The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1925-12-25
By DIR. ALFRED ATKINSON

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BY DIR. ALFRED ATKINSON 2
President of Montana State College,
BOzeman, Montana
A N OLD order has changed in
n Montana and has passed away.
IA The plains Indian unconscious
ly visualized the white race when he
made the sign of pale face" by pass
ing the hand before the face, as if
wiping away the very c-Ountenance Of
the red man. Almost with n
sweep of pioneer people the tides Of
white population OverflOwed into the
Indian hunting lands of the West,
and in a period of time remarkably
short in history relegated the disap-
pearing Indian into the backwaters
of reservation life. This change in
Montana, from the wilderness" of
1850 to the industrially and agricul-
turally important state of 1925, is
something that we can hardly I'M
derstand-it came about so sudden
ly. We hardly grasp the significance
of the fact that today there are liv-
ing amongst us men and women who
came to Montana along the pioneer
trails, contesting with the Indian for
right Of way, and hat there are. still
living on our reservations Indians
who used the primitive bow and ar
row less than three score years ago
in their battle against this flood of
white population.
We see history more clearly as its
events recede into the years. By the
end of another century u histories
will give notice to the great change
that marks MOntana's history from
1850 to the present, and the mo-.
m%entOus years that are just ahead of
us. Today we are too near to these
events to comprehend the full i'm
pOrtance they carry. Yet, in order to
look into the future we must try in
this article to contrast the American
West of 186O-7S to the American
West of today; these lines of pro-
press of the past must be extended
with various notifications into the
future, that they may indicate the
way ahead. Naturally we start with
a study of population in America and
in Montana, since it is the spread of
population which carries the first in
dication Of Montana's future both in
industry and in agriculture.
At a time one hundred years ago
the population of the United States
was roughly, nine million. This pop
ulatiOn was conferred along the At
lantic coast, with only nine lines of
settlement in the river valleys of
Kentucky, Tennessee and that other
territory between the Appalachian
mountains and the Mississippi river.
The fur trader and trapper were in
the mountainous West, but in a West
not yet considered as having ''pOpu-
latiOn." There were buffalo and elk
east of the Mississippi river and a
part Of our present West was still
Spanish dominion. Major Long, at
the end of a trip of exploration west
Of the Mississippi river, reported that
the territory between the meridian at
the mouth Of the Platte and the
Rocky mountains would never be fit
for agriculture of any sort.
In a day 40 years after the close
of the fur trading period of Mon
tana's history we find the intermin-
able lines of covered wagons reach
ing across the Oregon and BozemaI
trails to carry IN overflow of Am
erican population into Montana anC
other western states. Within sc
years following these lines of cover
ed wagons we see the iron bands o.
railroad steel binding us more defin
itely to the East, and bringing to tn,
West another great wave of popu
latiOn. That first flow of population
after 1860 is often believed to have
been caused by the gold d~iscOveriet
of the West, and this is, in part, true
yet it is noted by historians that tn
pillow was tied behind hundreds o
those westward moving wagons;
certain sign Of the agricultural hOmt
builder.
Last of the Free Land
The last wave Of p~oulatiOn which
the railroads brought to Montana il
the period from 1907 to about 1872
caused a new era in the history o
America. This population PRACTICAL
exhausted the free land" that hal
been traditional in the history Of on
nation. Free land and a home i
the West" had become so much
part and parcel of Our American ira
ditiOns that we today cannot yet re
aIize hat our free land is gone fOl
ever. We have lOw-pTiced farI
lands in Montana today-in fact, tn
lowest priced farming lands in An
erica-but thees lands are not FIRE
lands; they are in private ownership
The next push of American pOpuls
ton cannot overflow into hOmestea
lands of the West, for that wonder
full phase of American settlement