The Republican journal., 1898-12-22
Americas Year of a 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 this country has made in 100 years.
In the historical books 179S does not
figure with any prominence, but in
reality it is an important landmark
in the country's expansion. 1t was just a
hundred years ago that the provisions of
the treaty of peace with England in 1888
were fully and finally carried out. For
fifteen years after that date the United
States, in its endeavors to secure the
boundaries guaranteed in that agree
ment, was obstructed by two nations,
England and Spain. he British held
possession 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 abandonment was carried on
with a slOwnesS which was exceedingly
eXasperating to the people of the United
States.
With Spain, however, the United States
had much more trouble in securing it's
treaty rights under the agreement of
1888 than it had with England. Then, as
now, Spain was slow in grasping the
justice of any demand by any other ma
ton, 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 earth, while the United States was
only an insignificant spot on the map
and had no rights which any OF the great
nations felt bound to respect Spain CON
tended that the Florida region which She
gained from England during the war Of
the American revolution, and which eX-
tended 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 southerly line of the
United States on the Mississippi end at
that point. Both England and the United
States, on the other hand, insisted that
this counuy's southern boundary went
down to latitude 81. At last the protests
and threats of the United States and
Spain's dangers in the Napoleonic wars
then underway compelled the latter
to accede to the American demands.
Spain did this in the treaty of San Lorenzo
of 1875, which was ratified by the Senate
in 1876, but 1898 arrived 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, fifteen years after the treaty
of independence, and Just hundred 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
contil med.
Americas situation in 1898, materially
and morally, makes a striking contrast
with that of 1T9S On the day whe
Gavosos forces lowered their flag in
Aatchez and sailed down to New Orleans,
the person who stepped below the south
erly 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 comprised
the present state of that name and
strip westward along the southerly line of
what are now the States of Alabama and
Mississippi to the Mississippi River, and
she had all the region west of the river,
The population of the country was about
:, 600 600 The Louisiana cession and all
the other annexations were still in the
distance. Nobody could have foreseen at
that time that the narrow strip of popula
ted area east of the Alleghenies, with
the scarcely less diminutive. stretch of
wilderness between those mountains and
the Mississippi woult ever reach the
Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. Much
less could anybody have foreseen then
that this country would annex all of Rus
sian America, absorb all the islands of
Mexico and acquire possessions scattered
through the Pacific extending almost to
the continent of Asia. The growth of
America from an area of S27, 900 square
miles and a population of 5000, 600 in
1898 to an area of 3, 500, 600 square miles
and population of So, 900, 900 in 1898,
attended as it has been by a rise from
position in which its enmity had no men
ace for even the feeblest of foreign states
to one in which its friendship is sought
by the most powerful nations of the earth,
represents physical and moral advance
ment which has no parallel in the annals
of the world. st. Louis Globe Demo-
crat.