Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/19

Rh "Resolved, That if arrangements can be made to continue the operations of this station, that Dr. Marcus Whitman be at liberty and advised to visit the United States as soon as practicable, to confer with the Committee of the A. B. C. F. M. in regard to the interests of this Mission. (Signed) ", Moderator.

", Scribe.

"," "Wailatpu, Sept. 28, 1842."

This Dr. Mowry prints (on pp. 174-5), but omits the last eight words, "in regard to the interests of this mission," being the adverbial phrase which distinctly limited to the business of the mission the purpose for which all of his associates sanctioned his journey.

That this was an intentional omission is evident from the fact that in an article glorifying Whitman, in the Boston Congregationalist, November 18, 1897, Dr. Mowry omitted from his quotation of this document all after the word "practicable," putting a period there, where the document had a comma; and when he was criticised by me for making so deceptive a quotation, he defended it as justifiable, saying, "One sentence was all I needed, and I used that one," whereas there is but one complex sentence in the whole document, and the criticism was because he had not "used that one," but had omitted the two adverbial phrases which stated precisely why Whitman was authorized to make his ride.

Further, Dr. Mowry (p. 129) prefaces the 420 words he has quoted from Rev. E. Walker's letter of October 3, 1842, with the statement that "Father Eells . . . wrote a letter from which the following is quoted," and prints at the end of the extract,

""(Signed)'.'""

Yet Dr. Mowry well knows (having mentioned this identical letter as one of Walker's in 1899, in a letter to the writer of this criticism), that this letter, which he thus ascribes to Gushing Eells, is indexed in the archives of the American Board as a letter from Rev. Elkanah Walker, and that of the 16 pages of this letter, 15, including every one of the 420 words he has quoted from it, are in the handwriting of Elkanah Walker, and that it is signed Elkanah Walker, and not Gushing Eells, and that every word in it which is in G. Eells' handwriting is the following endorsement of its correctness, on its fourteenth page, which, by mistake. Walker had left blank.

"Through mistake this page was omitted. I am happy to say the subjects of this letter have been frequently discussed of late by Mr. Walker and myself. I do not now recollect that there has been any important difference in the conclusions