204 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



THE IROQUOIS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICA 



ADDRESS BY ELIHU ROOT, SENATOR FROM NEW YORK, AT THE' TERCEN- 

 TENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 1 ' 



It is no ordinary event that we celebrate. 



The beauty of this wonderful lake, first revealed to the eye of 

 civilized man by the visit of Samuel de Champlain three hundred 

 years ago; the powerful personality, noble character, and romantic 

 career of the discoverer; the historic importance of this controlling 

 line of strategic military communication, along which have passed 

 in successive generations the armies whose conflicts were to deter- 

 mine the control and destinies of great empires ; the value to Canada 

 and to the United States of this natural pathway of commerce ; the 

 growth and prosperity of the noble states that have arisen on the 

 opposing shores ; their contributions to the wealth of mankind, to 

 civil and religious liberty, to the world's progress in civilization — 

 all these, withdraw the first coming of the white man to Lake 

 Champlain from the dull and uninteresting level of the common- 

 place, while comparative antiquity, so attractive and inspiring to 

 the people of the New World, lends dignity and romance to the 

 figures and the acts that have escaped oblivion through centuries. 



Even a dull imagination must be stirred as it dwells upon the 

 influence which the events attending the discovery were to have, 

 upon the issue of the great struggle between France and Great 

 Britain for the control of the continent ; the struggle between the 

 two white races for the opportunity to colonize and expand, and 

 between the two* systems of law and civil polity, for the direction 

 and development of civilization among the millions who were to 

 people the vast region extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 and from the Rio Grande to the frozen limits of the north. 



Authentic history records that late in June 1609 Champlain,. ac- 

 companied by several white companions and by a great array of 

 Algonquin Indians of the St Lawrence valley, left the French 

 station on the site of the old Indian village of Stadacona, where 

 now stands the city of Quebec, upon an expedition intended by the 



1 This illuminating address, publicly given before a distinguished audience, 

 at Plattsburg, July 7, 1909, is here reprinted in order to give it as wide 

 circulation as possible among the people of the State. 



