Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/25

PREFACE STATE or Nation is in a large degree what its people make it. If they are ignorant, indolent, or bigoted the institutions of the land in which they live will partake of these characteristics. Had Iowa remained a Spanish possession and become settled by immigrants from that Nation, they would inevitably have planted upon its soil many of the institutions, laws and customs of the mother country. The influence of its early inhabitants would have been stamped upon its laws, educational institutions, social condition and religious tendencies. Its status in the beginning of the Twentieth Century would not have been dissimilar to that of New or Old Mexico, or the South American nations. But fortunately the far-seeing wisdom of the Jefferson administration at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century ordained a better destiny for Iowa. The acquisition of Louisiana by the Republic of the United States more than doubled the extent of its territory and preserved its vast domain from European occupation for all time, dedicating its millions of acres to homes for our growing population. Almost immediately after the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase the most adventurous people of the then western States and Territories began to seek homes in the new possession. Spanish and French rule was ended and the self-reliant young men of the new Nation, which had recently won independence from the strongest government of Europe, began to cross the Mississippi River and gradually dominated the new Territory. The Indians were crowded farther westward by adventurers and home-seekers and before the middle of the Nineteenth Century new