| Show T WHERE DOES IT BEGIN The St Louis GlobeDemocrat asks the question Where Is the west and answers It as follows As a geographical mark the west was a continually receding line from the beginning be-ginning of the government onward until un-til a few years ago when the Pacific slope started to become widely settled A hundred years ago out west meant anywhere from Rochester or Buffalo south to Gordonville Va or Greens borough N C The line moved slowly for the next few years but after the introduction of steamboats < on the rivers west of the Alleijhanies and the advance of the verge of the settled the march area to the prairie country perceptibly quickened When Daniel Boohe died in 1820 the western verge of 1 the settled area of the United States had reached him In Missouri Kit Carson Car-son saw it cross the Rocky mountains Ian I-an ten years ago when the state of Washington was admitted the westerly I line occupied the Pacific shore from the Mexican boundary to Canada The old classification of the state has become I be-come obsolete The Mississippi and j not the Alleglianles should be consid I red the dividing line between the east and the west While the population enter has not yet reached the Mississippi j Missis-sippi the geographical center exclusive I of Alaska and the recent acquisitions j of territory is fn Smith county Kansan j I Kan-san Historically socially geograph ically and politically the west is an exceedingly I ex-ceedingly interesting part of the coun it becomes Ian try but constantly more 1 and more difllcult to answer the question I ques-tion Where is the west ton II But the east is where it always was I has not ventured out of the shell of exclusiveness i occupied a century ago I has plenty of good old fighting fight-ing blood and plenty of sterling manhood man-hood But the Insolence of power had driven the pioneers from the land of their birth to the shores of an unknown continent I developed their sterner qualities and made them equal to the I hardships they faced but taught them nothing In time they too grew arrogant gnat and intolerant They forced whom they could not control Into the wilderness wilder-ness and back from the shore The weaker submitted and remained behind be-hind but independent manhood continued contin-ued to hew its way step by step the smoke arising from its cabin chimneys 1 marking the region known a the west The east has not moved It has reached out for more land More tenants ten-ants contribute to its greed Its mortgages mort-gages cover more territory But that portion of this republic which may still be designated as the east pays tribute trib-ute to the little strip along the Atlantic seaboard which has been the ha east since the settlement of the country began I I Is the same old east with its antiquated I quated statesmen its mould theories I of government its hidebound policies of finance Its dilapidated system of tariff tar-iff protection As the east has been reaching out each year a little further for more than its share of the produce of labor and the proceeds of enterprise tho west has been edging away a the c I people l have tried t save themselves and their posterity |
