The Nezperce herald. (Nezperce, Idaho) 1900-1957, 1907-06-13

1T Is WISE pfOf1SloA 0A udtulCs HS
doubt, this nomadic impulse to move
on, for it has peopled the deserts and
made the waste places of the earth
toIblossom. but, all the same, ii has
generally proven to be rough exper-
fence for the original nomad, al
though it turned out all right for his
descendants, or rather those who
came after him. Originally the
United States was but ribbon of
settlement along the Atlantic, as
every school boy knows, and, while
there were pioneering offshoots con-
tinually westward, some of them
great enough to establish states. it
vas not until the homestead Law was
passed in the early Cos that it OBJ
tanned the character of permanent
national movement, and really not
then for the great war was on and it
was not until the armies disbanded
that the real movement began. Slow
ly perhaps in the life of man, but
rapidly in the course of nations, the
homesteaders peopled what we're
then called ssbarren deserts, nearly
to the SUBMITS of the Rockies, then
quickly down the western slopes
they forced their way until they
linked connection with their gold hunt
ing brothers of the Pacific coast and
made US what we never were before
"a homogeneous nation from ocean
TO ocean. This stupendous move
ment Of the people was not anticipated
when the homestead law was passed.
and the quick acquisition Of the land
and the pressure for more forced the
purchase of reserve after reserve
from The Indian, and will continue to
force them until there are no more
Indian reservations left upon the
map of the United States. In No
vember, 1895, after long and difficult
negotiation, this Nezperce reserva-
ton was purchased and opened to
settlement. 1t was not considered
by adjacent whites as particularly |
desirable because of its elevation,
and it is remembered by many men
living here nov, that the people |
of Camas prairie and from the valley
country of the Clearwater and Snake,
refused to take homesteads upon it |
because they said they knew it I
was too cold for home comforts and I
too frigid for crops, and it is doubt
full if there would have been any Il
rush whatever to the opening of 4
this reservation had it not been that 4
our neighbors over in the Palouse
country for the two years proceeding \
this .sopening had met with such
ruinous disaster to their crops as to
wreck most of them, and
it was mainly these ruined men of
the Palouse who rushed across the
borders Of the Nezperce reservation
at 10 O'Clock, noon, on the 18th day
of November, 1895, for a fresh start
in life and they got it, and If ever
there was direct God-send to men
on earth who needed it, it was there
and them. at that hour, to those men
from the Palouse country. One of |
them drove up to the writer's tent in
Nezperce early in the spring of 1896 |
and said Cant put my wife and
children in this tent tonight I've
a homestead claim mile or so
from here and there amt a stick
upon it yet and all we've got in
Gods world is this team and wagon
and $40 in my pocket Today his
place could not be bought for s15,-
600, and this is but one instance of
b undreds-possibly thousands-who |
took homesteads upon the Nezperce
Reservation. Is it any wonder then
hat we are proud of the country we
i've in, and of the people who made
tt Is it any wonder that with 300 1
;quare miles and more Of land like
his, nearly every 100 acres Of which /
las upon 1t prosperous and conf
cnted family, with interests identi- +
al, with mutual hopes and aspira- 70
ions and desires, that we should as Il
Ire to, and desire to have a county o
L..