Page:Oregon, End of the Trail.djvu/12

 shouting trout-filled mountain streams, the satisfying quiet of Douglas firs, the beauty of roses that bloom at Christmas, the vista of rolling wooded hills and meadows always lush and green, the scenic climax of a fiery sun sinking into earth's most majestic ocean—all will have become a part of his daily happiness, undefined and unrecognized in his consciousness, but something so vital that he can never again do without it. And he will even, as do the natives, find merit in the long winter of dismal skies and warm but chilling rains, calling himself a "webfoot" and stoutly proclaiming that he likes it—when all the while he means that he considers it poor sportsmanship to complain, since he knows that this is the annual tax he pays for eternal verdure, for trees and grass and ferns and ivy and hydrangeas and holly, and for the privilege of appreciating by contrast the short bright rainless summer cooled by the softest yet most invigorating northerly winds.

These tributes are generally inspired by only a part, not even a third part, of Oregon. Beyond the wall of the Cascades, which cuts the state into two sections sharply contrasting topographically, stretches a land whose character is that of the plateaus and deserts and mountains of the Rockies country. Yet even the climate of this eastern region has its enthusiasts, and has been thus described by Claire Warner Churchill: "It rains. It snows. It scorches. It droughts. It suspends itself in celestial moments of sheer clarity that hearten the soul. Whatever else it may do, it challenges rather than enervates. Rather than complacency it breeds philosophy."

So Oregon offers, it is claimed, the greatest variety of climate and scenery and vegetation of all the states.

It was this very diversity that occasioned a lively controversy in the selection of a subtitle for the Guide. In a public contest many Oregonians offered titles dripping with ardor. Such phrases as "The Land of Perpetual Spring" and "Land of the Midwinter Rose" were viewed by out-of-state critics with arched eye-brows as either un-factual or over-sentimental. Stolid history lovers suggesting "The Beaver State," were countered with the quip, "Why not call it the Rodent State so as not to discriminate against our rabbits and prairie dogs?" Others argued that the subtitle should derive from the state stone, which is agate, or the state bird, the meadow-lark, or even the state flower, the Oregon grape, which has an unromantic but highly practical history. Geographically-minded persons, aware that Portland is the farthest west of America's large cities, advised "Oregon—Farthest West." Another group wanted "Oregon—Nearest Japan," and their argument was