The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-08-02
NONE OTHER
COULD DO 1T.
Vice President Roosevelt Ad-
dresses People of Colorado
AT the Celebration of States
Quarter Centennial
He TELLS THE PEOPLE
That None but American Citi-
zens and Principles
Could Accomplish What Has
Been Done in the West.

Colorado Springs, Colo. Aug. 2.-The
principal feature of the Colorado
quarto-centennial celebration in this
city today was an address by Theo-
dore Roosevelt vice president of the
United States, on THE Growth Of the
West during the Last Quarter Of a
Century"
On his arrival this morning Colonel
Roosevelt was welcomed by Governor
Orrnan and staff. veterans, rough
riders, school children, and many 9TH
ers At 10 o'clock he was escorted TO
North Park. where he spoke in the open
air to an assem- blage of 10000 people,
who gave him an enthusiastic recep-
ton and frequently interrupted his re-
marks with applause He spoke as fol-
lows.
This anniversary which marks the
completion by Colorado of her first
quarter century OF statehood is of in
terest not only TO her, not only to her
sisters, the states Of the Rocky Noun
tain region, but 10 our whole country
With the exception Of the admiss -on
to statehood Of California, no other
event emphasized in such dramatic
fashion the full meaning Of the growth
of our country as did the incoming of
Colorado.
1t IS a law of our intellectual devel-
opment that the greatest and most i'm
DC ~tant truths, when once we have be-
co = thoroughly familiar with them,
oft because of that very familiarity
gro dina in our minds. The westward
spread of our people across this CONT
uent has been so rapid, and so great
has been their success in tanning the
rugged Wilderness turning the gray
desert into green fertility, and filing
the waste and lonely places with the
eager. throngings crowded life of our
t~-.1 II ~,-r~ %44,,,
begun to accept it all as part of the
order of nature. Moreover. 1T now
seems to US equally a matter Of course
that when a sufficient number of the
citizens of our common country have
thus entered into and taken posses
sion Of some great tract of empty will
derness, they should be permitted to
enter the union as a state on an absO-
lutte equality with the older states,
having the same right both to manage
their own local affairs as they deem
best, and to exercise their full share of
control over all the affairs of whatever
kind or sort in which the nation is in
terested as whole. The youngest and
the oldest state stand on an exact level
in one indissoluble and perpetual
union.
To US nowadays these processes seem
so natural that ii is only by a mental
wrench that we conceive of any other
possible. Yet they are really wholly
modern and of purely American devel-
opment When, century before Colo
radO became state. the original thir-
teen states began the great experiment
of a free and Independent republic on
this continent, the processes which we
now accept in such matter-of-co course
fashion were looked upon as abnormal
and revolutionary. 1t is our own sue
cess here in America that has brought
about the complete alteration in feel
ing. The chief factor in producing the
revolution. and later In producing TIE
war 1872 was fnn IN hflffvr Df
mother country to understand that the
1reemen who went forth to conquer a
continent should be encouraged in that
work, and could not and ought not to
be expected to toll only for the profit
or glory of others. When the first con-
unental congress assembled. the Brit
tsh government, like every other gov
eminent of Europe at that time. simp-
" did not know how to look upon the
general question of the progress of the
colonies save from the standpoint of
the people who had STAYED at home
The spread of the hardy. venturesome
backWoodsman was to most of the
statesmen of London a matter Of
anxiety rather than Of pride. and the
famous Quebec act of 1774 was in nart
designed with the purpose of keeping
the English speaking settlements Der-
manently east of the Alleghenies and
preserving the mighty and beautiful
valley of the Ohio as a hunting ground
Tor saVages-a preserve for the great
a
4a11 this project was partially revived
More extraordinary still even after
Independence was achieved and a firm
union accomplished under that Won
dertul document, the constitution
adopted in 17S9. We still see traces of
the same feeling lingering here and
there IN our own country There We're
plenty Of men in the seaboard states
who looked with what seems to ns
luoicrous apprehension at the steady
westward growth OF our people. Grave
senators and representatives EXPRESSED
dire foreboding as to the ruin which
would result from ADMITTING tbs oo~,,
munities growing up along the Ohio To
q full equality with the older states.
and when louisiana was given state
mood. they insisted that that very facr
u1ssolVed the union When our peOnla
nad begun TO settle in the NississiDn1
Faueys JEFFERSON himself accepted vif7
equanimity the view that Drobal,l1- -
would not be possible to keen reeions
so infinitely remote as the Mississinr,i
and the Atlantic coast in the Sar5a
union. Later even such staunch 4ni0n
man and firm believer In wes+ar+
growth as fearless old Tom Pa,,tr,, -
Missouri thought that It would he en-
TO try to extend the national Hn9i+s
westward OF the Rocky mountains II
1880 our then best known man of LEI
ters and historian. Washington irvine
prophesled that for ages to come tha
country upon which we now S+5~s
would be inhabited simply bv ,-oSri,,s- -f,,e
tribes OF nomads.
Ine mental attitude of all these rood
people need not surprise anvbo5v
There was nothing in the past nv vSbirSb S-3i,S
TO judge either the task before fbfs
country. or the way In which +be+ 4I S--lS
WAS to be done AS Lower tir,sii,r t1sss .slsA
on this continent we have made 1-e~@
states as old world men pitch 4ar+r