The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1903-05-01

and always excepting Its preservation.
determined the charcter OF our ma
I tional Undetermined that We should
be great expanding nation instead Of
relatively small and stationary one.
OF course II was not with the Louis
lana purchase that our career OF ex-
pansion began. In the middle OF the
Revolutionary war the Illinois region.
| including the present states Of Illinois
and Indiana, was added to our domain
by force OF arms. as a sequel to the
adventurous expedition OF George
/ Rogers Clarke and his frontier rifle.
men. Later the treaties OF Jay and
( Plnckney materially extended our real
boundaries to the west. But nQne of
{ these events was Of so striking a char
actsr as to fix the popular Imagination.
The 10 old colonies had always claimed
f that their rights stretched westward to
the Mississippi, and vague and unreal
though these claims were made good
by conquest. settlement and diplomacy,
they still served TO give the impression
that the earliest westward movements
OF our people were little more than the
filling In Of already existing national
boundaries.
/ But there could be no illusion about
the acquisition of the vast territory
beyond the Mississippi, STREET hing west
ward to the Pacific, which In that day
was known as Louisiana. This inn
mensc territory was admittedly the ter
X ritory OF a foreign power. vi Euro
penn kingdom. None of our people
hal ever laid claim TO foot of Il It's
acquisition could In no sense be
treated as rounding out any existing
claims. When We acquired 1t we made
evident once for all that consciously
I and OF set purpose we had embarked
on a career of expansion, that we had
taken our place among those daring
and hardy nations who risk much with
the hope and desire OF winning high
position among the great powers of
the earth. AS Is often the case in ma
ture, the law of development Of li1-
ing organism, showed itself in It's ac-
tual workings TO be wiser than the wis
dom of the wisest.
This work Of expansion was by far
the greatest work Of our people dur
ing the years that interviewed between
the adoption OF the constitution and
the outbreak OF the Civil war, There
were other questions Of real moment
+ and Importance, and there were many
which at the time seemed such to those
engaged in answering them; but the
greatest feat OF our forefathers of
those generations was the deed of the
men who. with pack train or wagon
train on horseback. on foot, or by
boat upon the waters, pushed the from
tier ever westward across the continent
Never before had the world seen the
kind of national expansion which gave
our people all that part of the Amerl-
can continent lying west of the IS orig
inl states; the greatest landmark In
which was the Louisiana purchase.
Our triumph in this process of expan-
sion was indissclubly bound up with
the success OF our peculiar kind of fed
eral government; and this success has
been so complete because of its COM
pleteness We sometimes now fail to
appreciate not only the all-importance
but the tremendous difficulty of the
problem with which our nation was
originally faced.
When our forefathers Joined to call
into being this nation, they undertook
task for which there was little en-
couraging precedent. The development
Of civilization from the earliest period
seemed to show the truth of two
propositions: In The first place, 1t had
always proved exceedingly difficult to
secure both freedom and strength in
any government; and In the second
place, IL had always proved wen-nigh
impossible for nation to expand with
out either breaking up or becoming a
centralized tyranny. With the success
Of our effort to combine a strong and
efficient national union, able to put
down disorder at home and to maintain
our honor and interest abroad, have
not now to deal, This success was sig
nal and all-lmportant, but 1t was by no
means unprecedented in the same sense
that our type of expansian was un-
precedented. 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