The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-09-26
THE IDAHO SCIMITAR.


cepted its western boundary The western part
of this territory and the country beyond was a
vast wilderness absolutely unknown to civilization.
In the very heart of this great unknown
region what is now the state of Idaho
Within its boundaries the foot of white man had
trod. A party of United States explorers
passed through it the next year, but forty years
elapsed before the question of sovereignty set
tied and sixty years before the territory of Idaho
was erected 1t was tWenty-Seven years from the
latter date before Idaho admitted to the union
and became one of the commonwealth of these
United States 1t was just at the time when the
war of the rebellion broke out that the mines of
Idaho began to attract the gold hunters and during
the years of national peril and strife were laid,
amid scenes of lawlessness and disloyalty and in
communities dominated by the ion-threatenng de-
mocracy of the southwest the foundations of the ter
rtory of Idaho, and to this day the state is still
tainted by that reckless disregard of life and that
contempt for law that marked its earliest years and
made them unparalleled in criminal annals.
Upon the question of title to this region scores of
volumes have been written Spain, Great Britain,
Russia and the United States all laid claim to it
by right of discovery and occupation. In American
politics it figured the Oregon question" The
claim of the United States was based upon the dis
covery of the Columbia river by Grey, the expora-
tons of Lewis and Clarke and the Astoria settle
ment, Gaatin later advancing claim upon its
tguity to the Louisiana Purchase. The question
to title between the United States and Spain
early settled by the Florida treaty i'll 1915 by which
the 42nd degree of latitude fixed the boundary
between the United States and the Spanish posses
sons in America, and "all rights, claims and pre-
tensions to any territory north of the said line"
coded to the United States England settled with
Russia and by the treaty of 1924 between those
tons the latter renqushed all claim jurisdiction
below latitude 81 degrees and 40 minutes This left
the field of controversy clearly defined between the
United States and Great Britain. Both nations
claimed sovereignty the territory between 4and
degree and "a degrees and 40 minutes and the
Rocky mountains and the Pacific
In 1918 the United States and Great Britain had
entered into treaty of joint occupation by which
this northwest territory to be free for purposes
of trade and commerce to both nations, neither to
exercise sovereign authority within those limits The
matter of title left for future consideration and
from this time on the question of who owned Oregon
(of which Idaho then a part) matter
of almost constant negotiation between the two
lions. The original convention was for period of
ten years, but at the end of that time they could get
no agreement than before and it con-
tinued for another ten years And with some slight
amendments it still again continued until 1916,
when in spite of Fifty Forty Fight"
probably by reason of that campaign cry treaty
finally made making the 10th degree of latitude the
boundary between the possessions of the United
States and Great Britain in the northwest Idaho
was then part of the territory of Oregon, which
had already established an independent government
Of its own and with it came under the dominion of
he United States government
Captain Merriwether Lewis of the Lewis and
Clarke expedition was the first white man who ever