Page:Book Reviews History of the Oregon Country.pdf/1



This is a project of constituting a history out of a classified and arranged compilation of representative editorials and public addresses—carefully annotated—of the long-time and renowned editor of the leading newspaper in the Pacific Northwest. These conditions make this a unique undertaking. Insuperable difficulties would seem to debar the possibility of approximating anything near an ideal history with such a plan and materials. History's function is to convey a sense of continuity and unity of the social process depicted. To be true to reality all events must be seen as interrelated and developing as an organic whole. Editorials and public addresses wholly distinct and appearing apropos to casual occurrences, without any thread of sequence, are thus quite unpromising elements for an integrated story of a people's life. And yet the revealing potencies of these constituent units of the text of this work, supplemented by the results of the assiduous research of the compiler that are with fine art used to articulate these elements and round out the story, do achieve an effect, different from that of a connected narrative, but probably equal to the highest.

The last volume is wholly taken up with an exhaustive index and bibliography. The contents of each of the first five include a main portion-averaging about two thirds of the volume-the output of the pen of the elder Scott, functioning as editor and publicist. This main body of each volume is followed by fin "appendix" by the son in which we have a most effective exhibit of the historian's art of enabling the reader to get a complete mental picture of the course of events, with references to the sources of pretty much all extant records for the account given. There are thus two positive historical contributions fused in the work, first the nucleal or textual, that originated during the period from 1865 to 1910, excepting a gap of five years from 1872 to 1877; the second, designated as the "appendix" in each volume, applied to the bringing of additional light from other sources and the factual setting of each situation discussed by the editorial or address.