Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1910-08-28
Rides Bronchos for Awhile
and Makes One of the
Speeches of His Career.

Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas, and
then skipped across to California
and Oregon. The country of the
great plains and the Rockies, the
country in which you whom l am
now addressing lead your lives and
do your work, has grown up within
my own lifetime. | myself saw
and took part in the closing years
of the pioneer period, and it was
my great privilege to work side by
side with the pioneers-the ranch
men, the miners, the cowpunchers,
the muleskinners, the bullwhackers
who actually opened up the
country. l have seen the herds
and fiocks of the cattlemen and
sheepmen supplant the game Il
have seen the fortunate movement
| by which the small farm has tend
ed to gradually take the place of
! the great unfenced ranch I now
travel in every comfort on rail-
ways across lands which when I
first rode across them, were still
the home of the Indian and the
buffalo; and l find cities where
one can obtain not merely COM
fort, but luxury, in the places
where thirty years ago there was
not a building beyond log hut
or adobe house. The men who
did this work we're engaged in the
final stages of conquering the
continent; and it was their priv
ilege to do one of the great works
of all time, to do their part in he
performance of an epic feat in the
history of the progress of mankind,
Il have used the word progress.
The West stands for growth for
Z, progress. So must the whole
! American people stand. A great
4 democracy must be progressive,
or it will soon cease to be either
great or democratic. No nation
no state, no party, can stand still
it must either go forward or go
backward; and it becomes useless
if it goes backward. Therefore /
stand for progress as all men
must stand who are progressive.
"The pioneers and their immedi-
ate successors won victory only by
proving that they possessed the
great, masterful qualities which lie
at the foundation of national
greatness. There are certain we'll
meaning men of intellectual cul-
tivation, but lacking mental and
continually that they find Ameri-
can life, and especially the life of
those American communities
emerging from the pioneer stage,
crude and without genius and
beauty. Genius is fine thing for a
nation, but character is still fin
er thing, and though beauty is
good, strength is an even greater
The men who made this great
republic of the West what it is,
and especially the men who have
turned it into a continental COM
!, mcnwealth, have possessed in the
highest degree the great virile
virtues of strength, courage, ener-
. gy, and undaunted and unwavering
resolution. Their typical leaders
of whom Abraham Lincoln, though
. the most exceptional, was the
: most typical-have possessed keen
, intelligence, and a character not
merely strong but lofty, a charsc-
ter exalted by the fact that great
| power was accompanied by a high
, and fine determination to use this
, great power for the common good
T for the advancement of mankind
: The pioneer days are over, save
, in few places; and the more
, complex life of today calls for 9
, greater variety of good qualities
: than were needed on the frontier
There is need at present to en-
courage the development of new
abilities which can be brought tt
t high perfection only by kind ot
training useless in pioneer times
! but these new qualities can only
1 supplement, and never supplant thu
. old, homely virtues; the need fol
: the special and distinctive pioneer
i virtues is as great as ever. Ii
q other words, as our civilization be
\ comes older and more complex
n while it is true that we need to de
: velop men whose lives are devoted
s wholly to the pursuit of special OBJ
( Jects, 1t Is yet also true that W.
o need a greater and not less de
velopment of the Fundamental
s frontier virtues. These virtues in
= clude the power of self-help, to
d gether with the power of joinin,
$ with others for mutual help, and
$ what is especially important, tn
v feeling of comradeship, of socia
f good fellowship. Any man witt
r had the good fortune to live amoni
v the old frontier conditions must, Il
looking back, realize how vital wa
n this feeling of general comradeshi
e and social fellowship. There wer
IS good men and bad men in the ney
$ communities, just as in the oil
n Continued on Page Three.)