Press And Daily Dakotaian

DAKOTA'S DIVISION.

Favorable Committee Report on the Proposition to Create the Territory of North Dakota.

Washington, Feb. 21.—The house committee on territories agreed to-day to recommend the passage of a bill establishing the territory of North Dakota, and providing temporary government therefor, and adopted a report thereon, from which the following extracts are made:

The territory of Dakota, as now situated, embraces 153,000 square miles, California and Texas only of the political divisions being larger. The population of the whole territory by the late census was 135,183, and shows the largest per cent of increase of any state or territory in the United States.

Many witnesses resident in the territory testified before the committee to an unprecedentedly large increase of population since the enumeration of 1880, some placing the present population as high as 250,000, and some less than 200,000, which last number the committee believe are now resident in the territory, and consider the probabilities in favor of a considerably larger number. Divided on the proposed line of division along the geographical center, the territory of North Dakota will contain about 75,000 square miles. According to the late census the population left to the territory of Dakota by this division would be a little over 100,000. The exact population of the proposed territory at the time of the last census was 34,683, which the committee had just about doubled since the enumeration of 1880. Remarkable as this proposition may seem, it appears to be fully sustained by the statistics which the committee present: In June, 1880, there were 260 miles of railroad in operation in North Dakota; now there are 588 miles in operation, 194 miles graded for the superstructure, and 316 miles under contract to be constructed during the current year. June, 1880, there were but two national banks, with a capital of $150,000, and five private banks in North Dakota; now there are nine national banks with a capital of $750,000 already organized, and three more in process of organization, and sixteen private banks. In June, 1880 there were but nine church buildings; now there are forty-nine. Then there were seventeen school houses, now there are 135; then four flouring mills, now 31; then one daily and ten weekly newspapers, now five daily and 24 weeklies. For the year 1880 the valuation of the taxable property of North Dakota was $7,324,700; for the year 1881 it was $15,383,847. This does not include railroad property nor the homestead, pre-emption nor tree culture lands, which cannot be taxed so long as the title remains in the United States. The census of 1880 shows 136,357 acres under cultivation. Local estimates from statistics informally gathered show the product alone in northern Dakota to have been at least 80,000,000 bushels of grain in 1881, indicating the cultivation of about 600,000 acres of land. The committee reports as its confident belief after carefully considering the evidence and construing everything of doubtful meaning against large increase, that the population of North Dakota at the present time is at least 60,000 souls. Between this large and rapidly increasing population and the population of southern Dakota there is no commercial bond of union. Vast reaches of unsettled country separate these two peoples, and they have no commercial relations whatever. There is no line of communication between the two sections within the territory, not even a wagon road, except the military trail along the Missouri river. The products of North Dakota find an outlet via St. Paul and Duluth and the lakes, and the business relations of the people are with those cities. South Dakota has intercourse with Chicago and St. Louis. The distance from Fargo, a principal city of North Dakota, to Yankton, the capital of Dakota, is 600 miles; from Bismarck, another principal city, 500; the only line of travel in via St. Paul. Not only the capital but the insane and deaf and dumb asylums and the penitentiary are located in south Dakota, and the supreme court also is held there, thus imposing upon the people of North Dakota a great hardship and expense, as well as a great expense upon the general government. Under the present organization the judge assigned to North Dakota is compelled to hold fifteen terms of court in the several counties of an average duration of one week, and two terms of the United States court within his district, besides attending two terms of the supreme court at Yankton, traveling 2,400 miles to attend the two terms of the supreme court. The committee is satisfied that it is already a physical impossibility for the judge to do this duty and do it well, and that the certain large increase of population necessitating the organization of new counties the coming summer will greatly aggravate the difficulty. In view of the foregoing considerations, and others which cannot be crowded into this brief report, the committee are of the opinion that a population so numerous, so enterprising and so wealthy as that of north Dakota, should with the least possible delay be admitted to the right of local self-government. This necessity is all the more imperative when it is remembered that this people are wholly isolated from those of the southern half of the territory; that they have no intercourse whatever except for political and judicial purposes; that the area of the proposed territory is really very great, being larger than all New England, and that it contains all the material resources for rapid development into a rich and powerful state.