On July 4, 1889,
Bismarck gave the framers of the
constitution a royal welcome to the
city which has long lingered in their
memory.
While the one today is less elaborate
and the enthusiasm of newly acquired
statehood lacking, it should be
no less cordial.