The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-10

l Ing equal rights and privileges Wlth the twenty-three States that had pre- ceded if in the Union. For three years 1 the citizens of the territory of Missouri he'd been knocking at the doors or Congress pleading for statehood. For three years the eioouence of both
 Houses had been used for and against | the admission of the new State. Henry | Clay, Lowndes of South Carolina, Tay- Tor and McLane, Sergeant of Pennsyl. vania. Barbour of Virginia, Eustis Of Massachusetts and Cobb of Georgia, pleaded. argued and vilIified. each for his own side. To admit Missouri as slave state would disturb that balance of power already toppling toward tne crash that awakened the world with internecine strife in iss1-S.
 Parker of Virginia hotly declared: If ever A people on earth had been maltreated. 1t is this people" and in the summer between the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses the people of ai- most every State held meetings on the question of Missouri's eligibility to statehood, and declared for or against the celebrated Missouri Compromise The press took it up. pamphleteers madeit the matter of much printed elo- quence. and the country was for awhile demoraltzed4 There were donates everywhere that summer and in Con- gress that winter on the evils of slav- cry, on the rights of the South, the balance of power. the interpretation of the word 'union,' and the obligations and benefits that should accrue from the Union.
 Then came Maine. In February. 1920, asking to be admitted as a State. end requiring no enabling act for when Massachusetts had voluntarily agreed to separation A was with only one condition expresssd---that Maine must be admitted to statehood before March
 4, 1920. Advocates of Missouri's cause saw their opportunity, and the Maine bill with the Missouri bill as q rider, passed both Houses on March 2. That summer the Missouri Legislature met to draft it's constitution. but as this did not prove acceptable to Congress when presented that December. the old fight was renewed. Tn February, when the electoral vote was to be counted in Congress. Mfssourfs vote was chal- lenged and panGemoniunn reigned. The Senate. with great dignity, withdrew from the chamber, and heard from afar the cries Missouri is a State" Mis- souhi is not State" until the cries were hoarse. and breathless. The Sen ate eventually returned and it was declared that whether Missouri was counted or not, that Monroe would De President and Tompkins Vice President. By February. 1921, it was decided by committee of twenty-three that If MIS- souri would eliminate certain clauses from It's constitution 1t would be ad- mitted. and the bill was passed by very narrow margin.
 And so of the most violent political struggles that ever beset the nation, was born this peaceful and prosperous commonwealth. Its fairness and beau ty and great possibilities had been recognized long ago. It ia possible that the weary De Soto and his men may have gone as far north as the present confines of the State before turning further down into Arkansas. where that intrepid leader met death, Marquette and Joliet in 1873 came to the mouth Of the Missouri River after passing the painted rocks on the land of the Illinois Indians and thirty years later adventuroua soldiers of fortune went out from Kaskaslkia across Mis- souri into New Mexico in search of lead mines. About tTS5 Satnte Gene vieye was founded and became known to history as the first permanent settle ment.
 Where in the early part of the eish- teenth century, Sieur Renaud,c director, in the celebrated Mississippi Company, received a land grant and brought Tn his colony of home-makers and slaves, there are today thousands of farmers,
 most of them owning their own lands, and showing one of the largest per- centages of home-owning citizens of any state in the Union. Renaud's land grant was considered large in those days, and meant an opportunity Tor certain redemption of lost moneys, the Mississippi Company having already sunk s4.000.000 in the enterprise, and the crown having seen between $s.oO0,- A n Aawr vsA kAA ing of the French Kings territory Of Louisiana.
 In contrast to Renaud's agricultural effort of 1S5 years ago stands today the Rankin corn farm of 30,0OO acres, tract containing forty square miles. Where Renaud's herd of half-wild swine sent him by Bienville. had to fend for themselves in olden days, the 20. 900 that are herded on the Rankin farm with the 5000 head of cattle ate sI00 worth of corn every hour at feeding time, over 4,000 bushels day being needed for them. Where Re- naud's men fought their way through the wilderness cultivating acre by acre with slow progress and great pains, from 1000 to 1,200 acres on the Rankin farm are plowed and planted in one day. So much for the march of progress through Missouri and in this same fashion most of the States prog
 
 ress can be measured.
 There are about 1870 stock farms in the State, with something like N2sO,- GOO mules on them. It is said that 1t was not British grit and British fight ing that won the Boer War, but 1t was the Missouri mule. for without that animal the problem of transportation could not have been solved, and vic- tory would not have perched so surely on the banner bearing the crosses of St. George. St Andrew and St. Pat rick. Mules constitute one-ninth of the live stock in Missouri, State that leads in live stock farms. In that State can be found 1-2 per cent of all the live stock in the United States, but It's superior grade can be determined from the fact that it represents per cent of the live stock valuation, something like s20O, ,0OO, 900 being the States total value.
 With it's dairy products alone, Mis- souri could pay of in one year all the debt incurred by the King of France and the Mississippi Company in ex- plotting their new territory and still have money to spare. This branch of industry brings in something like $15,- 800 900 a year, each COW netting her owner SEQ Of Missourfs 44,000, 900 acres of land, only 100000 are not ara ble, but the acres already in cultiva- tion are bringing telling results It is essentially a commonwealth of farm ing people. only 7.6 per cent of the population live in cities of 1000 in- habitants and over, and 70 per cent of all the people are native born. On the farms each years Is grown corn crop that. when loaded in wagons and