The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-25

and soldiers, lived there under an orde
 the world was beginning to forget; he
 colonies existed for Spain alone anc
 neither benefit nor justice should avai against the greedy and narrow coloni
 al policy that survives the Roman
 empire among the Latin races.
 But the days of paternal oppression
 and mouldy tradition were numbered
 Through the passes of the easterr
 mountains, through thickets anC
 marshes and forests there came an i'm.
 patient throng of masterful men. One
 by one they came to claim the westerr
 lands as forfeit to their own mightiel
 race The American frontier haC
 crossed the Alleghanies. It had
 reached the Mississippi, It was ready
 to invade the marches of the empire Of
 Spain.
 The forces of enlightenment pressed
 on Louisiana from the settlements on
 the north and east, and from the com
 merce of the river and gulf. One by
 one the chains gave way and slowly,
 very slowly, population and wealth
 and power increased, and as the bonds
 of Louisiana were struck off Spain felt her foothold in North America Crurn-
 bling away and she feared for what re-
 mained to her of the western hemis- phere-once her own. Unable to hold the colony she had kept so helpless, hoping to make it as barrier against these hungry border-men, she gave it l back again to France, it's parent.
 Once more the vision of great new France appeared to a Frenchman. Then bitterly and under stress of crowding dangers, Napoleon Bonaparte ! bade farewell to sacred hope and, in | the year 1903 ceded Louisiana to the United States.
 It was what, sooner or later. must have happened. The empire of the west was to be founded by the race | that was fit for the toll.
 These were years of privation, as the trading-fo of France were changed to cities; these were years of blood, as the Indians, like the elk and the bison, left their lands to the lumberman and the farmer, but the nation gave of it's best and the race was equal to the task. Liberty and progress, with blessed in- dependence, came at last.
 The future greatness of the Missis sippi valley was not heralded by trum- pets and banners and armored men, nor with proclamations and prayers; but it came with rude f1atboat men of the up- per river and with hardy families of pioneers, ready to win their homes un- aided and to defend them singlehand- ed against all trespass. It came with the men and the way of our ever ad- vancing frontier.
 In fifty years innumerable steamers, busy with an enormous commerce, threaded the rivers that for a century had known only the canoes of the lone ly voyagers In fifty years the forests and savannahs the men of old Louisi- ana had shared for a century with the Indians were covered by fields and cit ies of a people more native than they themselves. At first the ancient inhab- itants shrank back in resentment They loved the old regime and they could neither love nor understand the new laws. They were there with the calm of great solitudes and they could not bear the jostle of the surge of pro- gress. For while they held aloof and would take no part in the duties of the new order. Then the common dan- ger of invasion and a common victory drew these men of old Louisiana across the gulf of century and they fell into step with their fellow citizens of an- 1 other race. All that remained of the ! bygone days were the names of a few old cities and the slowly disappearing | customs brought long ago from anoth- CT continent.
 In fifty years Louisiana was trans formed. The ideal of the Pilgrim fath- CTS had won the unequal fight and the wrongs of the days of France and Spain seemed dim and far away, as le- sends of an old world chivalry.