Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 144, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1903 — Jasper’s Early History. [ARTICLE]

Jasper’s Early History.

Again we think it worth while to remind ourselves that the difference between reoiprooity and free trade is that reciprocity is the logical outoome of promotion anc is really a trade, while free trade is no trade at all. bat a give'away.

The president of the Indians Jefferson League Writee a letter'iD whiob he says that the Demo* oratic masses tire ‘'demanding that the Democratic national platform of 1904 dies not repudiate a single plank whioh is contained in the platform of 1896 and 1900.” It would certainly be superfluous for any convention to repudiate the greater part of that platfortn, whioh events themselves bhve repudiated.

There are about 80 oat of the nearly 400 town and oity health officers in Indiana, who did not at tend the state sohool for each officers at Indianapolis, last week. Dr. Hnrty has been oontem plating bouncing all these reoaloitrant ones, from their offices, as he has the power to do, under the law; bnt having learned that their salaries average only about $lO per year, he has oonolnded that it will panish them more to leave them in than to tarn them out. However he is trying to stady out s plan whereby he oan get them all together and give them a good “jawitfcg.”

That oollossal robber of all the ages, John D. Rockefeller, has dropped two or three millions more of ill-gotten wealth into the hop{&r of the Chicago tjniveraity, and we may now confidently look for another advanoe in the prioe of coal, oil, and gasoline. Of ooursd Rook feller oan’t affoid to give away money at that rate unless he sees where he oan make it baok again. And that reminds us of a late instance in Colorado, of the high handed methods adopted by Rookfeller and bis Standard Oil company to stifle competition and to rob his competitors of the rightful fruits of their investments anc labor There is a considerable oil field near Florence and Canon Oity, in Odor ado. together with a number of refineries. For years the field had been worked at a good profit, and the product of the refineries supplied to the immediate region, ooal oil and gasoline at fair prices. Finally .Rookfeller and his gang learned that way out there in the Rooky Mountains some people were making money on oil and not paying them the biggest end of it. Therefore they began k shipping oil produota into the i regi -m supplied by this Colorado field, and selling it at sor 6 cents per gallon. This they kept up 4 until the Florence refineries''were dosed for a time and only re-open-ed afier an iron olad agreement to sell to the Rockefeller crowd, every -gsiion of thetr ooal oil and gasoline at 7 oenta a gallon, or just enough to pay for keeping the refineries mnning and the wells pumping. This same oil that Rockefeller partly buys and mostly steals is then retailed out at about 22 oents a gallon.

r Ante-British. - r V Two of my old settler friends take issue on last weeks eketoh. One reader suggests that we were inoluded in “the swarming of the English” since 1607. The other observer avers “I have seen unmistakable evidence that Jasper was inhabited by a prehistoric raoe.” A oorreot and readable history can only be made with the aid o frierds and books as well. It was our intention to start with the

European invasion of the new world. It is true the pedani Sing James made Virginas charter extend westward to “The Sea o Ohina and the Indies” Farrars map for the King made ih 165 6xed the sea coast ju6t west of the Alleghenies and at no point to exceed two hundred and fifty miles from the Atlantic. The British claim was not based on possession o: discover.-, neither on any eurv y nor description. The pale faces, believing tnat “westward the star of empire takes its way” who first looked upon the Great Valley were the Frenob. Their posts it is true were to promote the ohuroh and nation and were not oommeroial nor colonial with one noted reception. Their claim was the water sheds of the St. Lawrenoe and Mississippi, basod on exploration The Frenoh regent who succeeded Louis XIV was in debt and turned to John Law as his sole fiscal adWeer. John made believe that the Crown’s asserted credit was equal to coin of the realm.

He organized the bank of France that printed $6,000,000 of paper money. One half was loaned to the Crown at an interest charge equal to all revenues from Lousiana, Africa and the Indian isles for 25 years to go to John’s Company of the Indies.” This company’s rale extended over as from 1718 to 1733 with oar capital on the went bank of the Kaskaskia near the east bank of the Mi&is sippi some sixty miles below St. Louis. The mound some four miles north of Rensselaer as well as the various industrial and warlike instruments found in Jasper do not cfisht with the nomad life of the Indians. The mound builders and cliff-dwellers were evidently of Asiatio origin, wbo disoovefed the continent on the west ooafet. Their mounds were evidently plaoes of sepulture, defense and worship of the Rising Sun. The most pleasant theory is that they oame from China and seeking the same mild olimate passed south and were the ancestors of the Tolteoa and Incas plundered by. the fbrthue hunting Spaniards. This theory is more feasible than that of extermination. The books seem to take for granted that the oolor line was drawn in the parent line of the raoe somewhere in southwest Asia. The blaoks swarmed to the sooty aud have since been known as Afrioans who jv were brought \o Jamestown as slaves in 1619. The tawny colored swarmed eastward, divided into many separate nations and no donbt reaohed the new world from the west leaving no records that oar ethnologists have yet been able to read. There is little evidenoe that the first mild and defensive emigrants ever passed the Alleghenies. The tartars as nomads, however overrun the entire continent . The whites swarmed westward and not nntil a little over fonr hundred years ago did they oross the wide Atlantic. The possession in tarn, yielded to ooverere. We start again at toe dose of an European wtr, whioh in ita American theater, began at Braddook’a defeat, passed hightide at the capture of Quebeo, and ended by a surrender of British «faima west sad French claims emit (save New Orleans) of the Gfoat River. Unless some friend again rises to remark we ,will prooeed to write a little of our British step mother. 8. P. Thompson. . I Deo. 23,1903. t 1