s of history in
the South and in the West is bound to revolutionize the perspective of
American history. Already our Eastern colleagues are aware in general,
if not in detail, of the importance of the work of this nation in
dealing with the vast interior, and with the influence of the West upon
the nation. Indeed, I might take as the text for this address the words
of one of our Eastern historians, Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, who, a
decade ago, wrote:

The Mississippi Valley yields to no region in the world in
interest, in romance, and in promise for the future. Here, if
anywhere, is the real America--the field, the theater, and the
basis of the civilization of the Western World. The history of
the Mississippi Valley is the history of the United States;
its future is the future of one of the most powerful of modern
nations.[177:2]

If those of us who have been insisting on the importance of our own
region are led at times by the enthusiasm of the pioneer for the
inviting historical domain that opens before us to overstate the
importance of our subject, we may at least plead that we have gone no
farther than some of our brethren of the East; and we may take comfort
in this declaration of Theodore Roosevelt:

The states that have grown up around the Great Lakes and in
the Valley of the Upper Mississippi, [are] the states which
are destined to be the greatest, the richest, the most
prosperous of all the great, rich, and prosperous
commonwealths which go to make up the mightiest republic the
world has ever seen. These states . . . form the heart of the
country geographically, and they will soon become the heart in
population and in political and social importance. . . . I
should be sorry to think that before these states there loomed
a future of material prosperity merely. I regard this section
of the country as the heart of true American sentiment.[178:1]

In studying the history of the whole Mississippi Valley, therefore, the
members of this Association are studying the origins of that portion of
the nation which is admitted by competent Eastern authorities to be the
section potentially most influential in the future of America. They are
also studying the region which has engaged the most vital activities of
the whole nation; for the problems arising from the existence of the
Mississippi Valley, whether of movement of popula