Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-06-26
END OF A GREAT EPOCH
Passing of the Last of Mainland Ter
rItOries an Event of HistOric
SiRnifRnce.

Approved William H. Tart AS tue
last stroke OF the eagle quill pen crossed
the "t'' one era in the history of the Amer
lean republic ended and another began.
The era OF the old territories had closed.
There are legal formalities stlll TO be COM
piled with and the flag may not officially
show forty-eight stars until July 4, 1917.
But the age OF the territories with all that
it meant of adventure, Of romance and or
national glory. has closed.
Consider how different was the map Of
the United states to him who reaches this
year the scriptural three-score and ten.
When the child was born in 1870 there were
only the old thirteen states and thirteen
more. Michigan was the last, and but three
years old as a state. Florida was still a
territory. So was Wisconsin.
West of the Mississippi were the states
Of Missouri and Arkansas, the latter only
four years old and beyond them THE
Indian territory and the independent Re
public of Texas. To the northwest was
Iowa territory. stretching vaguely westward
from the Mississippi
Beyond them was Mexico, and the dis
puted Oregon country" whose winning
for the union by Marcus Whitman and the
hardy pioneers who followed his guiding
is one of the hero tales of our history.
That was the United States in 1910, the
year of the log cabin and hard cider
campaign" and OF "Tippecanoe and Tyler
! too
During the next two decades the terri
tories and the states came fast American
military skill and velor won the war with
Mexico and swung the flag half across a
continent to the Pacific. American diplo-
macy settled the Oregon question. Amer
lean enterprise found Eldorado where Span
| ish sloth could not find II in hundred
! years, and created in year state such as
/ the earth had never seen-a state of whose
population at least three-fourths were men
under 50.
Hear the roll call of the territories and
/ the states as that child heard them added
TO the list and saw the new stars put in
! the flag before Abraham Lincoln entered
the White House to save the union:
! Florida and Texas in 1916; Iowa in 1916
| Wisconsin in 1913; Oregon in 1S4s and 1859
Minnesota in 1s49 and 1858; New Mexico and
Utah in 150 California in 1850
Washington in 1868; Kansas ant
Nebraska in 1854. and Kansas in 1861
Colorado, Nevada and Dakota in 1861
Ten new territories organized, three OF
them and three older territories becom-
ing states; the gigantic Lone Star added
to the American constellation; a national
domain which congress had no time for.
mally to organize as territory, it grew
so fast into state.
That was the great age of expansion
of the American republic-the age in which
war. pioneering adventure, commercial en-
terprise and religious zeal, combined tc
overrun and possess the western half OF
our continent.
1t was an age whose achievements have
been deprecated and derlded, but still II
towers as the colossus of modern history
But during that time the American peo-
pie NOT only extended their empire to the
Pacific. They also organized their new
dominions and laid the foundations of the
marvellous development that has come
since it was settled at Appomattox that
! this republic was neither to continue halt
slave and half free nor to be divided, but
was to be one country with one flag from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and between
northern and southern boundaries whose
final situation 1t would be unwise at this
time to predict.
With the signature of the president or
June 20, to the act enabling New Mexico
and Arizona territories to become states
the ages OF the territories has closed
There are still territories, and doubtless
future states but they are more or less
outliers from the continental block nov
soon to be filled with forty-eight indie
structible states of this indissoluble Union
The old territories will be missed. They
were the visible signs of national achieve.
ment Of all kinds and not one or two
kinds only. To find emblems like then
we must now look to our isuands beyond
the seas,--Chlcago Inter Ocean.