Oregon Historical Society

“ Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our duties over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And by the blessing of God may that country itself become a great and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever! ”

“ As we reach the Rocky Mountains, we would be unwise did we not pass the narrow space which separates the mountains from the ocean, to secure advantages far greater than the existing advantages of all the country between the Mississippi and the mountains. Sir, our national boundary is the Pacific Ocean. The swelling tide of our population must and will roll on until that mighty ocean limits our territorial empire. ”

“ No one resident north of California can visit the woolen factory of Salem without a feeling of pride and of pleasure; and as he sees the bales of blankets, of clothes, and of flannels, lading the wagons which stand ready to be freighted for every homestead in Oregon, he feels the glow of pride in thus seeing our own looms weaving wools of our own growth, and desires instantly to robe himself in garments that no foreign hand has woven, and from wool grown from flocks no alien hand has tended. ”

“ A ride over Scott's Mountain amply repays one for all the labor required to make it; and can be made by no one who will not appreciate that bold enterprise that is to-day leveling mountains, leveeing valleys, bridging torrents, and, by the sound of pick and drill, even arousing Nature from her lethargy sleep—deep down in the very bowels of the mountains—throughout the length and breadth of California.
Leaving Rogue River, we pass at once from an agricultural to a wild, mountainous region, which constitutes the mining section of northern California, of which Yreka may be considered the center. ”

“ For, if after a long toilsome climbing over rocky declivities a pleasanter part of the way is reached, and the weary toilers are led to hope for easier travel, just here, at any turn in the road, the dreadful savage might suddenly make his appearance. Such was the dark picture the journey overland to Oregon presented to the men and women of the frontier, who yet restlessly waited for their own chance to try it. ”

“ It was not long ere the new government found itself involved in difficulties growing out of these conditions, with which it was not able to grapple alone. When the time of greatest need drew near, however, it was possible to take another step in the gradual development of civil government, as it was necessary for the national government to take some steps in the protection of its citizens against the Indians. The events which led up to, and which made possible this result, so long struggled for, are as romantic and stirring as anything that has ever occurred in our history. ”

“ There may be some disaffected men there and in Oregon, but the great portion of our population are loyal to the core and in every chord of their hearts. They are offering to add to the legions of the country, every day, by the hundred and the thousand. They are willing to come thousands of miles with their arms on their shoulders, at their own expense, to share, with the best offering of their heart's blood, in the great struggle of constitutional liberty. ”

“ Lincoln followed him in an address of twenty-seven printed lines, which, for simple eloquence, is not surpassed in the English language. What was it, what is it, that has made Lincoln's address immortal, while that of Everett is scarcely remembered? One was a polished and gifted orator, the other was a simple, earnest and impressive man, burdened with the responsibilities of power and standing in the performance of duty. His words filled the aching hearts of a waiting people; they were uttered in a great cause, and in memory of those who had sacrificed their lives that the "nation might live." ”

“ It is one of the most beautiful localities I have seen in Oregon—on the right bank of the Willamette, with beautiful shade trees, neat cottages, not cramped or huddled together, but with ample spaces for gardens—with a fine view of the woods, which, in a vista of twenty miles, surround it—and, in the background, with the bold slope of the Cascades, renders it one of the most beautiful sites for a city to be found in Oregon. It is not only the political center of Oregon, but it is also destined to become a point of great manufacturing importance. ”

“ These colors, 3400 years in their coming, are now on the summit of the continental divide and the men who bore them hither look out over one of the most beautiful panoramic scenes in all the world. Down through the fathomless abyss of time that landscape had received from the winter's storms its mantles of snow, and with the breath of each succeeding spring it had burst forth into life again. ”

“ Without cultivation of the material and mechanical, which acts upon matter and produces wealth, man is a mere idler and dreamer, at his best little better than the Arabian nomad. Without cultivation of the moral sentiments, or attention to the calls of his inner and higher nature, he loses himself in gross materialism, and no answer is found in him to appeal to ideas, to heroism, or to exalted virtue.
Phases of the life of a people pass away, never to return. In the first settlement of a country the conditions of nature produce our customs, guide our industries, fix our ways of life. ”

“ The season being late, Nature was at her best. The green carpet of the Umpqua hills was a-gleam with the bloom of wild flowers, which nowhere grow in more profusion. Birds sang from the trees and the fields, and as the old bell in the high belfry rang to call the assembled crowd together, men and women met who had been boys and girls in school there forty years ago. ”

“ All the mistakes he ever made were due to the simplicity and trustfulness of his nature. Himself without guile, he never imagined it—even to his latest day—in others. If this was a limitation, it was a fault that leaned to virtue's side.
George H. Williams is beyond praise or blame of men. In him there was intellectual ability the rarest, on one side, and there was unselfishness the rarest on the other. The life of such a man is a heritage of the world and an inspiration to it. Every great career must be estimated by the conditions in which its work is done. ”

“ No more fitting place than the campus of the University of Oregon could be found for the memorial. Here amid these beautiful surroundings, in this institution of learning, acting as an inspiration to Oregon's young manhood and womanhood, this pioneer in bronze will find a hospitable home in the land he loved so well. I am happy in the thought that I have had the opportunity thus to show my love and admiration for those whose life was largely spent in a work whose greatness and value will be better understood when viewed down the perspective of time. ”

“ Jefferson likes us because he detests England; he seeks to unite with us because he suspects us less than Great Britain, but he would change his sentiments towards us to-morrow, perhaps, if to-morrow Great Britain ceased to inspire him with fear. Jefferson, although a friend of liberty and the sciences, although an admirer of the efforts we have made to break our chains and dissipate the clouds of ignorance which weigh upon mankind, Jefferson, I say, is an American, and, by that title it is impossible for him to be sincerely our friend. An American is the born enemy of European peoples. ”

“ Out of such partiality has inevitably grown the great man theory of human progression. The student of history passes along from point to point in the bloody trail of the historian, stopping at such characters as Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, etc., until these great destroyers are looked upon as the prime factors of the evolutionary state. Of course, these and such as these must not be ignored or left out, for history would cease to be history without them, but it is equally important to know that man, judged only by them, ceases to be man. ”

“ Though fond of mirth and jollity and the life of social re- unions, he never degenerated from the behavior and instincts of a gentleman. Though his love of country amounted to a passion and his mountain life was spent in opposition and rivalry to the Hudson's Bay Company, he never permitted his prejudices to blind his judgment, or by word or act to do injustice to an adversary. Of undoubted truth and honor, he was the unquestioned leader and adviser of men of his class, both British and American, and enjoyed to a great extent the confidence of all parties in the country. ”

“ Rocky Mountains hundred ton transcontinental trains with the utmost ease. What a marvelous evolution; what a gift from the benevolent hand of God what a boon to the toiling masses As a power river the Snake ranks with the greatest in the world. ”

“ At the city of San Francisco, en route for Washington, Colonel Baker, in fiery and impassioned rhetoric, nailed his banner and Oregon's to the Nation's masthead.
He said "As for me, I dare not, will not, be false to freedom. Where the feet of my youth were planted, there by freedom my feet shall ever stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her strength. I have seen her in history struck down on a hundred fields of battle. I have seen her friends fly from her, her foes gather around her. ”

“ How glorious it would be for Oregon if the Lewis and Clark Fair Clubs would in dead earnest determine to possess themselves of the philosophy of city making, and to do their best to control municipal activity in Oregon so as to make it conserve highest economic and æsthetic ends and bring about rational unity in all municipal development and foster an architectural spirit. Why not commission a delegate to Dresden? Why not begin to make wholesome, beautiful, and edifying the Oregon village and city, so that, as a whole, each may be a positive joy forever? ”

“ They knew where to find water and grass, and could sleep in peace while the cavalry wore out men and horses in night rides to hunt trails which they were too cunning to leave. Camp Alvord, at the foot of Stein's Mountain, was almost at the entrance to a rocky defile, up which they fled to a place of safety when alarmed by the approach of an enemy. In a country so immense and so rough as the deserts of Southeastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho looking for Indians, was like searching for the legendary "needle in the haymow." ”

“ There is almost nothing too great for American industry to achieve, her energies never sleep, and each succeeding anniversary develops something new in literature, the arts and sciences. "No pent up Utica contracts our powers," but the march of improvement is onward and will never cease until the shores of the Pacific and Atlantic are united by rail-road, and that which is now a wilderness and occupied by the savage, will be made to flourish and blossom like the rose. ”

“ Spring is a most appropriate time for an old man to take his departure from this earth, when there are spring flowers, birds and everything to brighten and cheer him on to the end with their sweet fragrance and mirthful song, symbolic of a life of happiness, joy and prosperity. ”