The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-01-07

ian emigrants who headed toward the
rising instead of toward the setting
sun, and settled in the basin of the
Yellow river, there to become the pro-
genitors of the most populous nation
history has ever known. They
found ahorigines there just as Colum-
bus found them in America and as the
Aryans found them in India. Whence
they. came is beyond mortal ken.
History stands silent and dumb, SO re-
mote were the days of their advent.
Every reader is familiar with the
sweep of the tides of humanity to
Americas shores after the discovery
of the western hemisphere by Column
bus. But far behind that date there
We're other races which had to come
to America, and which had erected
civilizations of their ow~n-civiliza-
tons whose few remaining ruins are
mutely eloquent witnesses of the high
order of intelligence of the people.
Perhaps the most mournful diary en-
try ever made was written by a priest
who accompanied Cortez into Mexico,
where, in the name of religion, an at
tempt was made to wipe even the last
Renaissance of the Aztec civilization
from the earth. He told of their his
tories, their literature, their medical
science. their astronomical knowledge,
and then related with pride and pleas
ure the joy he felt in seeing all their
sacred books of knowledge placed in a
huge bonfire M destroyed beyond all
hope of resurrection.
Since then centuries have come and
gone, and psychologists have been able
to gather here and there small threads
in the chain of evidence as to the ma
ture of these civilizations. But the
calendars of the Aztecs and the Mayas
disclose even a greater knowledge of
stronomy h Caesar possessed
when he ordained the Julian calendar,
with the aid of the A%lexandrian schol-
ars, n greater than was at the dis
posal of Pope Gregory when he re-
vised. But certain it is that the ruins
of Militia, of Palenque, of Quiragau, Of
Yucatan, of Casa Grandes. and of the
meas, tell of races which in their day
could match their best contemporaries
of Asia, Europe and Africa.
That the emigrants who laid the
foundations of these civilizations came
from across the seas seems certain,
We see the Toltecs migrating across
the barren plains which stretch al
most from the Rio Grande to the vale
of Anhuac. Then they disappear,
legend says, through the a Of
pulque, and after them comes the Chi
Monaghan in features, Chinese
in the forms Of their civilization.
Even in this day we may read on the
~ rn mid Cf ALo ~,,~ ~ l----
been erected by them. the same in
scription n most often finds upon
the ancient tombs of Gilman in
scription which means longevity"
Whence they came or how, there Is
nothing but circumstantial evidence to
indicate. but it seems probable from
thai evidence that it was but a con-
tinuation of the eastward movement of
humanity that began when the Turan-
ians settled in the valley of the Yellow
river and founded the great empire of
China.
Throughout hundreds of generations
humanity has thus been moving here
and there in search of the promised
lands of better. opportunities. nearly
ALWAYS migrating amid necessities and
hardships. and often at the risk of life
itself. Sometimes it has been the
hand of oppression and tyranny that
has given impetus to the tide: at other
times it has been religious faith: now
1t has been a question of staying and
starving or of going and enioving
plenty. But whatever the impelling
motive, multiplied millions of people
have traversed the lands ard the seas
of the earth in search of peace, happi-
ness and contentment.
CTomorrow-Immigration. xxx
Future Human Migrations.