The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1909-05-19

1 have done your work entities you to
primal rank as city builders, and al
though you have not yet been recog
nized as boomers, those who have
earned that distinctive appellation
might profit to themselves and their
vocation make you a friendly visit.
| 1t seems scarcely credible that in so
short a time city like this should
arise, in a state so sparsely peopled as
this is. But when ! appreciate the
character and characteristics of your
people, their unwavering optisism,
their tireless industry and their bub-
bling enthusiasm, when l consider the
limitless resources which are subser-
Went to your will, when l consider
how bounteous nature has been to
you feel after all that your present
pre- -eminence is but the necessary re-
! suit of what you are, and what is
1 here. The spacious business blocks
which greet my vision, and palatial
homes which here abound, the spired
and turreted churches, which exist
here, / might say in disproportion to
your population as such institutions
| are provided for, and the educational
| esta ablishments, which deservedly en-
| title you to the rank Of a modern
Athens, eloquently proclaim typical
and progressive city, with a citizen
! ship worthy of emulation. / congrat
you seem to enjoy, the diversified re-
/ sources, which seem to be geograph-
/ cally yours, the solubrity of yollr eli
mate, the mineral wealth OF your
mountains, which is responsive to
{ your bidding and the enterprise which
| seems to goad you. But ! congratu-
! late you especially for the high char
acter of your citizenship, without
/, which all else would. prove hurtfnl.
| Material prosperity is an indispen-
| sable concomitant in the building of
| a city or county or state or nation;
/ but after all, without morality, with
| out the civilizing and elevating in
| fluence of the school and the chasten-
| ing influence of the church. without
! the existence of solidarity among
you, which recognizes the fatherhood
| Of God and the brotherhood of man,
/ the ascendancy of the city or state
| is indeed short-lived, and degenracy
| and decay their inevitable DOOM
| When your past struggles are con-
J sidered. when the privatons you en-
dured the dangers you encountered
| and the difficulties you surmounted
are realized / am not so much sur
prised at your present primacy, as
am that it is not even greater than
it is. In the founding and in the de-
velopment of a city like this, the lag
gard and the WeakIing is relegated
to the rear and as a necessary result,
in the final analysis, only men of ster-
ling worth, and women of still nobler
fibre and mold, have occupied the
theater of action and every Mssou-
/ lian, native and denizen, may feel
Justly proud that he is domiciled here
and imaginative though he may be,
he can scarcely conjecture, the future
possibilities of his city. But while
justly eulogistic Of the present, your
pregenitors are emitted to the fullest
measure of my praise. For the pio-
neers of this state, men and women
alike, language, however, expressive,
fails in power of description.
| We owe them debt of graft
tude which we never can repay, except
through the excellence of our citizen
ship. They had none of the ordinary
incentives to high endeavor They
acted their parts upon an obscure
stage far removed from the teeming
centers of population and publicity,
without a Boswell to chronicle their
deeds. Yet with close application to
their hazardous and self-appointed
tasks, they wrought nobly for their
country and their kind. They brought
! with them the courage of the crusad-
ers, without their bigotry or their in
tolerance; they braved the dangers of
the Wilderness, the savagery of the
Indian, the treacherous barbarity of
the outlaw, and triumphantly over
came all. And it must indeed be a
source of ineffable joy to those of
them who remain that their efforts in
| state building was so phenomenally
| successful. For as result of their
| treess and herculean labors, as a
result of their doughty daring, as a
result of their frugality and thrift, as
result of their abiding respect for
law and order and decency, we have
in Montana a commonwealth con-
structed on proper and enduring
foundations, with a people in point
of intelligence the equal of any that
ever existed in the tides of time
These are the men and women the
publicst had in mind when he wrote:
What constitutes a state?
Not high raised battlement or laboret
mound,
Not wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires and tur
| rets crowned,