It may seem remote and Irrelevant to begin a work of this character with a reference to Genghis Khan, the great Chinese conqueror, who was born in 1162 and before his career was ended lived to see his armies victorious to the very banks of the Dnieper and become a most alarming threat to all Europe. But the eventual discovery of America can be seen to rest on the results of that invasion, in turning the attention of Europe to seeking an easier trade route to the Far East where the jewelry, spices, silks and other luxuries that offered the greatest profits for traders originated.

As one approaches the eve of life's journey he realizes that life is like a toboggan slide where you get but one ride. It begins merrily, gaining momentum rapidly as it progresses; half way down, the years are slipping past at a teriffic rate; in a twinkling it is ended. To one who has lived fifty years, periods of time seem much shorter than they do in youth. Still, we are all apt to regard the early settlement of this country as a long time past. To the end that we may better grasp the significance of the last fifty years of human progress, and more fully appreciate the times in which we live, let us take, for comparison, a hasty backward glance over a few periods of two hundred years each, starting, for convenience, with 1892, when electric lights, electric street cars, telephones, and cement roads were novelties, and automobiles, airplanes, and radios were unknown; to 1692, when our settlements were still insignificant and government hardly recognized: to 1492, the year of Columbus discovery: and to 1292, the days of Marco Polo.

It was in 1295, nearly 200 years before Columbus' discovery, that Marco Polo, after an absence of twenty-six years, returned to Venice, laden with precious stones and telling his strange stories of what he had seen and learned during his absence in the courts and country ofKublai Khan, grandson of the conquering Ghengis Khan. These were stories which have since been authenticated, although they were considered incredible and fantastic at the time. Even the story Polo told of the burning of black stone by the Chinese, so familiar to us as coal, was received with sneers.

A quotation or two from the text of his travels should suffice to whet the reader's appetite to a fuller reading of this book, which H. G. Wells, the famous English author, has designated as one of the six greatestbooks ever written.

Let us first take the introduction with which Horace Liveright, a New York City publisher, introduced a reprint of the famous work in 1926 as follows:-

"After an absence of twenty-six years Marco Polo and his father, Nicolo, and his Uncle Maffeo, returned from the spectacular court of Kublai Khan to their old home in Venice. Their clothes were coarse and tattered; the bundles that they carried were bound in Eastern cloths and their bronzed faces bore evidence of great hardships, long endurance and suffering. They had almost forgotten their native tongue. Their aspect seemed foreign and their accent and entire manner bore the strange stamp of the Tartar. During these twenty-six years Venice, too, had changed and the travellers had difficulty in finding their old residence.

"The Polos had long been thought dead, and the distant relatives who occupied the house refused admittance to the three shabby and suspicious looking gentlemen. After much questioning, finally, the travellers took advantage of a moment when the bolt was drawn and beat their way into the house,
dragging their bundles with them ...and after much discussion ... finally succeeded in convincing their kindred that they were not impostors.

"A day or two later a great feast was arranged to which all their old friends and relatives were asked ..... The performance there caused much wonder. But when the table had been cleared, and all the servants had left the hall, Marco Polo produced the coarse, shabby costumes which the three travellers had worn on their arrival. Then, taking sharp knives, they ripped the seams and pleats and let fall to the table quantities of rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, pearls and other jewels of great value. Amazement bewildered and dumbfounded the guests; but if a shadow of doubt had remained in the minds of some, regarding the identity of the travellers, it was now wholly dispersed.....

"Marco Polo was born in Venice in the year 1254. His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, were merchants who had seats in the great council and were enrolled with the noblemen of Venice. Marco also had another uncle who lived in Constantinople and Crimea and was engaged in commerce.

"The first great Eastern journey of the Polos began in 1260. Nicolo Polo and his brother Maffeo, first visited Constantinople and from there started out on a trading expedition to the Crimea. From here, the quest of profits drove them far north along the Volga and then east to Bokhara. They were now well within the domain of the Great Kublai Khan, Emperor of the Tartars, and it was here that the merchants met an ambassador who was proceeding to the court of Kublai Khan and were invited to accompany the party. In the prologue to his book of travels Marco Polo tells about the arrival of his father and uncle at the court of the Great Khan, who was highly pleased with these gentlemen from Europe and showed them great honor.

"The Emperor heard all that the merchants had to tell him about their native land and Christianity and very soon decided to send them back to the Pope as his ambassadors, with messages of peace and a request for a hundred educated missionaries to come to China and convert them all to Christianity. The motives thatprompted this plan were not wholly religious; a craftier design was in the background as we shall soon learn when we look into the story of Kublai Khan. At any rate, when the brothers returned in 1269 the Pope, Clement IV, had already been dead a year and his successor had not yet been elected.

"When they arrived in Venice, Nicolo found that his wife had died during his absence, but that his son, Marco, was now quite grown, a fine lad of fifteen.

"The merchants remained in Venice for two years, and as a new Pope had not yet been elected, they decided to keep their promise, return to Kublai Khan and report the reason of their failure and on this journey they took Marco with them.

"At last, after travelling for three and a half years, the ambassadors returned to the court and bowed low before the Emperor.

"By this time Marco was twenty one and the year was 1275.

"Kublai Khan was born in 1216 and was therefore sixty years old when young Marco arrived at his court.

"The dynasty began with the grandfather of Kublai, who was born in 1162, the son of the chief of a petty Mongolian tribe. It was he who was the master conqueror, not Kublai. (Read Ghengis Khan by Harold Lamb).

"Marco, it seems, did all he could to please the Khan and rose high in the Emperor's esteem and favor. At one time he was commissioned governor of the great city of Yangchow, and at various times he had many other important posts.

"They traversed lands wholly unknown and visited places unheard of in Europe until described by Marco Polo. In fact, some parts they visited still remain uncharted. The Great Wall of China had been built, the Grand Canal, 600 miles long, from Pekin to Canton, had been dug. Painting, engraving, bronze casting, sculpture, the making of porcelain, and architecture were already very highly developed. The invention of paper came as early as A.D. 105, and books were printed from wood blocks in 932. Moveable type first made its appearance in China in the form of baked clay blocks at the early date of 1043, and paper money was the currency in many sections of the Empire....Water clocks were found on bridges, astronomical instruments were in constant use, metals and coal were mined and salt extracted from brine. Among such wonders was Marco Polo cast at the age of twenty-one and the Emperor very soon began to employ him on public missions that carried him to various distant parts of the country where he observed manners and customs as strange as were the other wonders; these he recorded faithfully in his diary for reporting to the Khan. We can readily believe that the stories he told to his listeners on his return to Venice seemed incredible and that "on his death-bed his friends pleaded with him, for the peace of his soul, to retract some of the seemingly incredible statements he made in his book; but to this his only reply was, "I have not told half of what I saw" One tale from the body of his book follows:

"The following account of this Chief Marco Polo testifies to having heard from sundry persons.

"He was named Aloadin, and his religion was that of Mahomet. In a beautiful valley enclosed between two lofty mountains, he had formed a luxurious garden, stored with every delicious fruit and every fragrant shrub that could be procured. Palaces of various sizes and forms were erected in different parts of the grounds, ornamented with works in gold, with paintings, and with furniture of rich silks. By means of small conduits contrived in these buildings, streams of wine, milk, honey, and some of pure water, were seen to flow In every direction. The inhabitants of these palaces were elegant and beautiful damsels, accomplished in the arts of singing, playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, dancing, and especially those of dalliance and amorour allurements. Clothed in rich dresses they were seen continually sporting and amusing themselves in the gardens and pavilions, their female guardians being confined within doors and never suffered to appear. The object which the chief had in view in forming a garden of this fascinating kind, was this: that Mahomet having promised to those who should obey his will the enjoyments of Paradise, where every species of sensual gratification should be found, in the society of beautiful nymphs, he was desirous of it being understood by his followers that he also was a prophet and the compeer of Mahomet, and had the power of admitting to Paradise such as he should choose to favour. In order that none without his license might find their way into this delicious valley, he caused a strong and impregnable castle to be erected at the opening of it, through which the entry was by a secret passage. At his court, likewise, this chief entertained a number of youths, from the age of twelve to twenty years, selected from the inhabitants of the surrounding mountains, who showed a disposition for martial exercises and appeared to possess the quality of daring courage. To them he was in the daily practice of discoursing on the subject of the paradise announced by the prophet, and of his own power of granting admission. And at certain times he caused opium to be administered to ten or a dozen of the youths; and when half dead with sleep he had them conveyed to the several apartments of the palaces in the garden. Upon awakening from the state of stupor, their senses were struck with all the delightful objects that have been described, and each perceived himself surrounded by lovely damsels, singing, playing, and attracting his regards by the most fascinating caresses, serving him also with delicate foods and exquisite wines; until intoxicated with excess of enjoyment amid actual rivulets of milk and wine, he believed himself assuredly in Paradise, and felt an unwillingness to relinquish its delights.

"When four or five days had thus been passed, they were thrown once more into a drugged state, and carried out of the garden. Upon their being introduced to his presence, and questioned by him as to where they had been, their answer was,'In Paradise, through the favor of your highness', and then before the whole court, who listened to them with eager curiosity and astonishment, they gave a circumstantial account of the scenes to which they had been witness. The chief thereupon addressing them said: 'We have the assurances of our prophet that he who defends his lord shall inherit Paradise, and if you show yourselves devoted to the obedience of my orders, that happy lot awaits you.' Animated to enthusiasm by words of this nature, all deemed themselves happy to receive the commands of their master, and were ready to die in his service. The consequence of this system was, that when any of the neighbouring provinces, or others, gave offence to this chief, they were put to death by these, his disciplined assassins; none of whom felt terror at the risk of losing their own lives, which they held in little estimation, provided they | could execute their master's will. On this account his tyranny became the subject of dread in all the surrounding country."

Here we see a ruler who had inherited his authority over uncounted hordes of conquered subjects, scattered over vast areas, grappling with the problem of keeping them in humble submission and to that end seeking a more efficient religion than prevailed in his realm.

Here we get an inkling of the origin of many fears and superstitions, fostered by ignorance, cloaked with the name of religion and strengthened by the so-called union of church and state, whereby impotent rulers sought to delegate to the clergy the responsibility for control and subjection of their people, even to the extreme of committing wholesale murder at their command or sacrificing their own live sin the ruler's service if called upon to do so; an enforced ignorance which prevented, for many generations, the advancement of the human race by education and intelligence.

Here we discover the underlying causes that led to the Reformation in Europe whose many wars, oppressions, and tortures eventually sent our pioneers to American shores and led to the outcry of Thomas Paineat the time of the American Revolution:--"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe..."It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this? " (Age Of Reason - pp. 6-7).

The cry of infidel, raised in retaliation against Paine by the clergy, was potent to the end of restraining many from reading his writings or making them afraid or ashamed to acknowledge having done so, but those writings are nevertheless credited with having exerted great influence in our American Revolution.

Nor is this all, for the Indians, many of whom at first stood ready to accept the Christian religion, as is evidenced by the early removal (1761) of the Caughnawagas from the Mohawk to Montreal under French Jesuit influence, soon discovered such inconsistent discrepancies between the teachings and practices of the whites as to arouse their suspicions and even resentment to religious approach as voiced in their sentiments reported by Rev. Andrews, in July, 1715: "Your Christians were so wicked as to crucify your God and now he is angry with you and therefore to pacify him, you endeavor to persuade us to serve him, but why should we? We never heard of him 'til Christians came here; he is not angry with us, we never did him any hurt." (S;P;G; Mss. Vol. X, p. 186, quoted by Andrews in Faithful Mohawks, pp 46-47.)

Or as Red Jacket stated it:- "If you white men murdered the Son of the Great Spirit, we Indians had nothing to do with it, and it is none of our affair. If he had come among us, we would not have killed him; we would have treated him well; and the white people who killed him ought to be dammed ) for doing it. You must make amends for that crime yourselves.'' (Life Of Red Jacket).

"These men, the black-coats, do us no good. They deceive everybody. They deny the Great Spirit, which we and our fathers before us, have looked upon as our creator. They disturb us in our worship. They tell our children they must not believe like our fathers and mothers, and tell us many things we do not understand and cannot believe. They tell us we must belike white people -- but they (the priests) are lazy and won't work, nor do they teach our young men to do so. The habits of our women are worse than they were before these men came amongst us, and our young men drink more whiskey. We are willing to be taught to read, and write, and work, but not by people who have done us such injury." (Life Of Red Jacket, pp. 394-395).

"Our seats were once large and yours were small. You have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us." (Life Of Red Jacket, p. 273)

With these reflections in mind we are better equipped to understand the so called religious wars of Europe, to look into the origins and poverties and religious reactions of the various European groups who formed our pioneer American ancestors, to grasp more fully the matter to follow regarding those groups and their influence on American government and progress, and to explain the tardiness of world progress through six hundred years.

The permanent effect on this country of the early and stubborn resistance of the Dutch to dictation in matters of conscience, religion, and personal freedom, and their aid and protection to the persecuted, which they transplanted upon American soil, together with the idea of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, can hardly be overestimated. It forms the backbone of this study.

Returning to the Polos, we can readily understand how their fantastic stories and the display of the wealth they had acquired in their travels stimulated others to emulate their example, in consequence of which an eager and burning desire to find an easier way to trade with that wonderland occupied the minds of men.

The Polos return to Venice occurred 100 years after the armies of Ghengis Khan had threatened Europe; an additional two hundred years elapsed before Columbus discovered America; still, at the end of three hundred years, the problem of a Western trade route to India remained unsolved. The shepherds of old who through the ages scanned the stars as pastime while keeping their lonely vigils laid the foundation for the science of astronomy by which our scientists can calculate the exact time an eclipse is due and can even discover new elements in the earth itself through spectrum analysis of the stars. It was these shepherds who finally conceived the idea that, since all the heavenly bodies appear round, the earth might also be. This idea so completely engrossed Christopher Columbus that he devoted his life to proving it, convinced in his own mind that herein lay the solution of the long sought trade route. This led to the revelation that in his path lay an hitherto unknown continent, inhabited by an equally unknown people. This discovery aided in diverting men's minds from the original problem for another two hundred years; but in 1596, Cornelius Houtman, a Dutchman, found the Cape of Good Hope route which continued to be the best known one until the Suez Canal was dug by DeLesseps, (1859 - 69).

There were, however, other causes that contributed greatly to delay further extensive developments of either Columbus' discovery or an improved trade route.