Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/259



The idea of getting so slanderous a paper published as an official public document by the United States Congress, was an unheard-of challenge that called for a reply. And it came promptly and pointedly. From all parts of the country, Members of Congress were flooded with letters to find out how such a thing could be accomplished. None of them seemed able to answer. But the mischief was done and many of them expressed a willingness to help undo it.

The Old School and New School, and the United Presbyterians in their Presbyteries, resented the outrage, both in the Far West and in the East, and none more vigorously than did that of the Illinois Presbytery at the meeting in Chicago in 1871. The Methodists and Baptists and Congregational Conferences in Oregon and Washington, cordially united in the work, and demanded that an address, defending the Missionaries and the American Board, should be printed just as conspicuously to 236 the World as had been the falsehoods of Brouillett.

The Presbyterian General Assembly at Chicago, May 18, 1871, led by the Rev. F. A. Noble, summed up the case under seven different counts of falsehoods, and demanded that Congress should, in simple justice, publish them in vindication of the Protestant Church. The Oregon Presbytery was still more positive and aggressive and made their specifications under twelve heads.