Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1898 — The Wail of The Croaker. [ARTICLE]

The Wail of The Croaker.

The entire argument of the antiannexations is summed up in the one word “croak.” Hancock and Adams heard the croak at Boston in 1775, and Washington heard it good and strong at Valley Forge. And the same old croak has been “ringing down the ages’.’ ever since. It took an organized form at the “Hartford convention” during the war of 1812.; nnd it has always resounded over the land, at every addition the kindly power of Providence has permitted to be made to the territorial limits of our glorious nation. Tho croakers croaked when Louisiana was purchased in 1803; again when Florida was secured in 1817; broke loose worse than ever when Texas was taken in 1835; came up again when California, that earthly land of Beulah was taketi in; still again when the struggle was on to hold the Oregon region from John Bull's far reaching grasp was convulsing the country; and stil. was heard when Alaska was purchased in 1867. But the people favored every one of these objects against which the cronkers raised their unavailing croak, and the result has justified the people's decision in every case. Even Alaska, which a Reverend Rensselaer croaker points at as an example of the unwisdom of territorial expansion, his only reason therefore being that it lately cost S4OO,(XX) as the result of a sort inter-national law-suit, has paid back into the treasury in actual cash many times its first coßt, with the little $400,000 thrown in. And the territory now furnishes, with its grand timber and mineral resources, one of the finest fields for future American enterprise. Would our Reverend friend in

i Rensselaer and his much admired • friend in Congress vote to give ! Alaska back to Russia ? j If they would they are probably i.the only two men in the whole United States who would. And two men are not enough to make a party. Of course it is easy to say that even one man with God on his side, makes a party. But there is nothing easier to say but harder to prove than for croakers and opposers of the popalar will, to claim that God is on their side and that future years will prove it so. But the “lamp of experience” which our reverend friend quotes, proves that in every case the croakers ngainst annexation so far have been wrong, and we have no doubt it will prove the same in the present case.