The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1898-08-27
The LOUISIANA PURCHASE AS
A PRECEDENT OF TERRI
TORIAL EXPANSION.
All Our Acquisitions Of Territory Except
Alaska Spanish Posseesi"ns-The
Simple and Easy Methods by Which
Assimilation was Adected-The
Past Points the Clear Way to
Future Success in Expansion.

:
had come to an ominGus parting OF
the WAYS. They believe we are aban-
doning an established national policy
and it frightens them that our coun-
try, now so snugly ensconeed in wha'
they consider her national boruers'
should be pressing beyond them. New
ertbeless we are confronted with the
accomplished fact of annexation by
treaty and conquest. Protest Will NO
longer avail. We must all OF us who
love our country turn our minds TO
solving the problems before us.
Every departure from tradition is
serious. Established conditions are
not to be lightly changed. Institutions
which have proved safe in the hands
of homogeneous population may not
be safe in a land of mixed races. on
the threshold of new undertaking,
the prudent man weighs risks against
possible profits. and relies rather up
on experience than hope.
The purpose OF this letter is to re-
cite briefly the. acts which made the
first precedent of our national expan-
sion. showing how perfectly they ap-
ply to our present undertaking. Those
who believe that our national policy
has been a forward policy from the
first may be strengthened, and those
who doubt may be relieved by having
thus recalled to them the circum-
stances under which our republic, at
the beginning of its existence, not On
" acquired an imperial realm, but also
pledged itself by treaty to admit to
citizenship large and alien popula-
ton.
1t is a most apt precedent at this
moment, when it seems almost for
gotten that though we bought LouIsi-
ana from France, the laws we found
there were Spanish, administered ny
Spanish officials, and that excepting
Alaska) all the land we have hitherto
acquired has been Spanish. With that
one exception, two-thirds OF the pres
ept area of the United States came to
us from Spain. One can travel from
San Diego to St. Augustine; thence,
along the Gulf, to New Orleans; from
New Orleans to Omaha, from Omaha
to Tacoma, and return to San Diego,
always journeying through what was
once Spanish territory.
It would, indeed, seem as if the for
ward movement of our frontiers had
been more or less continuous, and as
if, from the beginning, our policy had
been one of territorial aggrandize-
ment; for these acquisitions were
made on four several occasions, at in
tervals Oh many years, and were, IN
turn, followed by the purchase OF
Alaska. As we look back each forward
step seems to have been wise. but each,
at the time, was bitterly opposed, and
none more so-can it be credited?-
than the purchase of Louisiana.
1t is difficult for us today, when
seventy millions populate the CONT
nent from sea to sea, to bark back to
the year 1903 and Thomas Jefferson's
pastoral republic. 1t seems but little
further back to the days of bluff King
Hal or even of Alfred. Indeed, the
changes wrought in the world by this
century make the gulf between the
old English kings and Jefferson seem
less deep than that between his times