sick Indian who came to their door the white settlers extended the hand of charity.

But all was not pain and sorrow. There were parties and social gatherings at the homestead houses. There were weddings and other joyous occasions. There were devotional services and times of thanksgiving, when the hearts of the pioneers were grateful for such blessings as they enjoyed. There were holiday seasons when, despite the poor harvest, the Christmas spirit prevailed.

Carlyle said, "Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books." In the popular signification of the term, we have had no history. No armies have marched across our land; no decisive battles have been fought upon our soil; none of our people have done anything to achieve fame and honor. The writers of history find nothing in our homely annals worth recording; and yet our pioneers can chronicle events that have the profoundest human interest. The happenings of their daily life contribute to a story that is as thrilling and as tragic as any that is told. After all, who shall say they are too insignificant to warrant repetition?

"All service ranks the same with God:

. God's, puppets, best and worst,

Are we: there is no last nor first."

The incidents that filled those early days did not constitute the sum of life. Aside from the human element that entered into the computation, the manifestations of nature cast spells that were felt but that cannot be defined. The expanse of prairie, the tree-bordered streams, the flooding sunlight, the cloud flecked sky, the chasing shadows, the slipping waters, the sifting snowflakes, the sparkling stars, the silent moonlight, the scent of the wild flowers, the sweep of the storm cloud, the flash of the lightning, the crash of the thunder, the hiss of the rattle snake-all inspired sentiments that make the memory of those days, to those who

lived in them, pleasant to contemplate, and that will some day find expression in masterpieces of art and literature.

The proudest distinction any of us can enjoy should be that of calling ourselves pioneers; but the honor should be reserved for those who endured the hardships and privations of frontier life; for those who prepared the way for things that, in a material sense, are better; for those who have made this country what it is. To the first settlers we, who find this land a fit place to abide, owe a debt of gratitude we cannot repay.

NEBRASKA, MOTHER OF STATES

BY ALBERT WATKINS

Virginia was called the mother of presidents-before she lost her political "pull" through the errancy of rebellion and Ohio succeeded to it through strategic location and even more aptitude, or greed, in grasping opportunity than her venerable hegemonic predecessor had shown. So, also, prior to the prolific parturition of Nebraska's Titan territory, the Northwest Territory was-or might have beencalled the mother of states. The 265,878 square miles of the Northwest Territory produced the five medium sized states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin and contributed 26,320 square miles of the 83,531 contained in Minnesota. The 351,558 square miles of Nebraska Territory produced the three great states of Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota; about three-fourths of the greater state of Wyoming; nearly all of the immense state of Montana; and made a considerable contribution to Colorado.

Until the territory of Arkansas was formed, in 1819, all of the Louisiana Purchase north of the part now comprised in the state of Louisiana was under a single territorial organization, bearing the successive names of The District of Louisiana, The Territory of Louisiana, and Missouri. Out of this vast territory of Missouri there have been created the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and, in part, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. But the territory of Missouri, except that part in the neighborhood of St. Louis, was an unsettled wilderness occupied only by savage

Indians. White settlement, of economic and political importance, in the heart of this wilderness immediately followed the organization of Nebraska territory.

The part of Oklahoma which lies outside the Purchase was known as the "Public Land Strip" or "No Man's Land." It forms the northwest projection of the state, contains approximately 5,580 square miles, and constitutes Beaver county. The southwest corner of the state of Kansas-west of the one hundredth meridian and south of the Arkansas river and containing 7,776 square milesbelonged successively to Spain, Mexico, and Texas, and was outside the Purchase.

The original territories of Kansas and Nebraska extended from the Missouri river to the summit of the Rocky mountains. Kansas contained 126,283 and Nebraska 351,558 square miles. From Kansas 44,965 square miles and from Nebraska 16,035 square miles were taken to form the territory of Colorado and remain a part of the state of Colorado. But the part of the territory of Kansas so incorporated in Colorado which lies south of the Arkansas, containing approximately 7,000 square miles, is outside the Purchase; so that about 54,000 of the total 104,500 square miles comprised in Colorado belong to the Purchase. The corner of original Nebraska bounded on the north by the forty-second parallel of latitude, on the east by the one hundred and sixth meridian, and on the southwest by the continental divide, containing about 7,400 square miles1,400 in Colorado and 6,000 in Wyoming-is outside the Purchase. Most of this fraction was comprised in the strip about three-fourths of a degree in width, extending up to the forty-second parallel-the northern boundary of Mexico prior to her war with the United States. This elongated projection was a part of Texas when that insurgent offshoot of Mexico was annexed to the United States. It was given up to the mother country as a part

of the compromise of 1850. Title to a small tract of this casual corner of Nebraska lying next to the divide, is traced directly to Spain.

The western boundary of the Purchase, as fixed in our treaty with Spain, of February 22, 1819,1 did not constantly follow the Rocky mountain divide but, after reaching it at latitude 39° 20′ and longitude 106° 15', near the subsequent site of Leadville, proceeded directly north to the forty-second parallel and thence directly westcrossing the mountains three degrees beyond-to the Pacific ocean. Prior to the treaty, the western boundary of the Purchase was, somewhat indefinitely of course, the watershed of the Mississippi; and, proceeding northwesterly from a point about one hundred miles west of the mouth of that river, it first struck the Rocky mountain range, at its southern limit by that name, near the thirtysixth parallel of latitude-not far northeast of the subsequent site of Santa Fe.

In the preliminary Oregon treaty of October 20, 1818, between Great Britain and the United States," the "Stony Mountains" were acknowledged to be the western American boundary, by virtue of our purchase of Louisiana; and, accordingly, in the final treaty-June 15, 18463-the southeast corner of our new Oregon acquisition was fixed three degrees west of the right angle of the boundary line of the treaty of 1819 with Spain, and which subsequently became the northeastern limit of the state of Texas. The traditional and natural western boundary of the Purchase the summit of the mountains-was followed in the organization of the territories of Utah and Nebraska, in the main of Kansas and Montana, and, in part, of New Mexico. Nebraska contributed from its original territory 16,035 of