Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/57

Rh them to investigate the original sources before imposing such a fiction on the school children of the country as history, and assuring them that, if they put it in, they would speedily be obliged to cut it out, as its falsity would be proved beyond any question, and offering to put before them without charge (in confidence, for their own use only,) all the evidence in my possession, (which had cost me $10,000 in money and time to collect,) to enable them to arrive at the truth about the matter.

On page 8 our candid author says "He" (i. e., M. Eells) "prefers to follow the advice of Professor Fiske to Professor Marshall, 'It seems to me that there is great value in a quiet form of statement, even approaching to an understatement, for it gives the reader a chance to do a little swearing at the enemy on his own account.'"

Had Mr. Eells either printed the whole of Dr. Fiske's letter, or had said, "Was it strange that in a letter heartily endorsing the correctness of Mr. Marshall's conclusions Dr. Fiske also wrote him, 'I think the force of your arguments,' etc., he might have commented as much as he pleased on these two sentences in it, and I would not have cared to waste one moment in noticing his comments. But from a letter more warmly commendatory of the value and the thoroughness of my work on the history of Oregon than I would have written myself, had Dr. Fiske told me to write anything I pleased' and he would sign it, to take out these fragments of two sentences of kindly criticism, not of the correctness of my statements, but of their style, and to apply them to an article which Dr. Fiske never saw, and so convey to all the readers of this "Reply" the impression that Dr. Fiske's letter was condemnatory instead of very warmly commendatory of my work, illustrates the idea of "candor" and "fairness" which has animated not Mr. Eells alone, but every one else who has published a book advocating the Whitman Saved Oregon story; which is my only reason for this full exposition of the matter.

Another excellent illustration of his idea of "candor" is in his treatment of the diary of Rev. H. H. Spalding. From this diary, which has been in Rev. M. Eells' possession for many years, he has only published sixty-one words (on p. 18 of his pamphlet, Marcus Whitman, M. D.), and those sixty-one words not till 1883, i. e. eighteen years after the Whitman Saved Oregon story was first published in full by Spalding. Having repeatedly called on the advocates of the Whitman Saved Oregon story, and particularly Rev. M. Eells, to make this diary accessible to historical students, on January 13, 1902, I