Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/353

 VOLUME I]

The early Oregon pioneers not only gained the first secure foothold for the American people on the Pacific Coast, but their movement opened the way to American occupation and in itself counted as an occupation of that realm for American civilization. They moved across the continent at an auspicious time, and so were able to influence, if not to shape, the course of great events touching the widening of the American dominion on the Pacific. It was all done so quietly, so efficiently, at so comparatively small cost and without any shock of harrowing disaster, that the world has yet to connect the momentous results with a cause seemingly so inadequate.

As the American people come to realize that their distinctively national achievement so far, next to that of maintaining a national integrity, has been that of preempting and subduing an adequate dominion and home for a civilization they will revere the services of those