The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-01-27
Col. Bracket Knocks the Stuff
ing Out of the Stuffed Prophet.
LANDING ON HIS FAT JAW
An Address Before the Unity Club Full
of Ginger, Cayenne, Tabasco Sauce.
Horseradish. English Mustard
and Indian Curries.

address the Unity CluD- Int arr RUM VI
the public library building was crowded
to its capacity by members of the clup
m hear Colonel Brackets lecture, which
proved to be one OF the most interesting
of the lectures that have been delivered
before the club. Colonel Bracket Sc
Iected as his subject the novel topic:
..Those Undesirable Communities of the
Rocky Mountain States, and in his
treatment of it said:
..Ry n strange concatenation of
events by the irony Of fate, certain
citizen of our country of apparently
commonplace characteristics. who,
among other things, had hired a substi-
tute to fight in his place as soldier in
the civil war. and who had abandoned
a learned profession to become sheriff OF
Erie county. in Western New York. was
twice elevated by the votes of the
Amrican people to the exalted office of
president of the United States.
This seemed to he a marked instance
of what Mr.. Lincoln termed fooling
some of the people some OF the time
Never before this mans accession to the
presidency had any chief magistrate OF
the American people gone out of his
way to speak in harsh and derogatory
terms of any considerable portion OF this
country, or of any important commune
ties therein. Whatever may have been
sner presidents concerning any com
munity or settlement in the United
States, a manifest sense of propriety re-
strained the public expression of them
even as a father would hesitate and
refrain from publicly proclaiming the
faults of a son or a husband would abb
stain from printing in the newspapers
an account of his unruly wifes esca-
padeS.
Elevated by the people to the highest
elective office in the world, American
presidents. with one exception, have so
revered the majesty of that people that
they have refrained from publishing 70
the world any opinions concerning the
faults and shortcomings of any portion
of the country for the president of the
United States peculiarly stands for ana
represents the whole American people.
1T has been well ascertained by ply
sicians and psychologists that vast
power in one mans hands, coupled with
intense egotism in the incumbent, often
generates a disease known as the inn
perial Madness Ii afflicted many Ro-
man emperors and at least one president
of the United States. Nero was infiu-
enced by this madness while playing on
his cythara as Rofne burned.
Resembling considerably in personal
appearance this Nero, according TO eN-
tant portraits. Grover Cleveland once
went out OF his way to publicly express
his opinion that the people of the Rocky
mountain states We're undesirable COM
munities.'
His knowledge of those communities
was founded entirely on hearsay. He
had never travelled through the West, or
even TO the West: otherwise he might
have modified that opinion Certainly
such a journey would have added TO his
stock of knowledge in many ways and
would have thus in some measure justi
fled the comforting upon him the degree
of doctor of laws by Princeton college.
The eminence of his station rather
than the force or truth of his observa-
ton gave wide currency to this libel
upon a portion of that people who had
elevated him to the high office of presi-
dent.
las he sits now on The low-lying
shores of BuzZard's Bay in a state of
'innocuous desuetude' he may we'll look
with wondering gaze afar at that rising
and splendid civilization of the Rocky
mountain states, which has arrested the
attention and aroused the admiration
of the ablest scholars and historians of
America.
Emerson. the great American philos-
opher. looking with dismay at the easy
emigration from Europe to America of
certain undesirable classes. owing to
cheap and swift steam navigation, once
said We in the Atlantic states, by posi-
ton, have become commercial. and have
easily imbibed a European culture
Luckily for us. now that steam has mar
rowed the Atlantic to a strait. the nervy,
rocky West is introducing new and con-
tinental element into the national mind
and we shall have an American genius.
We cannot look on the freedom of this
country in connection with its youth
without presentiment that here shall
laws and constitution exist on some
scale of proportion to the majesty of
nature. To men legislating for the area
hat a fNEn hat ivt O
SHOWS and the tropics. somewhat of the
gravity of nature will infuse itself into
the code
Prof John Bryce of England. author
OF the most remarkable commentary on
American life and civilization ever writ
ten, says: Western America is one OF
the most interesting subjects of study
the modern world has seen. There has
been nothing in the past resembling its
growth and probably there will be moth
ing in the future. A vast territory Won
derfully rich in natural resources of
many kinds. and the whole of 1t thrown
open to an energetic race. with all the
appliances and contriyances of mod
ern science at its communicated are
phenomena absolutely without prece-
dent in history, and which cannot occur
elsewhere because our planet contains
no such other favored tract Of country.
The West IL the most American part Of
America
The prophetic vision of Emerson is
not alone vision of the future. The
West has already infused a continental
element into the national mind and
has. in the eloquent words of Bryce be-
came the most American part of Amer
lea.
In speaking of the West we no longer
mean the valley of the Mississippi. for
that has now become only the middle
ground and a debateabIe doubtful
ground. lying between the West and the
East. The real West is on the head
waters of those mighty rivers and
streams which flow. some toward the
Atlantic and some toward the Pacific
The real West is amid those mountains
snow covered and towering 10 the
clouds, which shelter so many beautiful
parks broad basins and rich valleys al
their feet II is where the very air
makes men breathe a rugged independ-
ence and where real liberty and real fra.
rlrot-ail A ciNzilfzaf risif,