The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1903-05-19
ROOSEVELT
At ST. LOUIS
THE PRESENT DAY LESSON HE
DRAWS FROM THE LOUISIANA
PURCHASE BY JEFFERSON.

I'VE 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 insult
able form of government merely be-
cause it was suitable for another sec
ton under different conditions. OF the
territory covered by the Louisiana
purchase a portion was given statehood
within a few years. Another portion
has not been admitted to statehood, al
though a century has elapsed-al-
though doubtless it soon will be. In
each case we showed the practical gov
ernmental genius of our race by deyis-
ing methods suitable to meet the act
ual existing needs; not by insisting
upon the application of some abstract
shibboleth to all oar new possessions
alike. no matter how incongrfous this
application might sometimes be-
The process which we began has
since been followed by all the great
peoples who were capable both of ex-
pansoH and of self-government, and
now the world accepts it as the natural
process, as the rule but a century and
a quarter ago it was not merely ex-
ceptional; it was unknown.
This, then, is the great historic sig
nificance of the movement of CONT
mental expansion in which the Louisi-
GtyiIr f1,cr
single achievement. 1t stands out in
marked relief even among the feats of
a nation of pioneers, a nation whose
people have from the beginning been
picked eSt by a process of natural Sc
lection from among the most enter
prising individuals of the nations of
western Europe. The acquisition of the
territory is a credit to the broad and
farsighted craftsmanship of the great
statesmen to whom it was Immediately
due, and above all to the aggressive
and mlsterful character of the hardy
pioneer folk to whose restless energy
these statesmen gave expression and
direction,
The pioneer days are gone, with
their ropghness and their hardship,
savage romance. But the need for the
pioneer virtues remains the same as
ever. The peculiar frontier conditions
have vanished; but the manliness and
stalwart hardihood of the frontiers
men can be given even freer scope I'M
der the conditions surrounding the
complex industrialism of the present
day. In this great region acquired for
our people under the presidency of JEFF
ferson, this region stretching from the
gulf to the Canadian border. from the
Mississippi to the Rockies, the material
and social progress has been so vast
that alike for veal and for woe it's peo-
pie now share the opportunities and
bear the burdens common to the entire
civilized world. The problems before
us are fundamentally the same east
and west of the MISSISSIPPI in the new
states and in the old, and exactly the
same qualities are required for their
successful solution.
I'VE meet here today TO commence
rate a great event, an event which
marks an era in craftsmanship no less
than in pioneering. 1t is fitting that
we should pay our homage in words:
DuI we must III nOHOT make our words
good by deeds. We have every right
to take a just pride in the great deeds
of our forefathers; but we show our
selves unworthy to be their descend
ants ii we make what they did an eX-
cuse for our lying supine instead Of an
incentive to the effort to show our
selves by our acts worthy of them
IF we come short in any of these
qualities we shall measurably fail; and
If, as l believe we surely shall, we de-
velop these qualities in the future to an
even greater degree than in the past,
then in the century now beginning we
shall make of this republic the freest
and most orderly the most just and
most mighty nation which has ever
come forth from the womb of time"-
President Roosevelt, at the Dedicat ton
! of the st. Louis Exposition.