The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-25
WON THE DEFORESI PRIZE.
WALTER BRUCE HOWE OF VASE
 TON, p. c.
Wns the Successful Speaker in compe- tition For Its Medal i'm Battell Chapel -NIr. Howe,s PaDer.

MT. Howe's Paper.
 Walter Bruce Howe of Washington
 D. C., who won the DeForest prize il
 Battell chapel Friday afternoon spok
 in a clear voice and his paper was al
 follows:
 In the year 1539, DeSoto the Spaniar'
 and comrade of the conqueror Plzarro
 landed in Florida hoping to win nev
 lands and gold; hoping perhaps to tint
 the fountain of youth. And with hln came a thousand foot-sodiers witt
 banners and trumpets and force O
 armored horsemen and many hol1
 priests and gentlemen of Spain These
 were the first white men to see the Mis
 sissippi and the great territory O.
 Louisiana. For three years they wan
 dered far and wide and fought witt
 savage tribes for a barren conquest
 then hopeless of the golden cities that
 never appeared, heart broken by the
 never ending forest, Captain DeSotc
 died and was buried in the great river
 His companions fled to the sea and
 Louisiana was forgotten for a hundred
 and thirty years
 The next explorer came humbly, with
 few followers but with a high purpose
 He was a Jesuit missionary from Can
 ada. He journeyed to the upper wa
 ters of the unknown Mississippi and
 drifted in a canoe down the current for
 many days, wondering at what he saw and remembering everything. Then he turned back, passed again the thousand
 z lit a,,I nIon1 Quebec and told his superiors of his discovery. The church bells rang for whole day, and Father, Marquette S work was done.
 Devoted and unfaltering though they were these two travellers stand for the ideals that made the colony of Louis ianna a failure for hundred years. Frenchmen and Spaniards made great sacrifices there for a great undertake ing. Like DeSoto, they made heart breaking failure because in a new world they clung to the dying tradi- tions of the old world They were brave men, these colonists, explorers born and lovers of wild adventure; but they were not pioneers They toiled and died in louisiana, but they did not make it home for posterity. Like Marquette, the Jesuit, they felt that they were to be controlled without will or question as children, and like chill dren, they were helplessly dependant. The king was liege lord to be served and obeyed and the colonists were his vassals, to be protected. Until the ideal of the pioneers of Kentucky, should re- place the traditions of the Middle Ages to in, Q will ness, country of exiles, who watched with wistful eyes the ships that sailed for home.
 France was slow to realize her op portunity. Trappers from Canada and the tireless Jesuit fathers visited the great valley that Marquette had told them of, but Marquette was dead and nine years had passed before LaSalle reached reached the mouth of the Mis- sissippi There he raised the standard of France and declared that Louis Fourteenth was lord of a new demesne. A Te Deum was sung, and LaSalle and his men departed. Then more lonely years went by and at last in 1899 fleet came from France and landed the men of the first colony in louisiana. With them Frances great dream began; and with them too was the beginning of the great failure.
 A fort built on a sandy island with l cannon and soldiers and a governor over all-this was the first step. Then | goodbye to the ships, and a weary | wait for them to come back again with l more food and more soldiers, Mean | time-the hungry winter and the awful l summer, starvation, homesiekness and | dying hope. So the colonists of Louis | ianna lived on from season to season by the mercy of the king who supported | them. There was rich land that they might have cultivated there were the forest hunting grounds of the Indians that they might have won and held for the genera tions to come-but it was easier to explore the unknown rivers or to hunt for gold and pearls trusting that the king who sent the soldiers would send the daily bread as well.
 As it was with the first settlers, so it was when more came over They were adventurers and unfortuntes to whom any change was grateful, men from the kings prisons, negroes from girls who left Paris to be wives In Louisiana. They were seth out to make the great empire of the west; they found the land a wilderness, they lived in 1t and wilderness it remained. Louis Fourteenth died and his dream had not come true-Lousiana that was to have been so great such a glory to France, was still a lifeless burden.
 Then Louisiana was given away armed out like an eastern province of ancient home, to be fostered and strengthened and then to have it's , -iches drained away by it's absolute ,wner-the India company of France. z n return for maintaining the colony { he company was to become the sole , proprietor of all it's trade and all it's I commerce for five and twenty years. n the huge bubble of speculation that he India company had raised, Louis ma was reflected in magic colors and I t first this plan promised well for the olony. But hardly had the first wave f prosperity been felt when the bub- le burst. The India company was e ankrupt, and Louisiana, to add to it's s was hopelessly bound by c ruinous monoply. j Forty fruitless years passed by and t he colony was little different from T that it had been in the beginning. c When commerce with other nations ould have brought relief, the law re- s tricted commerce to France alone. t hen the settlements could have been g