Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/46

40 cents a bushel, and no intimation in the whole narrative that Whitman had anything whatever to do in originating, organizing, or (except in the hiring of the Indian guide beyond Boise) in leading this migration anywhere from the Missouri frontier to the Columbia River. Dr. Mowry wholly ignores this on page 85, and though he quotes to the extent of more than 600 words from other parts of this account (which he three times erroneously ascribes to Wilkes, who, he says, was a member of the migration, though, in fact, he was a New York City Democratic politician and newspaper man and had nothing to do with the migration), there is not in all he quotes the least reference to Whitman, except in the extract from page 67 above.

Having seen how Dr. Mowry has juggled with the real "original sources" as to the origin and purpose of Whitman's ride, let us briefly glance at his treatment of the chief witnesses whose vague and contradictory and demonstrably false "recollections" he substitutes for the genuine "original sources."

There would never have been any Whitman Saved Oregon story without the alleged "recollections" of three men (never published till 1864-5-6), viz.: Rev. H. H. Spalding, Rev. Cushing Eells and Mr. W. H. Gray.

Two of these three signed the brief "Resolve" of September 28, 1842 (quoted on p. 13 ante), which authorized Whitman to go to the States, not on any political errand, but "to confer with the committee of the A. B. G. F. M. in regard to the interests of this mission," while the third one, W. H. Gray, though he did not sign it, (because no longer a member of the mission, having just deserted it), unquestionably knew of it, and understood perfectly well the true origin and purpose of Whitman's ride. Yet each of these three men, in their first published versions of the Whitman saved Oregon story explicitly stated that the sole purpose of that ride was to save Oregon to the nation, without the least hint that there was any missionary business impelling him to make the ride, and no one of them ever, to the day of his death, in any of his "statements" and newspaper articles in defense of the saving Oregon story, ever admitted knowing anything about the order of the Board discontinuing three out of the four stations of the mission, including Spalding's and Whitman's, and recalling to the States Spalding and Gray (i. e., two out of the five men connected with the mission), or about recollecting that that