The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1910-04-08

Roses For You. Mrs. George Steele
gave the paper of the day on Indian
Legends.
1t was voted to send the Loan
Scholarship Fund $25.
The next meeting the program will
be given as arranged on the Forests
and Mineral resources.
MRS. ]. M. ELDER,
Reporter.
THE LEGENDS OF THE NORTH
Not much more thNn four centuries
have passed since the Western world
was merely fairy tale in Europe.
There were old legends of Atlantis,
the sunken continent, which lay some
where west of the Pillars of Hercules
st. Brendan had passed to the Blessed
Isles through the red CLEANS of the
sunset. The Morse sea rover had
found bleak, inhospitable shores, ris-
ing out of the ocean on the other side
of the world; and indeed everywhere
in Europe there was half belief that
the rising waste of waters bore some
where on it's bosom, islands and con-
tinents which, teeming with wonders
and with wealth, awaited the lucky
adventurer And they were right.
Three thousand miles away lay the
old world, which is the new. Its for
ests, covering thousands and thou
sands of miles, sheltered the wild
deer, the cruel wolf and the no less
wild and cruel savage. It's vast
prairies in which European kingdoms
might be lost pastured the buffalo
and knew no sign of life save when
the wild goose called in the air above
or the coyote yelped from the plain
below. It's mighty rivers rushing
downward to the sea, bore no argos
les of commerce.; the rich soil nour-
ished but the rank weed, and gave a
lurking place to the serpent and the
savage.
In Europe and Asia religions and
PHILOSOPHERS were being founded and
destroyed, thrones were built up and
broken down. civilization fiourished
and faded. Commerce and learning,
art and law, were lifting manhood up
to higher planes, but America lay
fallow, awaiting the fullness of time.
Europe resounded with the harmonies
of progress; in America all was still.
Savage tribes, incapable of progress,
remnants perhaps of a broken down
race, wandered aimlessly through a
country which was and is, veritable |
garden of the Gods; unable to realize
the richness that surrounded them,
satisfied if venison was plentiful and
captives abundant.
1t was the old Jewish law that land
should be fallow one year in seven.
When the cycle of the centuries was
run, America was brought into line
with the world which had forgotten
1t, and human progress was given
a field in which the processes of de-
velopment might hasten forward I'M
checked by error, unhampered by GUS
tom, fostered by every influence
which Gods providence could put
about it. 1t is amazing how little
we really know about the world in
which we live. The biologists tell
us that the Laurentian continent is
the Oldest in the world. The Rocky
Mountains give evidence of hoary ,
age, beside which the Alps are still
In juvenility. Whom the men were
who first peopled these continents,
and whence they came, no man can
say. America is the standing puzzle
Of the Archaeologists. 1t battles all
heir methods. 1t seems to be set
led that the Esquimaux on either
side of Boring Strait are one people,
,ut the Indians south of the Esqui-
naux are radically different folk.
The Esquimaux at one time COW
red more than half of North America
vidences of their presence are found
IS far south as northern California.
hey were thence pushed steadily
orthward by stronger race coming ,
rom the south Throughout North