The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1898-10-21

cOnsin and the eastern part of Minnesota.
Without these states, in all probability
the Union would have been dissolved in
1851. For twenty years the site of the city
of ST. Paul, where we meet, was the ex-
treme western boundary of the United
States.
In 1903 we purchased of Napoleon the
Territory of Louisiana. The American
commissioners did not want and were
afraid to buy more than small area at the
mouth of the Mississippi. Napoleon was
obstinate. War with England was on, he
needed revenue, and did not have forces
sufficient to protect it, and hence COM
PEELED the American commissioners to take
all the French possessions in America.
The price of this magnificent area extend
ing from the gulf. along the Mississippi to
Canada, and thence to the Pacific, en-
bracing nearly million square miles of
territory, now divided into fifteen states
and the Indian territory, was $15, 000, 900.
That was only ninety-fve years ago, and
the permanent school fund of Minnesota,
in part one of those states, is now nearly
equal to the original purchase price.
Clearly, no one among the grantors or the
grantees of that transaction foresaw it's
Importance and consequence to freedom
and the destiny of the 1agl Was it acct
dental? None will say so.
War with Mexico ended with the treaty
of Guadalupe, and our southern boundaries
were from the mouth of the Rio Grande
to the Pacific. Was it accidental that the
forces of secession in 1861 failed to divide
this territory, thus so providentially
brought together under one flag?
Two years ago in Boston, on Lincolns
birthday, met, as the guest of the Mid
dlesex club, Gen. Walker of Virginia. In
speaking he said that it was the first time
that he had ever seen Bunker Hill monu-
ment or been to Boston, that in '63 he
started for Boston on horseback, but turned
around at Gettysburg and went back.
Following him I said Gen Walker, 1
know why you turned around and went
back At Gettysburg you met God and
the First Minnesota, and the combination
was too much for you" IN all our national
history diOtne zOisdom seems to haze di-
rected as at the fork of the roads, We are
at the fork again, Which road shall we
take?
OUR NEW POSSESSION
In 1923, when the Monroe doctrine was
enunciated, no one living then foresaw how
steam and electricity would revolutionize
war and commerce. Steam and the neces-
sity of coal in naval warfare had not yet
entered the minds of men. To-day all is
changed. Names are recognized as initial
90 We S|O[OLH UNU pOICeT ~ UOLZONS. 10
+, haze Names zOe must haze islands IN the
sea zOhe,e orr OeSSeLs can coal and rebaiy.
We must haze our OzOn ports and our
ozOn supply Of COAL In 113 days
we have secured by conquest strate-
gic islands from Porto Rico to Manila,
covering 100 degrees of the earth's circum-
ference. Porto Rico stands guardian oVey
our southern coast and the Gulf of Mexico,
where eventually we must have an inter
oceanic canal.
HazOatl, like a sentinel, zOH guard
our Vast Pacific coast Cables to
this and other islands will advise us
promptly of threatened danger. and make
our warships most efficient for coast de-
Tense and for attack.
The PHILIPPINES are the ones that seem to
sgi0e some good citizens most concern as to
what our policy should be. Connected
with Manila by cable, with Hawaii and
the Ladrones, our government would al
ways be in closer communion with Manila
than during the first half of the century
the city of Washington was with the city
of New York
1t will not be an hundred years more
ere we shall talk with the Philippines, and
perhaps see as if face to face while we
talk, so great are the possibilities of cleo
tricity. Science lights the way Space
and time are no longer serious elements in
fixing the boundaries of progressive and
enlightened nations.
The PhiliPbfnes are the Gibraltar of the
orient. They lie in close proximity to
more than one.half the population of all
the world To the north and west lie
Japan, China and India and to the south
Australia, that island continent with a
territory equal to all the United States,
save Alaska. China with her 400, 900, 600,
is about to be opened up to the commerce
of the world. The island of Luzon occu-
pies about the same relation to China and
the China sea as the Islands of Cuba and
Porto Rico to the Gulf of Mexico and the
United States The total area of the
islands is about one fifth that of Alaska
Alaska takes as nozOhere, the Ehilibbines
eOeryzotere.
A NATIONAL DUTY.
America, with her rs, 900 600 prosperous
and strong, can well afford to make the
experiment of the Philippines in the high.
er interests of civilization and Christianity.
These are obligations that nations as we'll
as individuals must bear. We are still
working upon the footing stones of the
republic. One hundred years is but a
brief time in the history of nation. At
Manila, America, the youngest, in the
family of nations. will face the oldest
member of the human race, a nation
that ante dates Greece and Rome. The
forces that shall control in this crisis must
be those approved by him in whose sight
"a thousand years are but as yesterday"
If you zOish to zOorslsib the rising sun of
the future, turn your faces to the Vest
The Pacific will soon be the great theatre
OF trade and commerce. far outstripping
the Atlantic. Our manifest destiny is to
control this trade. Here eventually will
be the markets for the wheat of the West,
the iron of Minnesota Another century
and the Americans of that day will say.
Chow little Mckinley and Davis and their
associates, charged with the responsibility
of readjusting the boundaries of the
United States in 1898, appreciated the