El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-12-31
OUR YEAR OF A HUNDRED YEARS.

Country's Situation In 1898 Makes
Striking Contrast With That of
1898.
A comparison of the territorial area
and the national influence of the Unit
| ed States with those of 1898 will show
the vast material and moral advance
which this country has made in 100
years. In the historical books 1898
does not figure with any prominence,
but in reality it is an important land
mark in the country's expansion. It
was just 100 years ago that the provis-
ions of the treaty of peace with Eng
land in 1888 were fully and finally car
ried out. For Is years after that date
the United States, in it's endeavors to
secure the boundaries guaranteed in
that agreement, was Obstructed by two
nations, England and Spain. The
British held possession of posts at Os-
wego, Niagara, Detroit and other
places in United States territory OF
the northern frontier, until jays
treaty, which, among other things
provided for their evacuation, went
| into operation in 1916, and even then
the work of abandonment was carried
| on with q slowness which was exceed
| ingly exaspersting to the people of the
United States.
With Spain. however, the United
States had much more trouble in Sc
curing it's treaty rights under the
agreement of 1888 than it had with
England, says the Sto. Louis Globe De
slow in grasping the justice of any de-
mand by any other nation, and in that
particular crisis the situation for this
country was .rendered doubly embar-
RAISING by the fact that Spain WAS still
one of the great powers of the earth,
while the United States was only an
insignificant spot on the map and had
no rights which any of the great ms:
lions felt bound to respect. Spain con-
she gained from England during the
war of the American revolution, and
which extended: west to the Mississippi,
went as far north as the mouth of the
Yazoo, about theparallel of
81 degrees north latitude,
which would make the south
erly line of the United ST ties on the
Mississippi at that point:
Both England and the United States,
on the other hand, insisted that this
country s southern boundary went down
to latitude 81 degrees. At last the pro-
tests and threats of the United States
and Spain's dangers in the Napoleonic
wars then under way compelled the
latter TO accede to the American de-
mands. Spain did this in the treaty of
San Lorenzo in 1895, which was rsti-
rived before the Spanish flag went
down in Natchez, the most important
town in the territory in dispute, and
the Stars and Stripes went up. Then,
Is years after the treaty of indepen-
pendence, and just 100 years ago, the
title of the United States to all its ter
ritory between the Atlantic and the
Mississippi and from the great lakes to
the Florida line was definitely confirm
ed.
Americas situation in 1898, mate
contrast with that of 1913. On the day
when Gayoso's forces lowered their
flag in Natchez and sailed down to
New Orleans, the person who stepped
below the southerly line of Georgia,
into the lower end of what is now the
state of Mississippi, or who crossed the
Mississippi river, would be in for
eign land. We were surrounded on
three sides by powerful nations. Eng
land was north of US as now, and Spain
was south aud west of US, as she held
Florida, which comprised the present
state of that name and what are now
the states of Alabama and Mississippi
to the Mississippi river, and sshe had
all the region west of the river. The
population of the country was about
5000, 900.
The Louisiana cession and all the
other annexations were still in the dis.
lance. Nobody could have foreseen at
that time that the narrow "trip of
populated area east of the Alleghenies,
with the scarcely less diminutive
stretch of wilderness between those
mountains and the Mississippi, would
ever reach the Gulf of Mexico and the
Pacific. Much less could anybody have
foreseen then that this country would
annex all of Russian America, absorb
all the islands OF value in the Gulf of
Mexico, and acquire possessions scat
tered through the Pacific extending
almost to the continent of Asia. The
growth of America from an area of
1927 600 square miles and a population
of 6, ZOO, 900 in 1898 to an area of 3 $780,
600 square miles and population of
IS, 900, 900 in 1898, attended as it has
been by rise from position in which
it's enmity had no menace for even the
feeblest of foreign states to one in
which its friendship is sought by the
most powerful nations OF the earth, re-
presents physical and moral advance
ment without parallel in the annals of
the world.
Holiday Excursion Rates"
December "a, 25, 26, 81. January 1
and 2 the ''Santa Fe Route' will sell