Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/11

Rh on pages 48-51 infra., has convinced every historian who has had the privilege of reading it that the whole Whitman Saved Oregon Story is a delusion, and the additional evidence in these chapters, especially that which has been heretofore suppressed, will prove quite as surprising as to the little interest in the question of a wagon road to Oregon or the political destiny of Oregon displayed by Whitman and all his associates from 1836 to 1843, and as to the true relation of the Hudson's Bay Company to the American exploration, occupation and settlement of Oregon, and as to the decadence of the American Board Mission, and as to the true causes of the Whitman Massacre, as the evidence heretofore submitted proved to be, as to the origin and purpose of Whitman's ride.

As to all the other books, and magazine and newspaper articles advocating the Whitman Saved Oregon Story, they, without exception, are as far from being trustworthy history as are Dr. Mowry's "Marcus Whitman" and Rev. Dr. M. Eells' "Reply," but to expose all their suppressions, and false assumptions, and misquotations, and misstatements would require a thousand pages.

Barrows' "Oregon" and Nixon's "How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon" have had the widest circulation of any of them, and neither book even alludes to the existence of any of the correspondence of Whitman and his associates with the American Board in 1840-41, which caused the Board to issue its destructive order of February, 1842 (which neither of them either quotes or alludes to), which order was the sole cause of Whitman's ride.

The simplest test of the value of any historical writing is to examine the honesty and accuracy of its quotations and its summaries of documents too long to quote, and any writer who. does not quote accurately and summarize fairly and impartially is wholly unworthy of credence. I have compared every quotation in Barrows' "Oregon," and Nixon's "How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon," with the book, government document, magazine or newspaper in which it originally appeared, or is alleged to have appeared (for some of the "quotations" are pure fabrications, and never appeared as stated), and in neither book is there so much as one honest quotation on any important disputed point.

On some unimportant disputed, and some important undisputed points, there are fair quotations, but on all the important disputed points the quotations range in unfairness all the way from that device—as disreputable as it is ancient—of quoting accurately up to a certain point, and stopping when the very next succeeding paragraph of the context shows that the impression sought to be created by the part quoted is directly contrary to the facts; or quoting less than a hundred words