The Forrest City times., 1910-07-01

WA1W leNsrs to their Eng
 lisk cousins. in which
 they casually referred to the fact that they owned a territory of over 2s7 .000 square miles. or some five times as large as all England and Wales, neither Poor Richard nor any of the other dear old chroniclers made note of the fact.
 But inasmuch as the coIonists felt big enough and strong enough and rich enough to pitch into Great Britain, and. not only did pitch into her. but beat her after a fair fight. il would look to an unbiased person today as If the forefathers of the firecfaehefs had pretty good opinion of them selves and of what they had in hand Ii is quite likely that after the uH- Pleasantness known as the Revolution, when the country was striding ahead with It's commerce, was selling it's cotton and its tobacco to every one tha: wore clothes or used the weed, they felt they had more reason to pat themselves on the back for the mar
 
 eighteenth century was done
 But just supposing one of the ffamers of the Declaration could read over few statistics and observe a few events that that are at hand today Ii you told him that since his day the eountry-his country-has increased more than ten times in area. more than 2e times in population. and more than thousand times in wealth. how WouI h. take the neWs2 Would he still assert. as some Of our friends among the oldest inhabitants are prone to do. that the good old days We're best, or would he not be more likely to sally forth in search of the headle and make a peremptory de mand for your incarceration as a dan. gerous lunatic2
 Surely Ii truth is stranger than fc- ton figures are stranger still when measuring the vast strides that our country has taken since the Fourth Of July. 177G What one of the signers dreamed that in 1893. or less than 36 Years after his ink dried upon that historic document, the United States would acquire territory Of S75.00e square miles. or nearly three times the size Of all the l. original states put together But that was N hat We got whan We bought Louisiana for Sl5.0e9- DOC h 1919. when We took in Florida We added more than 7eoe9 square miles te GUT area. in lS45 We took in Texas with its vast domain of 8Sa800 square miles; and within three years thereafter had absorbed Oregon and the Mexican concession. adding in round numbers S00,000 square miles more.
 Every once in a little while Uncle sam seemed Je grow t4rritoriaily hun gry. ane would lunch of a promising fragment of the continent. The Gads- den purchase of 36.0o9 square miles Was made in 1S53. Alaska Was bought for ST,2o0,UU0 in l667, adding nearly 6o0.0eo square miles to our man. and in IS9- We took in the Hawaiian is- lands to prove that we were not dis eliminating against the Pacific ocean in the matter Of our favor Then all in bunch. during the days of 1SaS and 1899 We took in Porto Rico. Guam and the Philippines, and few of the Samoan islands The Sandwich Is. lands were scarcely worth mentioning for they added only wee mite 10 our real estate holdings-6 square miles. to be eXaet-and Porto Rico with its 3,60o and little Guam with is 175 might be left out altogether and wed hardly notice that We had lost them
 The Philippines totaled aboa I43. eco seHare miles, and you'll hardly be able to suppress a smile when you are informed that the Samoan islands fbat We took over in 1899 had the enormoas area Of g square miles. Rut ever a that there's plenty Of room upon those little ocean dots for ca b5e houses. dry docks and eoaling sta tions \ few thousand tons Of coal stored at any one of those places may at some time in the future save the American bat,iesh.p fleet and give 1t the power 10 overcome foe in the far east Thus. all told. when you add up the various breakfasts. laneheons. and dinners of new land that our uncle has enjoyed since I776 We get tbe tidy showing of 2.s36.73l square miles.
 This new territory cost the United States treasury exactly $SGo39,16S. or about S3o square mile Add what we've bought 10 what We had during the Revolution. and you get total of a little more than 3,000.000 square miles of territory.
 The government figure experts. who oGSAt to be the best on earth. for they get more pay than any other statisti- clans on the gloue calculate that the total wealth of the United States to- day is over sl1o0V0. .000 ,oo0 They have come to the conclusion. after going over acres and acres of numerals that every nan. woman and child in the United States has s3472 If you have