Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle West

The student of European history is not surprised to find that individuals stand out prominently in every activity that occupied man's attention; that even though there be under consideration great popular movements, such as the Crusades or the Reformation or French Revolution, attention centres around significant personalities. In the day of monarchies and despotisms, individual initiative very naturally led the way in outlining policies, selecting lieutenants, finding ways and means.

It is singular to what a great extent this is true in the history of democratic America, preëminently the land where the people have ruled and where the usurper of power has had, comparatively, no opportunity whatever. And yet it is not too much to say that the history of our nation may be suggested in a skeleton way by a mere list of names, as, for instance, the history of the fourteenth century in Europe might easily be sketched. While we are proud to proclaim that America has given all men an equal opportunity, that the most humble may rise to the proudest position known among us, it yet remains singular that in this land where the popular voice has ruled as nowhere else almost every national movement or phase of development may be signified by the name of one man.

This comes with appealing force to one who has attempted to make a catalogue of the men who have in a personal sense led the Star of Empire across this continent; men who have, in a way, pooled issues with their country in the mutual hope of personal advantage and national advance. It then becomes plain to the investigator, if he never realized it before, that, at times, the nation has waited, even halted in its progress, for a single man, or a set of men, to plan what may have seemed an entirely selfish adventure and which yet has proved to be a great national advantage. In certain instances there was a clear and fair understanding between such promoters and the reigning administration, looking toward mutual benefit. At times the movement was in direct defiance of law and order, with a resulting effect of immeasurable moment for good. Again, there may have been no thought of national welfare or extension; personal gain and success may have been the only end; and the resultant may have been a powerful national stimulus.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature that appears on an examination of American history along these lines (compared, for instance, with that of European powers) is that comparatively few leaders of military campaigns are to be classed among promoters who advanced national ends in conjunction with personal ambitions. In the Old World numberless provinces came into the possession of military favorites after successful campaigns. In the many expeditions to the westward of the Alleghanies in America what commanders turned their attention later to the regions subdued? Forbes, the conqueror of Fort Duquesne, never saw the Ohio Valley again; Bouquet, the other hero, with Gladwin, of Pontiac's Rebellion, never returned to the Muskingum, nor did Gladwin come back to Detroit; Lewis, the victor at Point Pleasant, led no colony to the Ohio again; "Mad Anthony" Wayne never had other than military interest in the beautiful Maumee Valley, where, in the cyclone's path, he crushed the dream of a powerful Indian confederacy lying on the flanks of the new Republic. To a singular degree the leaders of the military vanguard across the continent had really little to do personally with the actual social movement that made the wilderness blossom as the rose. True, bounty lands were given to commanders and men in many instances, as in the case of Washington and George Rogers Clark; but it was the occupation of such tracts by the rank and file of the armies that actually made for advancement and national growth, and in perhaps only one case was the movement appreciably accelerated by the course of action pursued in a civil way by those who had been the leaders of a former military expansion.