The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1924-10-10
Gy JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN

OW can any good American review
- his country's history without
81 ing the Hand of Providence in its
N III 1 century and half of amazing
~Srs@ progress from narrow strip Of
SSITW& subject English colonies along the
V'NM Atlantic coast to the richest and
E5SLSa most powerful nation of earth?
Outlines the mysterious way"
of Providence has been the winning of crisis
by the raising up of man to meet it. An ex
ample OF a man raised up-one all too little
known to his countrymen-s George Rogers
Clark the Savior of the Northwest
2 The following brief statement concerning
George Rogers Clark is prompted by the fact
that in Clark county, Ohio the other day the
latest of the many memorials to this Revolu-
donary hero was dedicated to commemorate
his victory over Indians at the battle of Pqua
Ian aftermath of his greater service No.
of the pictures is the Ohio statue. No. 1,
statue by Elsie Ward Herring exhibited at the
st. Louis exposition is historically correct as
to details. No. is an Illinois statue. No. is a
portrait of Clark at sixty No. 3 has few equals
as a historical document.
In the march of the American people across the
continent there certain outstanding IFS of
History" If clark had not captured 1.-The North
west" during the Revolution the Treaty of Yer
sailles (September g. 1889 would have fixed the
western boundary line of the victorious colonies
the Aleghenies instead of at the Mississippi.
If that treaty had fixed the Alleghenes the
United States, which came into being in 1885,
would have had no such compelling interest in the
free navigation of the Mississippi brought about
the Louisiana Purchase from France in lS03-the
territory west of the Mississippi eXpored'by Mer
riwether Lewis and William Clark (brother of
George Rogers Clark
If we had not made the Louisiana Purchase
we should not have been interested to annex
Texas and take the Southwest and California from
n
there would not have been that tremendous trek
of Americans over the Oregon Trail which gave
the Pacific Northwest. And without the Pa
cifc Northwest we should have had no desire to
purchase Alaska from the Russians.
At the beginning of the French and Indian war
Q75463) between the British and the allied
French and Spanish the British possessions on the
North American continent consisted of the Thir-
teen Colonies, whose charters covered the terri
tory from ocean to ocean The British were how
ever in actual possession of only the narrow strip
from Maine to Florida, extending west to the AL
leghenies. Spain held Florida, Mexico and what
is now the American Southwest. All the rest was
in actual nominal control of France.
Wolfes victory over MOntcam on the Heights
of Abraham was the elimination of century
long struggle. The Treaty of Paris February 10,
1862 proclaimed to the world that thenceforth
the civilization Of the North American continent
was to be British and not French. The French
had robbed the British of part of the spos of VIC
tory by secretly ceding (November g. 1902 to
Spain that part of Louisiana lying between the
Mississippi and the Rockies. Nevertheless this
treaty transformed the political map by putting
the British in control for the first time, of that
part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi
George III, in turn made haste to rob the Thir-
teen colonies October Z. 1859 of 1.-The Northwest"
by reservEg it as crown lands and warning every
one to keep out. Later Q774) the British par
lament attempted to legalize this theft of 100000