Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1903-04-30

chase. Our triumph in this process o
expansion was indissolubly bound vi
with the success of our peculiar kind o
federal government; and this success
has been so complete that because o
it's very completeness we now some
times fail to appreciate not only the all
Importance but the tremendous diff
Guilty of the problem with which ou
Nation was originally faced.
TWO PRECEDENTS THAT WE'RE
FAILURES.
When our forefathers Joined to cal
into being this Nation, they undertook
a task for which there was but little
encouraging precedent. The develop
ment of civilization from the earliest
period seemed to show the truth of two
propositions: Tn the first place, it had
secure both freedom and strength in
any government; and in the second
place, it had always proved wel-nigh
impossible for a nation to expand with
out either breaking up or becoming
a centralized tyranny. The history of
Rome and of Greece illustrates very
| well the two types of expansion which
had taken place in ancient time and
which had been universally accepted as
the only possible types up to the period
when as a nation we ourselves began
to take possession of this continent.
The underlying viciousness of each
type OF expansion was plain r'nougn
and the remedy now saems simple
enough. But when the fathers of tine
Republic first formulated the Constitu-
tion under which we live this remedy
was untried and no one could fOretell
how it would work. They themselves
began the experiment almost immedi-
ately by adding new. States to the orig
nal Thirteen. Excellent people in the
East viewed this initial expansion OF
the country with great alarm. Exactly
as during the colonial period many
good people in the mother-country
thought it highly important that set
tiers should be kept out of the Ohio
Valley in the interest of the fur COM
panies, so after we had become ma
ton many good people on the Atlantic
Coast felt grave apprehension lest
they might somehow be hurt by the
westward growth of the Nation. These
good people shook their heads over the
formation of states in the fertile ONO
valley which now forms part of the
heart of our nation; and they declared
that the destruction of the Repuplc
had been accomplished when through
the Louisiana purchase we acquired
nearly half of what is now that same
Republics present territory.
A PROMISE OF STATEHOOD.
We expanded by carving the wilder
ness into territories and out of these
territories building new states when
once they had received as permanent
settlers a sufficient number of our own
people, Being a practical nation we
have never tried to force on any Sec
ton of our new territory an unsuitable
form of government merely because 1t
was suitable for another section under
different conditions. OF the territory
covered by the Louisiana purchase
portion was given statehood within
few years. Another portion has not
been admitted to statehood, although o,
century has elapsed ALTHOUGH
DOUBTLESS 1T SOON WILL BE- In
each case we showed the practical gov
ernmental genius of our race by devils
ing methods suitable to meet the act
ual existing needs; not by insisting up
on the application of some abstract
shibboleth to all our new possessions
alike no matter how incongruous this
application might sometimes be.
THE RIGHT KIND OF EXPANSION.
Over by far the major part of the
territory, however, our people spread in
such numbers during the course of the
18th century that we were able to build
up state after state, each with exactly
the same complete local independence
in all matters affecting purely it's own
domestic interest as in any of the
original thirteen states-each owing
the same absolute fealty to the Union
of all the states which each of the
original thirteen states also owes-and
finally each having the same proper
tional right to it's share in shaping and
directing the common policy of the
Union which is possessed by any other
state. whether of the original thirteen
or not
This process now seems to us part
of the natural order of things, but 1t
was Wholly unknown until our own
people devised it. 1t seems to us
mere matter of course, matter of ele-
mentary right and justice, that in the
dalthpraf fions Of the national renrpsen.