Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-04-30
HISTORIC OCCASION.
One Hundredth Anniversary Of
Louisiana Transfer.
ROOSEVELT DELIVERS AN ADDRESS
Declares That the Acquisition Of the
Vast Territory OF. Louisiana Mark
ed Important Epoch in the History
of the United States.


of the United States.
ST. Louis. Mo-, April S0.--The liber-
al arts building was crowded to its full
lest capacity by thousands for the aft
ernoon program of the dedication ex-
ercises OF the Louisiana Purchase eX-
position After the presentation of the
building by President Francis, Presi-
dent Roosevelt delivered the dedica-
tory address.
The Louisiana Purchase.
President Roosevelt said Mr.. Presi-
dent, ladies and gentlemen:
At the outset of my address let me
recall to the minds OF my hearers that
the soil upon which we stand, before
1t was ours. was successfully the
possession of two mighty empires,
Spain and France, whose sons made al
deathless record of heroism in the
early annals of the new world. No his
tory of the western country can be-
written without paying heed to the
wonderful part played therein in the
early days by the soldiers, mission
aries, explorers and traders who did
their work for the honor of the proud
banners of France and CASTLE. While
the settlers OF English-speaking stock
and those of Dutch, German and Scan
dinayian origin who were associated
with them, We're still clinging close to
the eastern seaboard, the pioneers OF
Spain and France had penetrated
deep into the hitherto unknown wilder
ness of the west and had wandered
far and wide within the boundaries
Of what is now our mighty country.
The very cities themselves-St Louis,
New Orleans, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear witness by their titles to the ma
tionalities of their founders. 1t was
not until the revolution had begun
that the English-spealing settlers
pushed west across the Alleghanies,
and not until a century ago that they
entered in to possess the land upon
which we now stand.
Centenary Anniversary.
We have met here today to colnmem-
crate the hundreth anniversary of the
event which more than any other, aft
er the foundation of the government,
and always, excepting its preservation
determined the character OF our ma
be q great expanding nation instead of
q relatively small and stationary one.
Not Beginning of Expansion.
or course it 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 Illi-
nois and Indiana, was added to our
domain by force of arms, as a sequel
to the adventurous expedition of
George Rogers Clarke and his from
tier riflemen. Later the treaties of
Jay and Pinckney materially extend
ed our real boundaries to the west.
But none OF these events was of so
striking character as to fix the popu-
lar imagination. The old thirteen colo
MES had always claimed that their
rights stretched westward to the
Mississippi, and vague and unreal
though these claims were until made
good by conquest, settlement and di-
plomacy, they still served to give the
impression that the earliest westward
movements of our people were little
more than filing in of already exist
ing national boundaries.
Was No Illusion.
But there could be no illusion about
the acquisition of the vast territory
beyond the Mississippi, stretching
westward to the Pacific, which in that
day was known as Louisiana This inn
mense region was admittedly the ter
ritory Of a foreign power, of Euro
pean kingdom. None Of our people
had ever laid claim to foot of it. Its
acquisition could in no sense be treat
ed as rounding out any existing claims
When we acquired we made it evident
once for all that consciously and of
set purpose we had embarked on a
career of expansion, that we had TAX
en- our place among those daring and
hardy nations who risk SO much with
the hope and desire of winning high
position among the great powers of the
earth AS is often the case in nature,
the law of development Of living or
ganism showed itself in its actual
workings to be wiser than the wisdom
of the wisest.
A Great Work.
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
We're 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 forefath.
ers of those generations, was the deed
of the men who, with pack train, or
wagon train, on horseback on foot OF
by boat upon the waters, pushed the
frontier ever westward across the con
tinent.
An Unparalleled Acquisition.
Never before had the world seen the
kind of national expansion which gave
our people all that part of the Ameri.
can continent lying west of the thir.
teen original states; the greatestsland-