Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/65

Rh not only every historian' that has had the opportunity to read even one-quarter part of them, but also everybody making the least pretension to being a historian— always excepting W. A. Mowry—that it demonstrates the total falsity of the whole Whitman Saved Oregon story, let us see now how he treats the only letter of Whitman's that has ever been found which claims that anything but missionary business influenced him to make that ride, for although in several other letters Whitman makes most extravagant and unwarranted claims that great good had resulted from the ride, and from the establishment and continuance of his Mission, there has never been found any other letter but this of April 1, 1847, in which he makes any claim that his ride had any other purpose than the business of the Mission. How does Rev. M. Eells, trying "To get as near the truth as possible," treat this, the only letter of. Whitman's which claims that anything in addition to missionary business induced him to make that ride? He quotes from it five times (pp. 41, 66, 69, 77 and 118), but though he three times (pp. 41, 66 and 118) quotes the first sentence from Rev. Thomas Laurie's inaccurate quotation, he nowhere quotes what Whitman wrote about any other object in his making the ride except to lead out a migration, and nowhere from beginning to end of his book does he even intimate that the Mission would have been "broken up just then" if Whitman had not made his ride. Not only that, but, although Whitman himself positively declared in this letter that it would have been broken up just then if he had not made his ride, our "candid and truth-seeking" author (Reply p. 69) assures his readers that "His station would have been certainly continued had he waited until Spring to go."

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Six people knew exactly the origin and purpose of Whitman's ride, viz., Rev. C. Eells, Rev. E. Walker, Rev. H. H. Spalding, Mr. W. H. Gray, and Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and we have seen how our candid and truth-seeking author has juggled with the strictly contemporaneous letter of His father, endorsed by E. Walker (to which he never alludes, though knowing that it contains the official report of that meeting of the Mission held September 26-27, 1842, which only discussed the business of the Mission, and not the political destiny of Oregon), and the letter of Walker endorsed by his father in which there is no hint hint of anything but missionary business, and the "Resolve" of September 28, 1842, signed by C. Eells, E. Walker and H. H. Spalding, which authorized Whitman to go to the States