Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-12-23
170S--1S0S.
Americas Year of IA Hundred Years.

Americas Year of Hundred Years,
A comparison of the territorial area and
the national influence of the United
States in 1898 with those of 1898 will show
the vast material and moral advance which
the country has made in 100 years. In the
historical books 179S does not figure with
any prominence, but in reality it is an i'm
portant landmark in the country's expan-
sion. 1t is just hundred years ago that
the provisions of the treaty of peace with
England in 1888 were fully and finally car
ried out. For u years after that date the
United States, in its endeayors to secure
the boundaries guaranteed in that agree
ment, was obstructed by two nations, Eng
land and Spain. The British held posses
sion of posts at OswegO, Niagara, Detroit
and other places In United States territory
on the northern frontier until jays treaty,
which, among other things, provided for
their evacuation, went into operation in
1876, and even then the work of abandon
ment was carried on with slowness which
was exceedingly exasperating to the peo-
pie of the United States.
With Spain, however, the United States
had much more trouble in securing its
treaty rights under the agreement of 1888
than it had with England. Then, as now,
Spain was slow in graspng the justice OF
any demand by any other nation, and in
that particular crisis the situation for this
country was rendered doubly embarrassing
by the fact that Spain was still one of the
great powers of the eatrh, while the Unit
ed States was only an Insignificant spot on
the map and had no rights which any of
the great nations felt bound to respect.
Spain contended that the Florida region
which 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
the parallel of 81 north latitude, which
would make the soulherly line of the Unit
ed States on the Mississippi end 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. At last the protests
| and threats of the United States and
Spains dangers in the Napoleonic wars
then under way, compelled the latter to ac-
cede to the American demands. Spain
did this in the treaty of San Lorenzo of
| l79j, which was ratified by the Senate in
| 1896, but 179S arrived before the Spanish
flag went down in Natchez, the most i'm
portant town in the territory in dispute,
and the stars and stripes went up. Then
- years after the treaty of independence,
and Just 100 years ago, the title of the
| United States to all its territory between
the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and from
the great lakes to the Florida line, was
definitely confirmed.
| Americas situation in 1898, materially
and morally, makes a striking contrast with
that of 1898. 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 foreign
land. We were surrounded on three sides
by powerful nations. England was north
of us as now, and Spain was south and
west of us, as she held Florida, which COM
prised the present state of that name and
a strip westward along the southerly line
of what are now the states of Alabams
and Mississippi to the Mississippi river
and she had all the region west of the
river. The population of the country wa:
about 100000. The Louisiana cessioI
and all the other anneXations were still in
the distance. Nobody could have foreseer
at that time that the narrow strip of popu
lated area east of the Alleghenies, with the
ness between those mountains and the
Mississippi would ever reach the Gulf o.
Mexico and the Pacific. Much less coult
anybody have foreseen then that this
country would annex all of Russian Amer
lea, absorb all the islands of value in th'
Gulf of Mexico and acquire posses
sions scattered through the Pacific extend
ing almost to the continent of Asia. Tn,
growth of America from an area of S27,
600 square miles and population of !, ZOO,
600 in 1898 to an area of 3,S00,00 squar
miles and population of 100000 il
1898, attended as it has been by ris
from position in which its enmity had n
menace for even the feeblest of foreigl
states to one in which its friendship
sought by the most powerful nations o
the earth, represents a physical and mora
advancement which has no parallel in tn
annals of the world