, 1923-08-01

of wild freedom, so the nation is rid
the whole leavened by the qualities of
culture, strength and love of liberty,
the American Nation, it's government
and its institutions will be perpetual
ed.
Howard Eaton was a pioneer. All
honor to those valiant pioneers: the
explorers, the fur traders, the guides,
the Indian fighters, the p~rospectors,
the minors, the stockmen and the set
tiers, whose believing hope, whose
magnificent optimism settled and is
settling this mighty empire of the
West.
Howard Eaton was an optomist.
No man can achieve any great sue
cess unless he be an optimist. Optim-
ism v~italizes energy, it makes buoyant
the courage and leads on to victory.
What miracles steadfast hope has per
formed! What mighty projects it has
carried on fruitionl What cities it has
laid, what states it has founded, what
mighty wildernesses it has transform
ed into civilization
"Those who think new thoughts;
who tread unknown lands; who sail
unknown seas; who drill new fields
the so-called wise ones of the world
sometimes called adventures or fools.
The prospector, the promoter, the
discoverer, the inventor, the geologist,
the driller, the statesmen, the builder
the trail blazer, conceives a great idea
a great mine, a great water power,
a great irrigation project; the aero
plane, the radiophone, and the peopl-
ing and building of an empire. I'M
mediately the great cry goes up from
the ranks of the pessimistic conser-
vaties. 1T is too new; it is too big; it
has never been done before; it is the
dream of a visionary fool and yet:
One fool sailed westward till he
found a world;
One found new worlds within the
mind of man.;
The cynics called Columbus charlat
an-Who unfurled
The heavens like a scroll, that men
might know;
But foolish Calico?
There is one toast the future ages
drink
Standing to those who dare rush
in and die,
Those who defy all rights and break
all rules
Who fight impossible battles and
who think
True thoughts-at whom with one
accord we cry;
The fools, the fools, the fools! God
bless the fools!'
Perhaps u pioneer friend, Ho-
ward Eaton, the Trail Blazer, who
when his work was done started on
the long spirit trail, was termed by
some an adventurer and a visionary
because of visions. He saw them
when his eyes we're turned from his
home to the westward over the great
and wonderful domain, the Yellow
stone National Park, through whose
mazes he established the Howard
Eaton Trail, and whose beauties he
opened to thousands. But no man
who does not see visions ever effected
any great work or accomplished any
high enterprise.
"He was a lover of the breadth and
the freedom and the spirit of the
West; that spirit which will help this
nation to hold fast to its vital power;
retain the iron in her blood, her moral
and physical courage, her fighting
spirit; the will to live; that spirit
which will help the nation to conserve
and intensity simultaneously with adj
vancement in culture and wealth its
dynamic power; its vitality; that vital
ity which is the sine qua non-the
without which not'-of national life
permanency-the perpetuity of our
American civilization, its government
and institutions; that vitality which
abides only with morality, cleanness,
health, activity and redness of blood.
The West is the reservoir of vital
force upon which the nation can ever
draw to maintain that vitality. But
it gives forth that higher quality and
element, the love of liberty. That
liberty does not mean license or law
~lessness. But it means that liberty
which stands for the security of the
same liberty to others; the sane, safe,
orderly liberty intended by the fore
fathers.
at is this passion for liberty, free
dom and room; the contemplation of
nature in her original state and
beauty; her breadth and power that
we seek to pe%rpetuate by thas Park
and its trails. So that all our people,
from Florida to Oregon, from Calf
ornia to Maine may come here in per-
feet American equality and become
imbued with this sense of freedom;
the impression of breadth and
strength, of beauty and power, of
purity and honesty, of naturalness
and reality.
"The man whom we honor today
by the dedication of his Trail was a
western type and exempler, a devotee
of nature, and incubator of all those
qualities that are a nessential ingredi-