valleys; with a climate wonderful for its healthfulness, with
a soil capable by irrigation of producing an agricultural
product sufficient to support a population of at least two
millions of people; settled with inhabitants, hardy, brave,
enterprising, loyal, and intelligent, Colorado is ready to
throw off the swaddling clothes of a territory and assume
position as a sovereign and independent state.

Objection seemed to spring up all over the senate, to various provisions of the bill. Mr. Sargent of California protested against allowing 5 per cent upon all sales of public lands made prior to the admission of the State.

MR. HITCHCOCK: The honorable senator from California, in the name of economy, proposes to strike out two words, the usual words which have been in other enabling acts, and which have allowed other incoming states to obtain 5 per cent on the proceeds of those public lands, which had been sold during their territorial existence.

Now I think it would not be very becoming in the United States to select Colorado as a conspicuous instance of economy. As a matter of economy, I am sure it is better that this bill should pass in its present form than that the Territory of Colorado should continue to be governed at the expense of the United States.

The State of Nevada put in her assertion that she had not received the same 5 per cent. fund, but was promptly answered, that she had not a sale of lands prior to her admission; but did receive it on subsequent sales. Mr. Edmunds desired six months to intervene between the forming of a constitution and its adoption.

Mr. Hitchcock could see this in no other light than an effort to postpone the admission of the State; but the amendment was, however, adopted. Numerous others were offered, and but a few passed.

After keeping up a very prolonged and successful running debate, with such antagonists as Sargent of California, Stewart of Nevada, Edmunds of Vermont, Hamilton of Maryland and Bayard of Delaware, Mr. Hitchcock's labors were consummated in the passage of the bill, and in 1876 Colorado became the Centennial State.

COLORADO EXPENSES.

In the first session of the 44th Congress on a bill to allow $20,000 for certain Colorado expenses, in reply to the venerable senator (Mr. Morrill of Vermont) Mr. Hitchcock said:

Mr. President, I have heard of saving at the spigot and spending at the bunghole; I have heard of such things as men being "penny wise and pound foolish," and I think if we want to make a conspicuous example of that kind of economy, this senate should, after having so recently voted to endorse and assume the payment of $15,000,000 of bonds to pay for paving the streets of this city, to pay attorneys for defending the officers of this government, and to pay reporters for reporting those proceedings, vote to strike out this section. I think that would be an eminently proper thing for this senate to do. But, sir, I think that this senate can afford, probably without ruining the government, to make this appropriation of $20,000 to pay the expenses of the members of the convention to frame a constitution for the State of Colorado. Colorado is just becoming of age, she assuming the responsibility not only of self-government, but of bearing her equal fair share in the government of us all; and I believe that ordinarily prudent policy dictates that we should not receive her in a niggardly manner.

NEW MEXICO.

Having in charge a bill for the admission of New Mexico, as a state, at the winding up of a long discussion, Mr. Hitchcock very successfully punctured New England's vanity in the following manner:

Mr. President, the State of Rhode Island, the very years which the senator quotes, at the last two elections, polled how many votes?

The State of Rhode Island polled in the year 1872, 13,442 votes, about 3,000 less than were polled by New Mexico, in the last year, with no contest; yet the State of Rhode Island is represented on the floor of the other House by two members. Therefore, by the senator's own argument, the injustice we do here is that we do not give the Territory of New Mexico two members instead of one in the other House. Very much has been said in regard to the agricultural resources of New Mexico. The honorable senator from Maine said he thought there was not more than one out of an hundred acres of arable land. Even if there were

but one acre out of an hundred, it is far greater in pro-
portion than in the states of New England.

The valley of the Rio Grande, running all the way through
the center of the Territory, I venture to say has greater
capacity for agricultural production, and will produce more
in one year, than the whole territory of New England will
or has in a century.

INDIAN WARFARE.

The Senator's conclusions respecting warfare with Indians partook of the deductions of experience and actual knowledge. Mr. President, I want to tell the honorable senator that the men to fight Indians are the men who know the Indian character, the men who are on the ground, and there are plenty in the immediate vicinity of these Indians, who not only are acquainted with the Indian character, but have had military service in the field heretofore.

Recruits from your regular army are enlisted in the streets of your great cities; they are men who have never seen Indians, and they are men unaccustomed to ride.

UNION PACIFIC.

In the last elaborate speech of his senatorial term is found the following extract:

Mr. President, it is my fortune to reside upon the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. It was my fortune to see the first spadeful of earth ever thrown upon the grading of that road, and to be somewhat familiar with the history of its construction, with the method of operation, and with the beneficent results which have come to the country and the world from that construction and operation. The construction of a railroad across the continent,from ocean to ocean, marked an era in the material prosperity and development, not of this continent only but of the world. Existing for a quarter of a century or more only in the brain of enthusiastic dreamers, it remained for the statesmen who controlled the destinies of the country in the dark hours of her struggle with armed rebellion to crystallize that dream into a practical enactment; and it remained for the daring enterprise of the capitalists and business men of that time to carry out the enactment to a glorious consummation. Like everything human, no matter how excellent, it had its imperfections. It was marred and scarred by the connection with it in its early history of sordid men, who

saw nothing in it better than a means of adding to their
wealth and their gain; and like everything human that is
successful, it had no sooner become a success than it be-
came, and still is, the object of continued bitter and persist-
ent attack.

During the process of its construction the country rang
with plaudits of the magnificence of the enterprise and
approval of the courage and energy with which it. was
prosecuted. No sooner was it completed than the country
rang, as it still rings, with denunciation of it as a mighty
fraud and swindle. I assert, Mr. President, and I do so
without the fear of successful contradiction, that assuming
that not one dollar of the principal or interest of the bonds
which were advanced by this government to this railroad
had ever been or ever would be paid except by the transpor-
tation which this company affords to the government, and
saying nothing of the vast and almost measureless secon-
dary consequential advantages which this country has re-
ceived, and is receiving, and is destined to receive, this
country has received every year, in transportation alone,
twice the amount of the interest which she has paid upon
these bonds; that she has received a fund which so far ex-
ceeds the interest she has paid upon these bonds that it
will, prior to the time when the bonds become due, amount
to a much greater sum than the amount of the bonds.

Sustaining his views of the subject he quoted at length from senators' speeches when the original Union Pacific bill passed, and also from a House report showing that transportation over the plains before 1862 was costing the government from five to seven millions annually, whereas the annual interest on bonds would be one million per year.

REFORM SCHOOL.

The last matter of business accomplished by him twenty-four hours before the expiration of his term, was the passage of an amendment to an appropriation bill.

MR. HITCHCOCK: I have been for six years a member of the District Committee, and I am somewhat familiar with the appropriations which have been made in the name of charity to this district, and I believe of all the appropriations made there are none that have produced more beneficent results from a small expenditure than the appropriations which we have made annually for the reform school.

They have out there to-day a farm of 150 acres. There are
about 200 boys kept on that farm, at a very small expense.
They need more land in order to employ the boys wisely
and well. They need it in order that they may get a front
upon the east branch, so they may obtain ice. They need
it to prevent neighbors who will interfere with the welfare
of the boys getting possession of the land.

TERRITORY OF THE BLACK HILLS.

His amendment being adopted he might have retired satisfied that an honored service had closed with a parting tribute to "sweet charity"; but by long association and labors, the territories had become to him children of an older growth pleading for their patrimony.

At the end of a tedious night session, on the morning of the day of adjournment, he moved to take up a bill for organizing the Territory of the Black Hills.

MR. HITCHCOCK: If I may be allowed a single moment, I wish to state, that I think if we can reach a vote on the bill, no senator can particularly object to its passage through the senate. It will gratify me exceedingly if it can be passed through the senate, at least, at the close of my term as a senator.

There being no hope for it in the House, at that session, and every senator being burdened with unfinished business, its fate was to "pass over."

But in view of his persistent and intelligent efforts in behalf of the territories, Mr. Hitchcock merited a monument of Colorado granite, adorned with New Mexican silver and Black Hills nuggets, decorated with garlands from tree-cultured prairies, and inscribed to an honest service closed with a parting tribute to "sweet charity."