The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-30
Admitted to Union Ninety-fve
 Years Ago Today
SCENES OF EMPIRE DREAMS
Napoleon Said When He Sold Territory to United States He Made America Rival of England for Mas
 tery Among Nations.
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKlN.

day, having been admitted on April 90 1872. Birthdays of the states are not gen orally observed, California being a signal exception as September 9, Admission day" is q legal holiday in that state. Ii has been suggested by a famous public school educator that these anniversaries of the admission of the several states be devoted to giving The children's history classes a short review of the story of a state. Should this plan be generally adopted the children would rarely hear a more thrilling and romantic tale than that to be told on the birthday of Louis- iana.
 De Soto first and after a hundred years, La Salle, discovered the great Mississippi river which flows into the Gulf of Mex leo in what is now the state of Louis- jana After La Salle came Bienyille, father of Louisiana and founder of New Orleans, and the first permanent settle ments were made. Scarcely had the stout-hearted French pioneers made q home for themselves when their country was made the basis of one of the great est speculative schemes and financial frauds the world has ever known John Law, a Scotchman with brains, persuad- ed the French government, through Philip of Orleans, to found a bank and issue bonds based upon the exploitation of this great country of Louisiana on the banks of the Father of Waters, then called in France the River Colbert. This was the celebrated Mississippi Bubble, - the bursting of which shook Europe through and through and worked lasting injury to Continental European enterprise in the New World
 While the Bubble was at it's brightest and It's colors were dazzling the eyes Of the whole world, the city of New Orleans was founded, in February, 171S, by Bien- vile, newly appointed governor. It was named in honor of John Laws chief pa tron, Philip of Orleans, regent of France The older settlements of Fort Louis, on the banks ot the Mobile, then dropped into secondary importance. It was found that some ships could cone up through the delta of the Mississippi, and Bienville protested against the Law company send ing all the ships up the Mobile When New Orleans was five years old a royal French engineer, M. Pauger, made a re- port to the king, saying the Mississippi was open to navigation from the gulf and recommending a system of jetties to deepen the channels. Just such a system of jetties was successfully put in by James B. Eads a century and a half later, under United States supervision.
 John Law was not to be the last to dream of an empire in Louisiana. The weak and absolute Louis XIV made a se- cret treaty in 1762 and gave Louisiana, then comprising territory from which fourteen states have been carved, to his kinsman, Charles III of Spain. The col onists did not know that they had been deserted by their beloved mother country until two years later. There was bitter resentment, for these Louisianians were good Frenchmen and hot patriots, and their love of country had been greatly strengthened at that very time because of the influx of exiled Acadians who were driven from their northern homes by the cruelties of the English. So it came about that the patriots of Louisiana dreamed of an independent republic and there was a revolution The Spanish were strong enough to put it down im- mediately and the Spanish governor, Bloody OReilly caused the patriots to be executed
 When the patriots of the English col onies to the east rose in rebellion in 17fo the French-Americans of New Orleans sympathized with them, and the Louls- jana merchants sent supplies of arms and ammunition to Washington's army Not all the Spanish governors were of the type of Bloody" O'Reilly, for the gallant young Don Bernardo de Galvez, who be- came governor of Louisiana at ,21 years old, and died In Mexico as viceroy when he was 30 has left an illustrlous name. In 17S1 just when the American troops under Washington were winning the vic tory in the war for independence, Galvez defeated the British at Pensaloca and the Floridas were restored to Spain.
 Refugees from English colonies who sought Louisiana for safety were cared for by Galvez and given permission to found a new colony. They built town and named it In honor of the young gov ernor-Galvez Town, now the Galveston which is the pride of Texas. It was Gal veg who gave Louisiana the right to share in the glory of the American arms in the revolutionary war by his cam paign against the English in Florida.
 But Louisiana was not yet through with its destiny as a foundation for dreams of empire Don Estevan Miro came to be governor of Louisiana in 1885 The Uniten States were quarrelling among them selves under the operation of the made quate articles of confederation. Miro thought the country might go to pieces and that he might get some of 1t for Spain. So he made friends with the pioneers who were pushing into Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. They depended on the Mississippi river for commerce, and Miro dominated the river.
 Miro grew so pouplar in the western part of the United States that the whole valley of the Cumberland river was named for him. the Miro or Nero district The mastery of the Mississippi river be- came a burning issue when Washington was President. Citizen Genet appeared in Philadelphia and the Spanish h. trigue' was born Jacobin societies in Kentucky were of strong pro-Spanish pro- clivities. The eastern states cared little or nothing for the settlements west of the Alleghenes, while the pioneers looked on Miro as their friend. These dreams of a Mississippi valley empire from moup- tain chain to mountain chain were not to be realized. But the plotting went on, even after Miro William Blount, first senator from Tennessee was expelled from the Senate on the charge of having reasonable correspondence with Louis jana Spaniards.
 Napoleon arose and overshadowed Europe. He, too, dreamed of an Ameri can empire and induced Charles l of Spain to cede him Louisiana in the year 1SO0 Jefferson wanted Louisiana, he wanted the Mississippi he wanted the great valley and he bought it from Ma poleon. Congress listened weeks to the speeches of those who said the purchase meant the end of the republic, but il voted the money. On December 20, 1903, the French flag was taken down and the Stars and Stripes flew over New Orleans.
 Now it appeared that Louisiana was to rest. It was American soil and part of an American nation. But there was