The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-07-26

OF the southern portion of the country.
The governors speech was clear, log
zeal and forceful, and was a splendid
tribute to the early pioneer settlers of
! Alabama, who successfully resisting
the tyrannical rule of kings, established
a government based upon the SOW
erignty of the people, and whose rights
for the first time were protected by
the solemn guarantees of written con-
stitution."
Governors Address
| The governors address In full is as
follows:
THE erection of this fort marked the
fartherest inland sweep of French
power during the early days of our
history. 1t is one of the anomalies of
| fate that its site should be marked
and commemorated by the defendants
of those whose victorious march to the
gulf it sought to check From far
away Mobile. then the citadel of French
power in the south, through trackless
forests swarming with savage foes.
Bienvile and his hardy warriors
| marched till here at the junction of
the Tallapoosa and Cosa, he located a
fort destined to play an important part
in the struggle between France and
| England for world power. With a cap
tains eye for a strategic position, a
business mans keen recognition of a
natural location for trading post and
a statesman's insight into the neces-
sity for checking the gradual encroach-
ment of those most troublesome of
neighbors, the restless, pushing, colony
building English, here at the junction
of these rivers, both pathways from
the Atlantic coastal plains, Bienville
sought 50 to establish the power of
French to beat back their natural
logical enemy, the English.
''Bienville did the only thing a great
captain and a wise statesman could do,
and yet forces were silently at work
too powerful for even his genius to
overcome Spain had already passed the
zenith of her power and her decline
had long since commenced A titanic
struggle was in progress between
France and England for worldwide
domination. Under the brilliant reign
of the grand Monarque Louis XIV
France had become the most powerful
nation in the world. In India, in Eu-
rope and in America contests for SUI
.Xere fiercely waged. If in those days
en- of Bienville's character had con-
r1rolled France the map and history of
the world might have been changed,
| yet far out in the wilderness he was
! powerless to counterfeit the selfishness,
the fanaticism and the folly of the
dying Louis. the worst government of
the regency that followed--and later
the profligate orgy of corruption and
disagreement that characterized the
reign of Louis XIV.
The mills of the gods grind slowly,
but they grind exceedingly small.
Though with patience they stand wait
ing, with exactness grind they ALL
France in TIA
| I'm 17lf the power of France over
| Swallowed the world It's claim to Amer
| lea included the valleys of the st. Law
renee and the Mississippi. Its claim ex-
| ceeded many times in territorial extent
that held by the English, whose possess
sions lay in long narrow strip between
| the mountains and the Atlantic. But
/ where a nation makes a claim greater
than 1t can protect that claim becomes a
| source of weakness rather than of
strength. The English. true to their ira
ditions and instincts, demanded land for
homes, cultivated the soil and built VIII
lagos along the coast and always gath
ering around them then families found
ed governments based upon English ira
ditions of independence, and under the
stimulating effects of self-government
soon became strong and vigorous colo
MES. The French on the contrary failed
| to secure the best part of the Atlantic
coast. Lured into the Gulf of St. Law
renee by their wonderful fisheries and
| towards the Great Lakes by the unsur-
passed opportunity for the fur trade and
| believing the Great Water talked about
by the Indians was the Pacific ocean,
! the French explored the Mississippi and
established a vast claim, too vast to be
settled even in a century as events then
moved.
with some settlements along the st.
Lawrence a few scattered forts as con-
Meeting links and some settlements along
| the lower Mississippi and tho gulf, we
have the French power IN America in
| 1855 when the struggle for supremacy
between the rival nations began. In vain
had France carefully planned every step
| for her children across the sea, nay
| rather for the reason that so far as pos
sible she had never let them get away
from her apronstrings, when the test
came they proved unfit
LaSalle's discovery. 1bervile and Bien-
Vile settlements Crozat's efforts, Law S
Mississippi bubble. all came to naught,
ana YET we OF tne English race meet
here today to do honor to "A great French
man because he alone among his COM
patriots, in what was then southern Louis
lana, strove to govern wisely unselfish-
! ly and periodically. The bitter feeling
which centuries of war engendered be-
tween the English and French nations
has long since been overcome by the
healing effects of time. The Anglo
Saxon race has always respected valor
and wisdom. even though those qualities
were exercised by an enemy.
And so 1t is today the Colonial Danes
of Alabama representing Anglo-Saxor
domination have placed monument to
! mark the spot of the old fort built TO pre-
vent the entrance of the Anglo-Saxon into
this country. and so today I. the governor
of the great commonwealth of Alabama
accept in the name of the state this beau
! tiful memorial of great man, who SET
such a splendid example of unselfish pa
triotism in the early days of our history
Another instance of the uncertainty
of the future and the inconsistencies oil
fate is found in tn fact that this fort
erected to check the encroaching tide OF
English emmigratio ton should later be used
by the defendants of the English as ths
strategic point from which Jackson's vic
torious columns crushed the power of the
Creeks whose hostility threatened the
I very existence of the Americans on tho
Mobile and Tombigbee rivers. and thai
here he signed that treaty of peace which
opened to settlement the most fertil,
part of Alabama.
Land Wrested From Indians
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