Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/50

 Vice-President of the American Board, he was enabled to get the material which he had compiled and collected in defence of Whitman and of himself published under the title: Early Labors of the Missionaries of the American Boards etc., in Oregon, etc., as Executive Document 37 (Senate), 41st Congress, 3d session.

It was as an element in this extraordinary campaign of vindication that the legendary story of Whitman was developed. Nothing could more effectively catch the public ear and prepare the public mind for resentment against the Catholics than to show that Whitman saved Oregon to the United States and then lost his life a sacrifice to the malignant disappointment of the "Jesuits "and the Hudson's Bay Company.

Some of the heads to the various sections in this collection may be quoted to show its range, but no adequate idea of the hodge-podge can be gained by any description. One must believe it unique in all the vast mass which has issued from the Government Printing Office.

I. "The Oregon of 1834 "; II. "The helpless condition of the territory at that date in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company"; III. "Hostility of the Hudson's Bay Company to American citizens." IV. "The early Oregon missions. Their importance in securing the country to the Americans." This section contains the chapter, "The Martyr Whitman's services to the Emigrant Route. His terrific winter journey through the Rocky Mountains. His successful mission at Washington." (This chapter contains the articles from The Pacific, quoted above, on Whitman's ride.) V. "The Whitman massacre and the attempts to break up the American settlements." VI. "Who instigated the Indians to murder the Missionaries and the Americans? "The material relating to the Lapwai station is subordinate in amount to that vindicating the missionaries and will be found on pp. 58-59, 69, and 79-80.