The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-21
Fifty-sour Forty or Fight.

Much has been written under the cap
tion, 'Fifty-four Forty or Fight and
doubtless many embryonic authors will
continue to weave romances around these
words, but the average citizen of these
United States probably knows little or
nothing concerning its origin,'' said stu
dent of history.
while John Tyler was President there
was much agitation on the part sof the
democrats of the north and west for the
acquisition of oregon. President Tyler
was called the President without a
party and to curry favor with the demo-
Gratis he declared in his annual message
to Congress in December, 1S43, that after
a rigid and, as far as practicable, UNI
biased examination of the subject, the
United states have always contended that
their rights appertain to the entire re-
gion of country lying on the Pacific ano
embraced within north latitude 42 degrees
and north latitude 81 degrees 40 min
utes. Great Britain was also claim
ant for Oregon and many people of the
United States were in favor of war rathei
than see the territory go to the English
people. Thus it was that in the campaign
of 1874 the country rang with the slogan,
| 'Fifty-four forty or fight!
III. Addington Bruce, in his Romance
of American Expansion, reproduces from
the Outlook statement made by Ne
braska correspondent to that magazine,
| which is as follows:
Il was much interested in the settle-
ment of the question of the northwestern
boundary, particularly so because l have
a bit of unwritten history in connection
with it. About the year 1910 young man
by the name of Enoch w. Eastman, fully
equipped for the practice of law, came
from Vermont to Burlington, Ia, and put
out his shingle. Until the beginning of the
civil war he was an old line democrat. He
soon rose to prominence in politics. When
Iowa applied for admission as a state
he was one of the commission sent tc
| Washington with that business, and was
himself instrumental in fixing the boun-
daries as they now stand. He was lieu
tenant governor during the war and after
that was always called Governor East.
man. After the war he again took up the
practice of law in Eldora, where he spent
the remainder of his life. During the pro-
hibitiop campaign in Iowa he was an ac-
| tive advocate of the amendment.
II was living at the. time in Whitten
| He came there to speak and 1 had tht
honor of entertaining him. In conversa
tion he was telling me some things about
the early history of Iowa. Something he
said reminded me of 1t, and l asked hin
| if he remembered the old democratic
watchword, Fifty-four forty or fight.
| He raised his right hand and with grea
force brought it down upon his knee
I saying, That was first written on tina
knee.' He was a delegate to a democrats
county convention. The convention wa
held in the open air The committee OF
resolutions, not being accustomed to tina
| sort of work, asked him to help them
| He took piece of wrapping paper, spread
| it on his knee, and, after writing somt
i resolutions about local politics, added. II
the matter of the northwestern boundary
we are for fifty-four forty or fight The
state convention met few days latel
and adopted the same resolution. 1t was
then taken up by the democratic pres:
and speakers and spread like wildfire. The
public did not know and could not guess
who was the author In the guesses many
prominent democrats were named, bu
most of them centered on Lewis Cass Of
Michigan"