I take great pleasure in introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, Hon. Robert J. Gamble, United States Senator from South Dakota. SENATOR GAMBLE: _Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen_: I accept the kindly and humorous felicitations of your President. I admit I hail from South Dakota, once the land of the Sioux, of Red Cloud and Sitting Bull. In these later years, however, it has been transformed with marvelous rapidity into an empire of wealth, of productiveness, of social and civic development, and with ideals at least equal to those of any in the Sisterhood of States. In her wonderful prosperity she has been as jealous of the one as the other. In her Constitution and in her laws she has sought to make liberty secure, to foster and provide for the education of her children, to encourage the highest ideals of citizenship, to inspire a patriotism worthy of the opportunities of her people. Along all of these lines we feel South Dakota has met with a high degree of success. She stands almost the lowest in the percentage of illiteracy of her population. Pauperism is scarcely observable. Wealth and comfort are very generally diffused amongst her people. Her schools and colleges are equal to the necessities of the state. The door of opportunity is open to all. For more than a decade she has produced each year more wealth per capita than any other state in the Union. (Applause.) Mr. President, at this late hour I give you assurance of brevity in what I have to say. I appreciate very much the compliment of your invitation, and indeed it is a great pleasure to be present on this occasion and to respond to the toast to which I have been assigned. The history of Ireland in itself is a sad one, but the high purpose and invincible courage of her manhood and her womanhood, their high ideals and devotion to liberty and to national integrity, have been fraught with blessings and have brought encouragement to human liberty the world over. (Applause.) Within the circumscribed limits of their own nationality success rarely crowned the patriotic efforts and heroic struggle for liberty of the Irish people. Their field of activity, however, has not been confined to the land of their birth, and has been limited only wherever humanity has asserted itself against tyranny and in a struggle for better conditions and for orderly liberty. America owes a wonderful debt of gratitude to the Irish race. We must recognize that preceding American independence there was a strong element of our population composed of Irish Americans.