Oregon Historical Society

“ For great was the Oregon opportunity to the nation and the Lewis and Clark expedition was the key that opened it. All honor from the nation at large is due to those who made this national opportunity and seized it. The possession of the Pacific coast was the corollary and sequel to the Oregon movement; but the Oregon movement itself was corollary to nothing less than the spirit and vigor of the American people and their foothold upon this continent. ”

“ The grounds around are open and spacious, and you feel that you breathe the air and tread the ground of a rural city, in making a tour of its extent. 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. ”

“ A whole summer given to the exposition of the people's interests in their common heritage, with the use of the best art of illustration, representation, and elucidation, would awaken a living interest so that they would make sure of their rights, conserve an equality of opportunities and make our natural resources yield their highest social utility. Our experience with our state school lands shows that such a fortunate condition is absolutely impossible without the influence an exposition could exert toward an enlightenment on our public inheritances. ”

“ Though a Webster might lose himself in adoration of the Federal Union and an Everett offer up his mother a living sacrifice to preserve it, it is to the credit of human nature that human rights, human interests, human convictions and affections stand nearer and dearer to the people than any mere machinery of human government. The abolitionists believed the Constitution of the United States was a covenant with Death and a league with Hell, and they protested with all their soul and strength ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oregon's day, however, is dawning again. America's surplus energy is no longer absorbed in gold mining in California, in occupying the plains of Kansas, Nebraska, or the Dakotas. The overloaded passenger trains to the Pacific Northwest tell unmistakably the nation's need of this region. It needs our farm lands. It will more and 12 more urgently need our lumber and our water power and our outlook upon the Pacific; and to whom do the American people owe the possession of these incomparable and growing boons but to Lewis and Clark and to the pioneers to whom Lewis and Clark pointed the way. ”

“ No man, in our opinion, who has a comfortable home in any of the states can be justified in giving it up in the expectation of bettering himself in Oregon. If he has a family, he does a gross injustice to them in exposing them to the hardships of so long and perilous a journey with no prospect of returning to their friends, should they become discontented; and even if an emigrant has nobody to care for but himself, he had better stay at home and earn an honest living, than go to Oregon and run the risk of working out a precarious one. ”

“ The large crowd that daily assembles on the wharf on the arrival of the steamer from The Dalles is an unerring barometer of the interest felt in the development of the upper country; and a conversation with the leading merchant of the city convinced me that the trade of the Willamette—where the returns to the merchants are in flour, grain, hides, and fruit,—is small and of minor importance compared to that whence their returns are by daily steamers and in gold dust. ”

“ The West comes on the stage of the world's activity in an era of peace, prosperity, and advancement of American principles and institutions. Its loyalty to the Union never has been doubted and no cloud of discord appears to bring it into contest with the East, for its interests are identical with those of that section, and community of interest promotes community of purpose. The West, instead of proving the Nation destroyer, has proved its savior. What the future is in all its aspects, no man can say. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we can at least pay our tribute of praise to those rude frontiersmen of the Pacific, who loved their country, their country's flag, and the cause of freedom,—who fulfilled, without murmur, the self-sacrificing duty placed upon them by the martyr President, who wrought out in blood and fire the destiny of the Northwest, and whose only reward has been the sense of duty done. ”

“ It was Joseph Meek, messenger of the Oregon colonists, on his way to Washington to announce to the government the Whitman massacre and the Cayuse war. "The Cayuse Indians have broken out," he said, "and are murdering far and near, sparing neither man, woman, nor children. Men are all up from the valley fighting them hand to hand. Our boys charge and the Indians charge back, death and destruction at ever charge." The effect of the vivid account, that none could give better than Meek, was great. ”

“ What could be more propitious for the good fortune of the people than an active coöperation between the authorities of the exposition and the United States bureaus of forestry, irrigation, and the United States geological survey in preparing an exhibit of the data on the interests of the people of the State in these natural resources? With such definite, earnest, and laudable purposes in view, Congress and the Administration would respond to the claims of the Lewis and Clark Exposition in a very different spirit from that with which they have met recent expositions. ”

“ Our general development is based upon the attraction of our institutions, the freedom of industry, the cheapness and fertility of our lands, hospitable climate, and above all, to the long enjoyment of the guarantee of peace. No other country in the world can offer the same inducements to progress and no country in the world can compete with us on our own terms.
Viewing the future of the West from the point of its ability to support a large population, the measure must be the record of the half-century just past. ”

“ The Great American Desert, with its sand stretches, waterless wastes, unbridged rivers, Rocky Mountains, and predatory savages, loomed up deterrently to the spiritless. A four to six months' journey in wagons, exposed to all the vicissitudes of travel and climate and the forays of more dreadful foes, ever on the alert to dispossess travelers of their only means of conveyance, was not to be considered a pleasure trip. ”

“ But while all of the foregoing and many other inducements might have been present in varying degree, the great incentive to immigration was free land. Not only land for the landless, but land for all, and in unstinted quantity. The scenes at Oklahoma divest the emigration to Oregon of all mystery, and while there was probably small difference in kind or degree of virtue between those who came and those who remained, of one fact pioneers are cognizant, namely, that the incidents and trials of the overland journey were a wonderful developer and equalizer. ”

“ Whether the student of history at the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904 pause in admiration of the political foresight of Jefferson, or join in the general acclaim of the heroism of our first explorers at Portland, in 1905, the fact that will most impress him is that geographical lines have been obliterated and there is no West. ”

“ It is not only the political center of Oregon, but it is also destined to become a point of great manufacturing importance. It is surrounded by fine forests of oak, fir, pine, cedar. The large fields of grain here cluster around it as the center. Its pioneer woolen factory, turning its hundred of spindles, here rears its head, thus attracting toward it every milling interest. ”

“ The situation for trade and commerce is certainly better than any other country. The climate, soil, timber, water, health, products of the country, and the prospects for good society combine to make it delightful. It would astonish you to see the state of society here—more hospitality and friendship, more morality, industry, and I do believe religion, than you will see anywhere. There are a good many scattering Indians, but nothing to be feared from them. ”

“ The high lands of Nevada are no more to be ignored in the general scheme of economy than the irregular and broken surface of Vermont, where intensive cultivation of the soil now obtains as a result of Western competition in agriculture. When one contemplates the rugged mountains of Idaho, eastern Montana, northern California, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, he should reflect that some where in this broad land cattle must have range if the price of meat is to be kept within bounds. ”

“ As to the country, taking it all and all, it is a good farming and grazing country. The winters are so mild that the cattle and horses do well without feeding. The country is well watered, and the inhabitants are, in general, healthy. The ague and fever is the most prevalent disease, although other diseases occur. On the sea coast I believe it is more healthy than back in the country. So far as I and my family are concerned, we have been as healthy as we ever were in the States. Our little ones are quite as hearty and as lively as the fawns that skip over the plains. ”

“ But so long as the Columbia River shall remain an open sea I do heartily desire to see competition seek here a channel of investment—and which it will always do so long as it is found to pay. All philanthropic ideas of "parties desiring to serve the public, without being remunerated," will find no believers among the merchants and travelers of the Upper Columbia. The merchant and traveler will take that line where the rates are the lowest and accommodation the best, irrespective of the owners of the line or those who pioneered them through to a success. ”

“ The fictitious gloss of so-called society was abraded, and the shams of character in which human beings had invested themselves, like weakly oxen, were left on the road. Everywhere this is observable, and it is often remarked that the true pioneer is never afterward subject to an undue self-inflation. ”

“ Boy, if it is, it's inferior to none in point of beauty, pleasant climate, natural resources, and advantages of wealth; and if the settlers were ever thieves they have wholly reformed, for it is generally believed that no other colony has ever equaled this in point of bravery, enterprise, hospitality, honesty, and morality. There are men who arrived here in October last who have at this time one hundred acres fenced and sown to wheat. Now, all we want is a little of Uncle Sam's care, that capitalists may be safe in investing their money. ”

“ The old pioneer is now poor, but his friends are sufficiently zealous in his behalf to see that his wants go not unsupplied. One can not pass over this region and at the same time observe how rapidly the Sacramento River is being obstructed by the immense deposits of sand and sediment which its current is daily bringing down, thus forming bars and deltas destined not only to intercept but probably to suspend at no distant day navigation to its upper waters,—without feeling the pressing importance of a railroad connection between Sacramento and the more northern regions of California. ”