Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/190

 178 F. G. YOUNG generations of men. The assembling of the founders of Oregon involved a historic movement and a pageant on a scale, and with such stirring dramatic incidents, such that the founding of an Athens, a Rome, an England or a Massa- chusetts hardly compares with it in human interest. But the new Oregon community thus constituted was only a group or collection of individuals or families. These were to be merged into the organic unity of a commonwealth. A period of incubation was necessary for the genesis of the soul of a state. To have a part among the matured communities of its time it must first invest itself with the paraphernalia of a twentieth century civilization. Its fields were to be made pro- ductive. Its homes, schools and roads were to be built. Its cities organized and its institutions generally gotten into good working order. The chrysalis stage for Oregon is past. The Oregon com- munity has emerged full-fledged for its part in the world economy. Oregon annals as an integral buoyant part of our national life are again radiant. New motives and new objectives hold sway. A century ago Oregon was becoming a word to conjure with. It was beginning to stir the souls of the valiant. It was suggesting in turn the lure of the supposed Straits of Anian, affording a direct passage to the Indies ; of the wealth of fur on its coast and streams ; of the commercial opportunity in its facing of the Orient with its teas, silk and spices; of the salubrious climate and productive lands of the valleys of the Columbia basin with direct egress to the highway of the sea for reaching world markets. And' then there were too the perishing souls of the benighted natives the idea of the rescue of whom tugged at the heart strings of the deeply religious. Through these all Oregon drew the adventurous, the brave and ardent spirits from every clime. A century later or today we are not disappointed with spirit of the community having the historic antecedents constituting the annals of early Oregon. The representative world task now is not as it was a century ago that of appro-