SECTION E- HISTORY OF AMERICA 



(Hall 1, September 24, 10 a. TO.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. JAMES SCHOULER, Boston. 



SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR EDWARD G. BOURNE, Yale University. 



PROFESSOR FREDERIC J. TURNER, University of Wisconsin. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR EVARTS B. GREENE, University of Illinois. 



THE Section of History of America was presided over by Dr. James 

 Schouler, of Boston, who gave an interesting opening address, in 

 which the conditions under which the early settlement of the Miss- 

 issippi Valley took place, and the growth of the two young cities of 

 New Orleans and St. Louis through the colonial and ante-bellum 

 struggles, was contrasted with present conditions, where the modern 

 St. Louis, the solid and substantial municipality, ranking among the 

 foremost of the cities of the New World, gathered within its borders 

 visitors and scholars from every nation in the world. The Chairman 

 then commented upon the influence of the French in the Mississippi 

 Valley and the changes which followed the purchase of the Louisiana 

 territory by the United States. " This vast Louisiana annexation, so 

 significant for our high mission on this continent, came suddenly 

 and unlocked for, like the New World's discovery by Columbus three 

 centuries or more earlier. It did not come as the gradual fruition of 

 ideas and experience, like our Revolution, our Monroe Doctrine, or 

 the great civil conflict of 1861. To a federo-national Union, but 

 lately put in practical operation under its constitutional scheme of 

 government, and content with its existing domain, it was like the 

 unexpected lifting of a curtain which disclosed new possessions 

 toward the Rocky Mountains wholly unlocked for. To a young and 

 aspiring people all this came as a revelation, the harbinger of a new 

 and grander destiny." Concluding, the speaker paid an eloquent 

 tribute to Napoleon, Marbois, Livingston, Monroe, and Jefferson, the 

 great actors in the international drama. 



