Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-05-29


have bronze entrance doors representing
knowledge" Wisdom" and Memory" l
believe that a state historical society
building should be more than a store
house for a museum and a hiding place
for archives. To the contrary they should
represent in bronze, in sculpture and in art
all that makes for history, interest, Gull
ture, beauty, scholarship and higher civili-
cation.
We, of the western states. have had our
cavaliers and our Pilgrim fathers in our
pioneers. In the years to come we Will
respect their memories and read the records
of their daily tolls and hadshlps, as Vir-
ginia now holds dear the traditions and
memories OF the founders of jamestown,
and as New England now reveres the mem
cries and records Of the little band that
landed on her bleak shores 800 years ago.
Time was when the writer's of history
occupied volumes in writing of the pioneers
who penetrated no farther westward than
few hundred miles from the Atlantic
seaboard, and spent the rest of their time
in talking Of battlefields, of the revolution
and the transactions OF the colonial con-
gress, seemingly having no appreciation
that the great west was making history
faster than the Atlantic coast states ever
made it, and that the future prosperity
and welfare of this country will intimately
depend upon the strength and mastery in
will of the people living in and westward
Of the Mississippi valley. We might apply
to these old historians the language Of an
English writer From of old, 1t was too
often to reproachfully observed of him.
that he dwelt with deproportionate fond
ness in senate houses, in battle fields, nay,
even in kings ante chambers; forgetting
that far away from such scenes, the
mighty tide of thought and action was
still rolling on its wonderous course, In
gloom and brightness, and in its thousand
remote valleys, whole world of exis-
tence, with or without an earthly sun OF
happiness to warm it, with or without a
heavenly sun of holiness to purify and
sanctify it, was blossoming and fading
whether the famous victory were won OF
lost"
The west is passing through phase OF
history to which can be found no parallel
except in the remote ages of the buried
past. Centuries upon centuries ago there
were empires which exist no longer. Cities
were builded which have been depopulated
and crumbled into decay. In those ancient
/ times there were people who spoke Ian
guages that are no longer spoken and
which are known to us only as they are
taught by linquists in colleges or universe
ties. We are In state Of bewilderment
when we read of these ancient people whose
empires and kingdoms and languages have
disappeared. We ask ourselves how could
these things transplre?
II is unthinkable to us that New York
and Boston and Philadelphia at some flu
tuer time should crumble into ruins: that
the United States government should fall
into decay; and that the American people
should become extinct, and that new
race of people, speaking a new language,
should in our stead, tread the soil of the
American continent. Yet we know that
such period of transition from one ma
ton to another, and from one people to
another and from one language to an
other, has actually taken place in western
Asia and in southeastern Europe.
We, of the west, are today witnessing the
race disappearance of a race of people,
The Indian tribes that once possessed this
entire country have been driven to the