Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1900-09-20

waii and the Philippines, and have some
interest in Cuba; and / venture to say
that the increased and increasing busi-
ness in those distant islands has already
more than absorbed the work of all the
drummers in the country who have lost
their positions through industrial com
binations. Ii that is true, and | believe
it is, consider what a chance there is for
ten per cent OF our commercial travellers,
or for fifty per cent OF them, in time in
foreign lands or at home here, helping
their new employers, or their old ones,
to meet all the numberless new and in
creasing demands Of our prosperous and
proud American men, women, sweet
hearts, wives, cousins, aunts and chill
dren, and all the countless millions, who.
as We can be certain, are going to want
our American products more and more
because the counted millions that we
know of have begun to take them now
almost faster than we can supply them.
That is expansion.
You cannot stop it in a million years!
1t has been going on since the world
began, and it will continue to go on,
faster than ever, | guess, to the end of
time. 1t happens when a people fairly
bursts its manufacturing and commercial
bounds. There must be an outlet for the
products of our farms and factories. for
the capital and talents OF our business
men and hustlers.
Sometimes this expansion Of new
strength, which amounts to an explosion
of new strength, must be preceded by a
battleship, even by a part of a standing
army, or 4 permanent garrison. as in
Porto Rico or the Philippines. At other
times the battleship and the standing
army. or i part of it, just enough to hold
orr own and make no doubt of it, must
follow.
The missionaries (who typify in a way
tie advance OF civilization INTO heather
lands, AS we call them are best Of all the
daring forerunners of the and
the progress that have to get there too.
The human race, especially the Anglo
Saxons. are always wanting more and
better things; they are climbing. climbing,
climbing. always upon a higher plane of
living. These things they work for. and
fight for, and die for. So long as TINT
restless, world-conquering sentiment ex-
lists. there will be expansion. So long,
too, the races Of the earth which have
found themselves, and are still finding
themselves. unequal to the trading. and
selling. and fighting. and civilizing capac.
ity of the Anglo-Saxons, must step aside,
they must learn to fight and to trade. and
to trade and to fight. much better; that is
all.
l try TO say these things t%houghtfnllv
as a drummer. notorious as he is for talk,
ing. may sometimes do. This expansion
that ] speak Of is what we optimist,
mean by destiny: we are not afraid Of II
we welcome it. We have done in the las,
three years a hundred years of work
which. however. we couldn't have done
II we hadn't been prepared, II we hadn'
been that kind OF people.
There is not a trne American man II
these United States that is not better off
in bis patriotism or his pecuniary pros
poets. for the tasks OF war and Of states
manshits that have been undertaken AN,
discharged in the last three years. Yo,
are better off. whoever you are: and | nm
better of. Even IL 1 had not been nee
sssary to my employer In the field an,
had not been kept on the payroll. the,
there would have been ten times tn,
freedom OF opportunity. which is all an,
good man can want. There is freedom o
opportunity for everybody: but opportu
nity won't come looking for us. We mus
go running for il. watching every open
Ing. looking for Improvement, looking 10
the way which our employer must find /
we do not make his capital and his ef
forts pay him a little better. In tina
way cur efforts. which are our capital