In undertaking to set down, so that others may read, the recollections of my own personal experiences during three-quarters of a century or more, it is not my purpose to tresspass upon the field either of the historian or of the commentator by attempting to interpret the events which came directly or indirectly under my observation.<br><br>Nor is it my purpose to point a moral. What I have written is no more than a concise narrative of what befell me, of the difficulties I encountered, the disappointments I suffered and the triumphs I achieved, the fortunes and misfortunes that were dealt out to me by my controlling destiny.<br><br>There are few men living who have had so varied, certainly so long, a career as I. It is a far cry from the agitation over the northeastern boundary controversy in 1889 to the vicissitudes of latter-day politics in 1915. Many things have happened within that space of time. The greater portion of the country has been transformed from a wilderness into a cultivated and settled area. Railroads have intersected it; cities have been built; and its vitality has awakened to the pulsations of a highly organized commercial life.