(00:00:00) Now where was I? Oh, yes, I was talking about nerve. Well, there's there's all varieties of it. But there is a special kind let's call it creative nerve. That's what got me into the flower business and some businessmen were sitting around our offices discussing the idea of selling Minnesota flower out of state. Oh sure we can send it to Chicago easy enough, but who's gonna buy it once it gets there now the problem was that the best flower in the country at this time came from Ohio who ever heard of Minnesota flower Indians and blizzards are all were known for out here. Well, it didn't seem to be that much of a problem to me. I got a pair of scissors and cut a stencil found a small Empty Barrel and did my work then I rolled the barrel back into the meeting and I said areare gentlemen my Barrel read Muskegon Mills Troy Ohio the genuine sir. You should have seen their faces. They look like The Twelve Apostles caught playing poker behind the Pearly Gates I could tell what those expressions meant. I mean, I wasn't more than half the age of most of those men, but I could tell they were saying well we're damned interested in your idea, but we're also damned afraid of it. So I said gentlemen I beg you leave it to me in my firm will dispose of your flower with great dispatch and profit to us all and in the end. They let me do my stencil job and all 50 barrels of their flower the result. We sold several shipments in quick succession and within three months we could drop the Ohio label our Minnesota flower had created a sensation on the market. Oh, yes. I kept my interest in the flower industry bought the Mills at st. Anthony back in Eighty paid a very good price for them to (00:01:40) $425,000 and the next morning wouldn't you know it there it (00:01:46) is the Minneapolis Tribune inch high headlines. He'll buys out Minneapolis for 425,000. The fact is that you could not give me Minneapolis if you through 425,000 and with it all the towns nice, but to tell you the truth, I'm not sure it has much of a future. Well not compared to st. Paul. Anyway, where the center of railroading here and distribution for this whole region. We have the state capitol here, which may not be all that much benefit. But fortunately the politicians do go home occasionally (00:02:19) and what is (00:02:20) Minneapolis Alex a pleasant enough place. Lots of lovely legs, but I can assure you there are many other cities. I would buy if I had a mind to before I would buy, Minneapolis, Minnesota. (00:02:35) Actor Jimmy Lawless doing James. Jhil as part of the st. Paul history theaters newest production and it's subtitled the man who did by Minneapolis. Did (00:02:46) he hmm? Well, actually he bought the flour Mills it at st. Anthony and that was when Lance in 1880, (00:02:53) right? Yes, and (00:02:55) I guess at that time you could pretty much say that Minneapolis did comprise the flour Mills at st. Anthony. So in fact, he he bought up many apples for $425,000 (00:03:04) kind of an impetuous man. Mr. Hill. Yes. Oh, I guess you could (00:03:10) call him impetuous. He was an entrepreneur. He was an opportunist. He looked upon money is being just a tool. It was to be used to implement his Destiny his vision of the destiny of the Northwest in that sense. I guess he was a an (00:03:30) opportunist Lance Belleville, who is the playwright you've done a lot of research into James J. Hilley. He certainly was probably one of a number of those kinds of entrepreneurs at the time. Well, yeah, he was in the great age of the robber barons. I don't know who gave him the name but That's what they were called and he dealt with a lot of them Jay Gould and he dealt with J Pierpont Morgan. So he kind of got lumped in with them, but he was a cat of a different stripe. So well, he he appeared you were you mentioned was the impetuous he appeared? Yeah, he appeared to impetuous. But what it was is he looked before I leaped he would take pretty big leaps, but he did he would do careful research in an age when people didn't know anything about market research or anything of the sort, but he sort of was into it. And and then when he got ready to make his pounce he did it, (00:04:20) what did he say in the show let you have him saying is it organizing the present and comprehending the future? Yep, that's him that he has a talent for (00:04:29) it. From the flower to the railroads. Can you give us just an idea of how wealthy that man was? Yes, he started out (00:04:40) basically without any money at all. He got here (00:04:44) in 56 and worked as a mud clerk. They called him just a clerk on the Levee, Mississippi River and by the time he died in 1916. I believe he left something in the neighborhood of 200 million dollars. That's quite a that's good. That's quite a fortune and in 1916. However, it did not compare with some of the other Fortunes in the reason. It didn't compare was he I really believe the bottom line of the man was he wasn't in it for the money because if he had been in it for the money, he could have done even better than that. He was in it for the adventure for the building of the Northwest. He really was quite an idealist. He was ruthless. Yeah that that's what makes him the incredible person. He is. You see that the money was just the tool. His motives were sometimes very very pure sometimes not but but more often than not he was interested in. The purity of the motives of his liking to the farmers, for example, he did all sorts of things for the farmers. I was quite good for them ska troops in the director. How have you and Lance work together to create the stage character? Well, we fought along we thought a lot all three of every bite. In fact, we're in separate corners of the room right now. It's very interesting which is hard because this is a round student. It's very interesting the working conditions particularly on it history theater were particularly this show with a one-man show. You've got one man the actor one man the director and one man the playwright and a lot of times as we joked about things differ, but Lance pretty much started with with all this intense research and then came to us Jim and I with oh, I'd say a huge script. Let's say to which (00:06:37) rival de Saint Paul phonebook. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know that's tease him about how well your phone book. (00:06:43) And so Lance came to us with the script which was historically based and the three of us, excuse me, the three of us then started fashioning a playable dramatic script could I just (00:06:58) interrupt? A lot of This research was actually developed by Steve (00:07:02) Trimble and Steve Davis a compass historians. Well, you know on the compass staff, what is the process of taking a lot of historical factual material and breaking it down and making it a dramatic piece? Well, first of all Lance would bring pieces of the script and he would read it for us and then we would make comments on usually nasty. Yeah, what we found was interesting or what perhaps was interesting from a literary Viewpoint and we didn't feel would play on the stage. Then he would take those ideas back come back with more script. Then James would take over read interpret we would cut edit. That's basically what it was. It was a push and pull and there were arguments over this and over that. Well there (00:07:50) still are still are (00:07:52) do do we have a picture of James J Hill from just his commenting on life in general on his own role in the community or is there some kind of chronology to the script? Do we see James J Hill at one point in life and at another point in life (00:08:10) in the First Act you see James J Hill in his mid-40s and in the second act you see him at the age of 77, which is what Lance two years before he died actually a year a year before he died. So you see the man really? Where he's almost he's just getting into the destiny thing in the First Act. He has his first railroad and he's going to go on from there and build the hill roads. And in the second act. He has the opportunity to look back (00:08:41) on the whole thing (00:08:43) and assess what it is been and also compare it to compare the present day to what it was like back (00:08:49) then talk about the destiny of the Northwest and did in fact that Destiny become well did he perceive that the destiny had been reached in old age? (00:09:01) Well, that's for you to say I think is an audience member. And it's something that I don't really feel comfortable talking about it this point because it's something that we're at this present time. We started yesterday thrashing it out in rehearsal and we will continue thrashing it out probably until we open we haven't made up our minds how it's going to end yet, which is another exciting thing about doing an original script. You don't really have to decide what you're going to do until you open the (00:09:32) things are probably terrifying a little bit can be. Yeah. What does he say about Destiny in the First Act? (00:09:39) He says that the destiny out here the Northwest Is the destiny sure it is. It's the land the soil Northern soil the north. Do you ever stop to ponder why it is that the northern half of this Global produces. The southern half same is true in Europe, France Germany Scandinavia out produces Spain Italy Greece and Serbia something about the steel that fighting against the elements for more than half the year puts into people's hearts helps them overcome great obstacles. I could tell you stories about the possibilities out here. The future of this area is almost without (00:10:17) limit future. No, not the future. the destiny of it (00:10:24) and then he goes on to talk about how about the visit of Secretary of State Seward the st. Paul 1860 or Seward (00:10:32) said that what did Seward say (00:10:37) God has ordered God has ordained that what is it? God has ordained but now Seward said God ordains that what is useful to be done should be done that wonderful. And from this James J. Hill said that what it struck him that what Seward meant and what he was talking about was destiny the destiny of the Great Northwest and that was up to everybody to decide whether they were going to hinder it or help it along and he decided right there and then that he was going to do his part in making it come to (00:11:09) pass. Lance has a playwright taking the hard core material of what James J Hill said and what Seward said and molding that part of it on the theme of Destiny seems to be pretty straightforward. What happens in that second act when you start to do the work on the assessment and start projecting things that are not in fact. Yeah. Well, that's where the fun begins you said. Did he reach the destiny? Well, he saw in a nutshell the destiny in the Northwest as Agricultural. And yes, it had been reached. He saw it as a place the home for the thousands and thousands of homeless immigrants which it became (00:11:48) great deal to do with his (00:11:50) efforts the place became productive and he started it was called the great desert and he ended up it was the breadbasket of the world. So he was successful, but he didn't see that. He was completely successful and their incomes the drama he felt in many ways. He had failed because his image of the farmer was not fulfilled. The farmer got to be a swinging sort of swinging Speculator cell move by another piece of land put a couple pieces of land together. In other words, the farmers started doing imitating him doing what he did. He didn't like that. He saw it as a kind of bucolic settle the farmer and his sons tilling the soil his daughter's marrying. Somebody else's Sons, you know, he had this kind of bucolic it which it wasn't it was bigger than even he imagined. So it's yeah, the Destiny was fulfilled the answer is yes to both your questions. If I remember them. Yes, the Destiny was fulfilled in an economic sense. And yes, he thought he'd flopped in a certain sense. I know it's early but when he when James J Hill looks at the present he does, right. Does he disparage the way things have gone? Oh, what a question and they all look at me your turn. I think well, that's an interesting thing about what James was talking about. The second act. The second act was was playing rather heavy. The First Act is he's a feisty your man. He is he's got a lot of his life in front of him. We get to the second act and it's not there and it's a beautiful second act and we all kind of first of all envisioned it as rather, you know, the the dramatic people we are lets you know, and we realized that that wouldn't work. We started finding some keys to play against that and one of them was his attitude was that ironic This is what has happened in my life. And yes, it's been good and bad and all those wonderful things make up life. But at this point does it he says does it really matter? So his his assessment of what happens is I don't think you can label it. It's rather a personal. I mean we obviously see it somebody help me out here, please (00:14:05) one except the playwright help. Yeah, really? I was (00:14:07) just interested in what he'd say. Well, it's you know for all of us we get to a certain point and we've been rather intense about creating a life and I imagine if it's happened or if it hasn't we go well, There it is. (00:14:22) The other thing too is that it is tremendously difficult. We mentioned earlier that we had all this material that Lance and the historians researched and wrote and brought in and it is difficult to choose that which you're going to include in the show. You can only do. Well we put a limit on this thing of what 90 minutes and it's sometimes you have to take things out that you wish you could leave (00:14:48) in Jim 90 minutes for one person on stage is exhausting. It's a long time. It passes as though but a minute I can guarantee all in (00:14:58) all of the in radioland. It passes as though a minute for the actor had passes though five hours, (00:15:04) but Have you discovered eccentricities about Hill that you're using to kind of keep special interest in the character? Keep the flow was he an eccentric in any way an eccentric or just special kinds of things about either the way he seemed to move or (00:15:24) well now this is interesting because today just today we became aware that we could view a couple of movies that were taken. I guess the footage was taken out on the farm at North Oaks and they're in the Jerome Hill Foundation collection lands, and we're probably going to go over there today or tomorrow to take a look at the man. The only thing I've had access to any of us have had access to our still pictures of the man and getting at the private man is is very difficult because the family files are secret. (00:15:58) I think one of the things that that we plugged into very early with his incredible energy is capability of doing two three four things at one time. In the man. Well, it says in the stage directions of the beginning of the scriptlance put he could always use 15 minutes more always an intense energy and intense desire to accomplish many things which is very indicative of him. So I wouldn't call him eccentric. Although I know where you're coming from and that but he was a man who was bigger than life who was started, you know typical story from nothing really talks in the show about how William asked all this money is Lance said he talks in the show about the time that he felt the richest was when he earned his first four dollars. So he really started from nothing and due to this incredible energy and foresight developed into what he (00:16:55) was people keep asking me. What am I going to see now and I come and see this what kind of a man am I going to see and the only thing I can tell them is well, that's up to You some of you are going to see this gregarious kind of open storytelling wonderful turn-of-the-century gentleman who's interested in business and interested in everything and others are going to see back of all that the Flint hard businessman who's out there to implement the destiny and it's going to get implemented whether you like it or not. (00:17:30) Would you grace us with another reading? (00:17:32) Well, you know, we were talking about the whole thing about comprehending the future and he says I served and I seem to have a certain talent for it gets me great benefits in business and great criticism from the public organizing the present comprehending the future. It started early for me. I just arrived. I was new on my job with borup Champlin Wholesale grocers forwarding and commission Merchants. Well, oh man, Bora took it into his head to sell these newfangled reaping and threshing machines made in Buffalo New York ordered three wasn't long before the Contraptions came out. Steamboat on the war eagle and my old friend Charlie coffin. He comes running down the Gangplank just as soon as it touched ground. Hey there James had Charlie. Mr. Boris threshing machines are here. There they be and he pointed to a pile of crates (00:18:22) must have been 25 of (00:18:24) them. That's it. Charlie two dozen crates. Let me see the Manifest no instructions came with them James. (00:18:33) Now, you (00:18:35) have to understand two things about these three machines first. They were very complicated pieces of American Ingenuity, maybe a thousand parts of peace or more and second. It had been largely my idea that the firm take them on. So now I had to get the firm out of the jam. I'd gotten it into. Well. I know the machines worked because I'd seen one up at core Max place up back at Fort Snelling Saul I drove up there Cormac was threshing. I look the contraption over noted it carefully gruesome diagrams and talk to Cormac and I went back and set one up. Front of the office wouldn't you know it some damn fool bought it and it worked I didn't tell him but I had four parts left over and Ole Miss de bourgh up. (00:19:17) He never said a word about it. (00:19:20) Although I think he was secretly pretty pleased. Those were free or Wheeling days, you know things that change in fast now politicians are up there in the hill and st. Paul her up on Capitol Hill in Washington just passing laws against anything as fast as he can. Well, I suppose you shouldn't really blame them good many of them are lawyers and they simply have nothing better to occupy their minds. Now if we had more farmers and businessmen in the congresses and legislators of this land, we'd have fewer laws and more good sense.