The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-09-29
Word Painting Of the Stars and
Stripes.
He HAS SEEN THE FLAG
From the Village to Wavering
Battle Line.
How Pixies Achievement Stands
Above That of Others.

memorating the first unfurling OF the
United States flag on Kansas soil one
hundred years ago by Zebulon Pike at
a Pawnee Indian village in what is
now Republic county. The exercises
a the Lowman Hill school were little
out of the ordinary. On 2 platform ar
ranged for the occasion a Spanish flag
was floating and a pupil impersonatng
Pike. and at the point Of drawn
sword, hauled down the flag Of Spain
and raised in its place the stars and
stripes
Captain Waters spoke in his usual
brilliant vein in the course of which he
said
Jefferson sent out Lewis and Clark
TO bring him in the geography of the
country; they brought him deserts
and mountain ranges, cascades. dalles
and a first class ocean, but they
brought no grapes as the spies did of
old one bunch strung on a pole and
carried by two men. the burden OF
which had given each of them curva-
ture of the spinei they sweated ana
starved and came back with a whole
encyclopedia of exact misinformaton,
about 4 land that they never really
saw nor even con5ectured what 1t
contained although they had remark
able vision and Qulckened perceptions.
1uEl1 ne SGtiL Ah6s 9OuAAS A-CAtSt1
ant, to hunt up and number the lost
tribes Of the House of Israel. His track
lay up a stream and down draw, over
the hills and along the divide; but
constantly over a desert, unpeppered
and without salt. and all of which, we
were it. Arid, barren and hot No
rain since the deluge. 1t was a sand
wien of parched earth and brassy
skies, with a thin layer Of comfort be-
tween. The prairie dog was the only
! ir,t. al hi "a mt a0nr and hid
him welcome; the buzzard sailed round
the tail of his column, IN the hope of
tidblt of dead dog or choice cut from
the ham of defunct mule; at night
he was serenaded by the coyote who
pervaded his camp and environed it
in. as if it had been Marshals band
No timber in sight, except the stunted,
dwarfed. gnarled and knotty cotton
wood, blackberry and sycamore that
hid under the banks and Rugged the
water line of torrential creeks and
rivers as asylum from lightning, prai-
RE fires and thirst. l have seen the
early settlers make these same trees
more diminutive and unsightly still. by
saving off every available part that
the saw would go through or that
they could reach with an axe, for fire
wood, bureaus, bric-a-brac, bedsteads,
chairs and hen fences.
II Pike had been given ju.st ore
word of command. and had obeyed It,
he would have been rich beyond the
avarice of a plumber or a cold storage
ware house, and that would have been
to dig" He would have found every
thing It is said that during his en-
tire journey he went UP for water and
down for wood. He would have found
zinc, lead, coal. salt, gypsum, wheat
corn, castor beans, alfalfa, sorghum
cattle. hogs, certificates of deposit, or
chards. sugar beets and probably, if
he had gone down deep enough, he
I ct a fdGpa 0f ilIfrJ hi
paste or a cliff of marshmallows-
But Pike saw nothing but desert;
he did not see the specter of cities; he
had no ear for the future: he was a
materialist: he congratulated the
United States that it had a wide, DESC
late border. that would stay emigra-
ton; he thought it too sterile for the
outlaw, the abscon ding bank presi-
dent or train rObber; 1t never entered
his noggin that a. hundred years after,
there would be enough apples,
peaches, pears watermelons and like
truck wasted and rottening on the
ground. which If marketed would
! have been sufficient in amount to have
paid a years interest on the Louis
lana purchase
PIKE started July 18th, 1906, from
St. Louis. then frontier post of less
than a thousand people, with twenty
two whites and ffty-one Indians. He
went north. and it happened, that one
day. a hundred years ago tomorrow,
! he came upon a Spanish flag flying
on the totem pole of a Pawnee village
in what afterwards came to be Re-
public county.
He here first heard that a large
/ Spanish force had been sent out from
1 Santa Fe L. intercept his invasion Of
/ Spanish territory. It was only six
years before Spain had parted with it's
/ title, but how could they know such a
/ recent event at Santa Fe. He never
I hunted up the Spanish officer to get
+ permission to haul down the Spanish
ensign or to hoist the union colors, but
with an Unborn loyalty he hauled 1t
down and reeved the halliards on to
4 his own, and up glided the American
/ flag for the first time on what after
became the soil of Kansas.
It was in his blood to do such a
/ thing. His daddy had been an officer
Of the revolutionary war. The Span
I ish forces were not more than three
days ahead Of him there He had lost
no Spaniards. We have no knowledge
that they hunted him, or he them
! 7 have seen the flag fiiigree a town;
4 have seen it swing and sway to the
1 rhythm of a big base drum: I have seen
/ IT saGcily faunt its colors to the sun as
Yankee Doodle came hot. pa pitating and
vibrant from the yelping fifes I have
seen the flag lift from stately domes.
and aureole the Goddess Of Liberty
with the sheen of its stripes [ have
/ 'CCAA II SURG viii the Ddtll6 ilHGg aim
by smoke, lift by a cheer, advance to
the cadence OF artillery and rise IN the
sky on the SUBMITS Of victory. I have
seen it cover the stilled form of a com
4 rade- I nave caught its glimmer and
glow out in the sandy reaches OF the
desert. above the pulsing breast of the
4 earth, G1ivering with the trembling air
! that Rugged its hot and bloodless
4 bosom have seen it rise out of the
/ depths OF ocean as my heart choked in
/ my guliet- have seen the prisoner
fresh from AndersonviIle with the bay
of bloodhounds still in his ears. as the
blood froze in his veins, when over the
1 trees it glistened glorified thing
| against the buondless blue. In a strange
/ land. the people strange. the speech
/ alien. have felt It come into my home
sick eyes, the sweetest. daintiest NOR
q -