The Bicentennial is healing America’s wounds, Hubert H. Humphrey told a gathering of about 750 people at the dedication of the addition to the Brown County Courthouse Saturday.

Humphrey was speaking at the dedication and cornerstone–laying ceremony, which had been timed to be included with New Ulm’s biggest Bicentennial event, Heritagefest.” It’s like there’s a whole new world. America’s beginning once again to feel a sense of confidence,” Minnesota’s junior senator said. “This Bicentennial has had more to do with bringing people in this country together than anything else in years.”

THE FORMER vice president was about 45 minutes late in arriving, but when he appeared, he wasted little time sprinkling praise.

He lauded America, rural life, southern Minnesota, the Brown County Board, other public officials on hand and the two sister city mayors from Germany who are visiting the city for Heritagefest.

Referring to Lord Mayor Hans Lorenser of Ulm, Germany, and Lord Mayor Dietrich Lang of Neu Ulm, Germany, Humphrey called their visit “a high honor, a great honor.”

“This nation has but one hope and that is to live in peace,” he said, instructing the mayors to take that message back to their countries.

TURNING HIS thoughts to the New Ulm area, he said that Minnesota is “blessed by its people.”

“I knew that I was in one of the most wonderful parts of our republic” on his way to New Ulm, he said, “because this part of Minnesota is truly a garden spot.”

Rural America, the senator said, is booming.

“We started out as a rural society, and here in our Bicentennial year, believe it or not, the people are turning again to rural America,” he said. “Rural America has come alive because people have found that there’s more to life than big buildings, steel and glass.”

Humphrey, who went from the courthouse ceremony to Gartenfest at Turner Hall, was the last to speak at the dedication.

A NUMBER of officials were on hand for the ceremonies, which included encasing a time capsule to be opened in 100 years inside the cornerstone.

County Board Chairman Leo Hoffmann outlined efforts to restore the original courthouse and to add on to it.

“The citizens of Brown County have as beautiful a courthouse as there is in the land, and it’s all paid for,”he said.

“I’ve been in a lot of courthouses, and truly, this is one of the finer I’ve seen,”added State Sen.Carl Jensen, R-Sleepy Eye.

State Rep. A. J. “Tony” Eckstein, DFL-New Ulm, helped Hoffmann lay the cornerstone although he noted that he “never laid a brick in my life.”

Eckstein commended the county board for its “tremendous foresight” in making the old look new.

“It will continue to be one of the historical and marks in Brown County,” he said.

As Sen. Hubert Humphrey was speaking at the courthouse dedication Saturday, music scores of some of the members of the Sleepy Eye Municipal Band, which took part in the ceremony, blew to the ground.

Noting that the last time he spoke in New Ulm, a fire followed his speech at Turner Hall, Humphrey quipped,”I destroy things wherever I go.”

The previous time, he said, the headline read “Humphrey heats up,Turner Hall burns.”

This time, he said, the headline would probably read,”Humphrey windy.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

July 25, 1976