The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1903-03-06
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.
Paper Read at the Social Science
Club, February 23rd. by
Geo. 8. DAILY.

Club, February 23rd. by (,
Geo. B. DAILY.
The North American continent has
been a field in which the French mis-.
sionary and fur trader have especially
distinguished themselves as most dar.
ing and successful explorers. They
have fixed French names on the rivers
and lakes gilmore than half the con-
tinent. The hills that wall in on
either side the bench lands of our
valley of the Jim will always bear the
French names for hills which they
have borne since some time in the dim
past when some wandering Black Robe
mapped Dakota's plains and named
her hill ranges. No n could frater.
nize with the red man like the French
trapper and trader. His dashing fear,
l%essness won the Indians admiration,
and his hearty camaradrie made him
a boon companion at every camp fire.
No people could found a settlement in
the hunting grounds of the native and
establish such amicable relations with
him as could these suave pioneers
who would, if they had been supported
by the home government as they
should have been, most certainly have
made ~three-quarters of North Ameri-
ca the home of French speaking peo-
pie.
And, yet, the home government of
France, always i1Estarred, never pos
sessed the business faculty requisite to
sustain distant colonies, as the Eng
lish have done the whole globe over.
So France never reaped the fruit Of
the toll and daring of her i%ndefatiga-
BILE explorers. The colonies France
did plant in North America, and in
which the language of France is on
the tongue Of the people up to the
present generation, the great rivers, the
inland seas and innumerable smaller
lakes of surprising beauty surround
ed by regions of boundless natural re-
sources: all explored. named mapped
and claimed for France in the names
of inefficient kings-all of these, with
one exception, fell into the clutch Of
q grasping nation that rarely loses a
colony.
The story Of Frances brave effort
to found the Empire of New France
In the new world is full of brilliant
romance, splendid heroism, and the
closing chapter of the tale infinitely
pathetic When in 1853, at the close
of a disastrous war, France turned
over to the grasp of the relentless
Britton all of her domain in North
America east of the Mississippi, what
was known as Louisiana, a vast tract
having no certain boundary other than
that which the great river formed on
the east, was excepted. England knew
too little of that distant unknown land
to care for it and even if the Eng
lish had insisted on having it, their
cupidity would have been baked by a
precautionary NOV on the part of the
French king, taken six months pre-
viously in anticipation Of the worst.
Louisiana had been given to Spain to
keep it from England, and for nearly
forty years the French people chafed
under the loss and nourished still the
hope of regaining Louisiana and yet
rearing in it's vast solitudes the EN-
pire of New France SO long a cher
ished dream. Finally the incompetent
BOURBON was supplanted by the most
masterful spirit of his age. The armies
of France won a luster that exceeded
the widest dreams OF her people. Hell
legions overran Europe with her con-
quering eagles. Then it was easy to
get back again from Spain the lost
Louisiana, and all too easy to revive
again in the hearts of the French peo-
pie the old ardor to found flourish
ing colonies in that %alluring land of
unknown vastness once more their
own.
A>opO1COA Il u AdpSa eli
above all things when peace was de-
clared in 1901 that the waste of war be
at an end and a long period of peace
enable the French people to develope
the material prosperity of France. Six
months Of peace had not gone by be-
fore it IA revealed to the world that
Napoleon possessed craftsmanship of
as high an order as his extraordinary
genius as a soldier.
Stimulated by his untiring energy
the recuperative power of the French
people proved simply marvellous. The
watchful and jealous rival across the
channel took alarm. France at peace
under the direction of her wonderful
First Counsel babe fair to be more dan
gerous than when plunged into a great
wal with all the monarchies of Europe
banded against her. France at peace
and prosperous would build a great
navy to menace the commercial SUI.