Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-10
LOOKING BACKWARD.

LOOKING BACKWARD.
In pursuing the matter Of the cost to
the government of extending the bound-
aries of our country. the people will
pause long enough to cast a look back
ward and estimate the cost to them of
the first experiment in the direction of eX-
pansion. The first trial was made at the
commencement of the present century.
Thomas jefferson, who is now rated as
having been a democrat of the first wa
ter, was president. Napoleon wanted a
little none to widen the swath he was
cutting in Europe. A great strip of coun-
try running from the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi river up to its source, including
Montana, was claimed by France. He
wanted SIS, 900, 900 more than he wanted
the country in America. The father of
democracy struck a bargain with the
ambitious Frenchman, and the title to its
ownership changed hands. The transfer
of that magnificent domain to the United
States has since been known as the Lou
isiana purchase.
The acquisition of Louisiana. with its
far-reaching boundaries, was not a costly
affair, measured by the dollars and cents
of that time. 1t more than doubled the
area of the United States. and has re-
turned to the government more than ten
purchase. So much for the cost of our
country's first expansion.
In 1874 James X. Polk, another demo-
crat, was elevated to the presidency of
the nation. The campaign cry of his par
ty was the annexation of Texas, and the
extension Of our northern boundary west
of Lake Superior to "54-4O or fight" The
country expanded far enough to take in
Texas, but Thomas II. Benton, another
good democrat, raised his voice in the
United States senate against expanding
our northern boundary. and British CO.
1umbia is laughing at our folly while
pocketing the output of the great mines
at the north of us.
1t is true Polk acquired Texas, a do
main large enough to make four states
the size of New York, but he also ac-
quired a Wal with Mexico, which cost
more treasure to our country and more
precious lives of our countrymen than
but we expanded far enough by the treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the payment
of $15, 000, 900 to reach around California
n all it's contiguous states. Taking into
account the billion or more dollars Cali
fornia and it's near sister states have
turned into Uncle Sans exchequer, that
expansion cost us nothing.
-
In 1865 Secretary Seward. a republican
this time, thought it would be a good
move upon the part of the government to
invest 81, 200, 900 in some Alaskan icebergs.
He made the dicker with Russia. and to-
day our country would not sell Alaska for
ten times the sum Seward paid for it.
That was not a costly expansion. In fact
the expanding of the nations boundary
from the Louisiana purchase to the ac-
QUESTION of Alaska, has not cost the coun-
try a dollar which has not been returned
to it an hundredfold. Looking backward
the cost of the nations expansion, from a
~pecuniary point of view. is nothing. Look
ing at it from the standpoint of national
honor, we are largely the gamer. View
ing it from the premises of the humani-
tartan, the world is indebted to us. The
country has given liberty of speech and Of
conscience to struggling people. It has
given millions of homes to a homeless
people. 1T has given free public schools
20 an ignorant people and surrounded
them with blessings denied them by any
other government.
What this great free and independent
government has done for the people
whom it has taken under it's protecting
for the people of Porto Rico, Cuba and
the Philippine islands. 1t will give them
what they ave long striven to possess
freedom from oppression and a govern