our material and political prosperity, it is not flattering to our vaunted civilization that we possess so little social wisdom; that we encumber our neighborly intercourse with the costly follies and affectations of a bedizened society; that we hamper our social freedom with the machinery of needless conventionality, and jeopard both our peace of mind and financial standing, to support the mockery of social parade.

Pillsbury's message of January 9, 1879, to the twenty-first legislature, the last holding an annual session, was published in 25 pages, as a pamphlet and as the first paper in Volume I of the Executive Documents for 1878 (Minneapolis, 1879). He presented arguments in favor of holding only biennial elections as follows:

The constitutional amendment providing for biennial, in lieu of annual, sessions of the Legislature will necessitate much adjustment of administrative machinery to correspond therewith. In effecting this, great care will be required to include practical details of an essential nature pertaining to the several branches of the government. The changes required and the examination necessarily given to the subject, would seem to afford a suitable opportunity for the consideration of another question of importance. The extraordinary frequency of elections has long been deemed by reflecting men one of the most serious evils pertaining to our form of government. The differing duration of our State offices requiring elections to fill some of them annually, and the different seasons in which township and municipal elections are held, leave intervals so short that the public finds little repose from the distractions of political warfare. The deleterious effect of these constant disturbances is manifest. They are unfavorable to public order, to the pursuit of private business, and to the dispassionate discussion of questions concerning the common welfare; they increase the aversion to political duty entertained by orderly and busy men, through whose default bad men are elected to office; while the expenses attending such frequent elections entail a heavy burden upon the people. In view of these evils, I suggest the inquiry whether an obvious public interest would not be subserved by providing for such amendments to the laws and Constitution as would require biennial elections only. For this purpose it would be necessary to cause our State elections to take place the same year as that in which members of Congress are elected, which would conform to that in which members of the Legislature are now biennially chosen, and also to the year in which the Presidential election alternately takes place.

* *

The first biennial session of the legislature began January 4, 1881, and on January 6 Governor Pillsbury delivered his message, which forms thirty pages as a pamphlet and also as the first paper in the Executive Documents for 1880 (published in 1881). The last four pages relate to the deferred settlement of the state debt in its dishonored railroad bonds.

As a result from an act passed in that session, to provide for redemption of these bonds, and from decisions later given by the State Supreme Court, the governor summoned this legislature to an extra session, in which, on October 12, 1881, he presented a message that was published as a pamphlet of ten pages. In the closing part he said:

The act of the last Legislature, proposing an amendment to the Constitution devoting the proceeds of the Internal Improvement Lands to the payment of the adjustment bonds has been rendered inoperative by the decision of the Supreme Court. It will therefore be necessary to promptly re-adjust and reenact its provisions to conform to the new action to be taken, in order to submit the proposed amendment to the people at the approaching general election. The average price realized thus far for the lands sold is about $7 per acre; and the fund from such sales already amounts to $800,000. In view of the rapid settlement of the country it is believed that the total sum which will be finally realized from the sale of these lands will reach $4,000,000, a sum nearly or quite sufficient to pay the whole indebtedness without recourse to taxation. That there may be no wrong impression on your minds regarding the whole amount due on these bonds, I would say that by a former decision of our Supreme Court, past-due coupons draw interest, as well as the bonds to which they are attached, and should interest be computed in accordance with this decision the whole debt would amount, on December 1, 1881, to about $8.200,000, and, should the pending proposition be consummated, the saving to the State will thus be about $4,000,000.

If this opportunity be not immediately embraced, I am fully persuaded it will never occur again, for it cannot longer be expected that partial payment will hereafter be accepted

by the holders of these obligations in view of the ability of the State to pay in full and the verdict of its highest court assigning to the Legislature the duty to provide for pay

For the enduring welfare of the fair State we have chosen as our home; as we would justly share in that national heritage of financial honor which is the wonder of the world; that we may deserve the reward of a generous prosperity, and invoke the blessings of Almighty God-I entreat you as a parting word to perform a simple act of justice which shall forever put at rest the haunting spectre of repudiation, and place our young commonwealth irrevocably in the sisterhood of honorable States.

Under date of June 1, 1892, a convenient reference book of 132 pages, compiled by Governor Pillsbury, was published in Minneapolis, entitled "A Compilation of National and State Laws relating to the University of Minnesota; also a description of the unsold lands granted by Acts of Congress for the endowment of said University, including a statement of the permanent University fund at interest, etc., etc."

July 13, 1892, Governor Pillsbury gave an address in his native town, which was published in a volume of 171 pages, entitled "Dedication of the Pillsbury Memorial Hall in Sutton, N. H." (printed in Concord, N. H. 1893). This address, forming a part of the dedicatory exercises, is in pages 73-100. It reviews the marvelous growth of the United States during the forty-eight years from the spring of 1844, when Pillsbury as a youth of seventeen years left his boyhood home. The gift of the Memorial Town Hall, by Governor and Mrs. Pillsbury, he noted in these words:

And so, gentlemen, selectmen, and officers of my native town, I have returned here today, with her who for more

than a generation has been my companion, my helper, my wife, and I feel that it is fitting that she who during these long intervening years has shared with me all the burdens and experiences of life, and with me has passed through the shadows and sorrows of life, as well as its joys and sunny places, who joined her heart to mine when all we possessed was the mutual love we bore each other, should share with me in making this gift to the town of Sutton. Through you, gentlemen, and in the name of my honored parents, whose sacred ashes repose in this town, we present to the town of Sutton a deed of this building and we now deliver to you its keys. This gift we make without conditions or reservations. It is our hope that this building may remain many generations after we and our children have passed away. It is our desire that you use it not only for all your public meetings and assemblies, but as a town hall, where not only your citizenship may be exercised, but where all matters which make for the common good may have a full and fair hearing, where patriotism and individual ambition may be incited and stirred, and where the young who shall come after us shall be led on to a higher manhood and a great enthusiasm for whatever will advance mankind.

The following is a copy of the title-page of a pamphlet of 33 pages, which gives a concise history of a large part of Governor Pillsbury's public services and also states quite as fully the work of his associates: "An Address delivered by Hon. John S. Pillsbury, before the Alumni of the University of Minnesota, at the West Hotel, Minneapolis, June 1st, 1893, being a sketch of the growth and development of the University for the thirty years in which he has been a regent. Published by the Alumni Association of the University of Minnesota."

Another and probably the last of his public addresses was delivered in St. Paul, November 15, 1899, in the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the organization of the Minnesota Historical Society, published in its Collections, Volume IX, pages 597-601.