And State Papers 351 



The old pioneer days are gone, with their rough 

 ness and their hardship, their incredible toil and 

 their wild half-savage romance. But the need for 

 the pioneer virtues remains the same as ever. The 

 peculiar frontier conditions have vanished; but the 

 manliness and stalwart hardihood of the frontiers 

 men can be given even freer scope under the con 

 ditions surrounding the complex industrialism of 

 the present day. In this great region acquired for 

 our people under the Presidency of Jefferson, this 

 region stretching from the Gulf to the Canadian 

 border, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, the 

 material and social progress has been so vast that 

 alike for weal and for woe its people now share 

 the opportunities and bear the burdens common to 

 the entire civilized world. The problems before 

 us are fundamentally the same east and west of 

 the Mississippi, in the new States and in the old, 

 and exactly the same qualities are required for their 

 successful solution. 



We meet here to-day to commemorate a great 

 event, an event which marks an era in statesman 

 ship no less than in pioneering. It is fitting that 

 we should pay our homage in words; but we must 

 in honor make our words good by deeds. We 

 have every right to take a just pride in trie great 

 deeds of our forefathers; but we show ourselves 

 unworthy to be their descendants if we make what 

 they did an excuse for our lying supine instead of 

 an incentive to the effort to show ourselves by our 

 acts worthy of them. In the administration of 



