The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-07-18

looked at as with q telescope reversed. Aft
err time, long long time usually the
instrument happens to come mp end for
end, and that which before appeared to he
dwarf takes on the true stature of gi-
ant The greatness Of the west makes it
self felt rs generations roll on, and the pi
oneers who redeemed it from suvages, who
fought the first rude, bloody, decisive bat
ties for the survival of society in the viii
derness, slowly come into the honor they
deserve. Every time the improved lens is
brought to bear upon the lloustons, the
Crocketts and the Boones new virtues are
disclosed which provoke wonder ut the
blindness of the past. Then, as it were,
Countless cities claim old heroes dead,
Through which the living heroes begged for
bread.
Boones own generation and the one sue
ceeding either lavishly idolized or heartily
despised him as backwoods rover, "A pat
tern Misunderstanding for Cooper's pen.
Log cabin story tellers We're his portrait
painters The straight laced gentry who
fashioned manners and thought after the
Revolution could find neither the grace of
Washington nor the fine sentences of JEFF
ferson nor the "spell binding eloquence
of Patrick Henry in the rude Kentucky
borderer. and so, between his witless
though well meaning panegyrists and the
cold and partial critics who wrote history,
Boone Jared ill. The episode commemo-
rated in sculpture Mt the national CAPT
toll rests upon doubtful tradition and at
best pictures him rs an Indian slayer. In
truth, the great kentuCkian was a path
finder, n developer, statemaker, and
military and civil leader of men. 1t was
Boone who broke through the mountain
barriers between Virginia and kentucky
and with all his companions killed but
one built cabin hundreds of miles be
You'd civilization. That companion. his
brother. he dispatched home for supplies
and recruits, remaining behind alone
''without bread or salt-without the com
pany of fellow creatures or even Of horse
or dog" He felt that he was "an iustru-
ment ordained to settle the wilderness
and accepted the commission as from on
high, with all the fervor of II Constantine,
a Columbus or Luther He was then 80
years old, neither boyish dreamer nor
hermit recluse, but a lusty, vigorous, sound
hearted man.
1t was then 1910. For three months
Daniel lived alone, playing hide and seek
with the Indians, and the next year took
out his family. After passing the Cum
berland the Indians massacred six young
men of the party, one of them Boone's old
est son. Unnamed by the tears of the
women, the others turned back in spite of
Boones protest. He followed, but in lI54
his reports of what lay beyond the noun
tains stirred up Lord Dunmore, "A military
grantee, to organize an expedition to sur
vey and settle central Kentucky, and
Boone was engaged to lead it, Over the
old trail for 500 miles the party marched,
past the graves of the six martyrs of III,
into the heart of the wilderness. Old trap
pers and tenderfoot settlers hailed Boone
as the patriarch of the wild dominion The
Indians recognized him, too, and saw the
hand of fate working through this modest,
gentle man who braved-not despised, but
braved--every hardship and danger to full