Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/145

 granted, President Tyler treated Dr. Whitman with the greatest deference. He was a new character in the experience of both these polished and experienced politicians. Never before had they listened to a man who so eloquently plead for the cause of his country, with no selfish aim in sight. He asked for no money, or bonds, or land, or office, or anything, except that which would add to the nation's wealth, the glory and honor of the flag, and the benefit of the hardy pioneer of that far-off land, that the nation had for more than a third of the century wholly neglected. It was a powerful appeal to the manly heart of President Tyler, and as the facts show, was not lost on Secretary Webster.

The Rev. H. H. Spalding, Whitman's early associate in the Oregon work, had many conferences with Whitman after his return to Oregon. Spalding says, speaking of the conference: "Webster's interest lay too near to Cape Cod to see things as Whitman did, while he conceded sincerity to the missionary, but he was loth to admit that a six years' residence there gave Whitman a wider knowledge of the country than that possessed by Governor Simpson, who had explored every part of it and represented it as a sandy desert, cut off 130 from the United States by impassable mountains, and fit only for wild animals and savage men."

With the light we now have upon the subject