The Mena weekly star., 1910-09-01
ROOSEVELT AMONG
 TIE CATTLE MEN
Attends the Great Frontier Day5 < Celebration at Cheyenne.
TALKS OF VIRTUES OF WEST
Pioneers and Their Successors Pos. sesscrs of Masterful Qualities Which Lie at Foundation Of Na-
 tIon'e Greatness.


 Cheyenne, Wyo., Aug. 27. --- When
 Colonel Roosevelt stepped from the train at Sioux Falls at 102 this morn ing he was greeted with the character istic yell of the range given by a thousand cowboys and cowgirls who were on hand to act as an escort to the distinguished visitor. The shout. so familiar to him in days of old, made him laugh aloud in glee, and he grasp cd the hands of every one who could get near enough to him.
 Mir. Roosevelt's visit and the speech he delivered later in the day formed the elimination of the annual Frontier Days celebration which had attracted to the city thousands of persons from all parts of the west and large num- ber of tourists from more distant sec tions of the country.
 Colonel Rooseveit's Speech.
 Out in the open air. under the blue sky, a vast crowd assembled to hear the former president speak, and 1t heard one of the most important speeches he has made since leaving the White House. His address was as follows:
 When, at the close of my hunting trip in Africa, reached the borders of civiii- ration, the first invitation I accepted was this, to visit the capital of Wyoming on the day when the people of the frontier came together to commemorate their achievements: was glad it was SO. be- cause I have A peculiar feeling for the men and women of what used to be called the Far West" and especially for those of the cattle country. For a number of years I lived on ranch on the Little Missouri. sharing work and play good fortune and bad fortune, with my neigh bors; working on the roundup. serving as delegate from the Little Missouri roundup district to the Montana Stock growers association, and even at times acting as deputy sheriff at my end of the county. I count those years as among the most valuable of my life. because nothing breeds such community of feeling as to work with one's feiiowmen at their life tasks. and to learn to know their feelings by actually sharing them. The man of the west throughout the success sive stages of western growth. has ai- ways beon one of the two or three most typical fgures-indeed am tempted to say the most typical flgure-in American
 
 our country and appreciate what 1t really is and what It promises unless he has the fullest and closest sympathy with the ideals and aspirations of the west. Tho prime reason for this .S to he found tn the fact the westerner is 30 good an American. He Is an American first and foremost; for this Is the great lesson, friends. that ali of us need to learn and to keep. the lesson that it is unimportant whether q man lives north or south. cast or west, provided he is genuinely and in good faith an American that he feels every part of the United States as his own. and that he ia honestly desirous to uphold the interests of all other Amerf- cans In whatever sections of the country they may dwell.
 hundred years ago. when men spoke of the west they meant the country be- tween the AIIeghanies and the Mississippi Fifty years ago the white mans west took in 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 am now addressing lead your lives and do your work. has grown up within my own lifetime. I myself saw and took part in the closing years of the pioneer period, and it wns my great priv iiege to work side by side with the pio- neers-the ranchmen, the miners. the cow-punchers the muie-skinnere. the bull whackers-who actually opened up the country. have seen the herds and hocks of the cattlemen and sheopmen suppiant the game; I have seen the fortunate movement by which tho small farm has tended gradually to take the place of the great unfencod ranch. now travel in every comfort on railways across lands which, when first rode across them, were still the home of the Indian and the bufralo; and I find cities where one can obtain not merely comfort, but luxury, in the places where thirty years ago there was not a building beyond log hut or dobis house. The mon who did thts work were engaged in the final stages of con quering the continent: and it was their privilege to do one of the great works of all time to do their part in the perform ance of an epic feat in the history of the progress of mankind.
 West Stands for Progress.
 have used the word progress The west stands for growth. for progress. So must the whole American people stand. A great democracy must be progressive or it wili 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 1t becomes useless if if goes backward. Therefore I greet you. men of the west. and I stand for progress as all men must stand who are progressive
 The pioneers and their immediate sue cessors won victory only by proving that they possessed the great. masterfui quail ties which lie at the foundation of Ma tional greatness. There are certain we'll meaning men of intellectual cultivation, but lacking mental and moral robustness who complain continually that they find American life, and especially the life of those American communities emerging from the pioneer stage, crude and with out genius or beauty Genius is fine thing for n nation. but character is stili fDsr thing. and though beauty Is good. strength is an even greater good. The men who have made this great republic of the west what it is, and especially the men who have turned it into a continental commonwealth, have possessed in the highest degree the great vfrfie virtues of strength. courage, energy. and undaunted and unwavering resolution Their typical ieeders-of whom Abraham Lincoln. though the most exceptional. was the most typicai-have possessed keen intel ligence, and character not merely strong but lofty. character exalted by the fact that great power was accom- panied by a high and fine determination to use this great power for the common good. for the advancement of mankind. The pioneer days are over. save in a few placea: and the more complex life of today calls for a greater variety of good qualities than were needed on the iron tier There is need at present to en- courage the development of new abilities which can be brought to high perfection only by kind of training useless in pio- neer times: but these new qualities car only supplement, and never supplant. the old, homeiy virtues; the need for the EHHNfaI and dtEffHrffua rsffs sa