Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/395

Rh So we come to-day to dedicate this monument, and the beautiful spot upon which it stands, to the people of Oregon for all time, in memory of the patriotic men whose names are thus recorded as being our oldest pioneer state builders. Sixty years ago there were less than thirty-six white male settlers within the entire boundary of what now constitutes the great State of Oregon. From this small beginning, and within a time that is comparatively short, has grown the magnificent state of which we are all so proud, and of whose possibilities, who can portend?

The panorama which met the sight of the first pioneers who came to the Willamette Valley must have been inspiring beyond description, and in contemplating the beauties of a great country like this, before it had been scarred by the hand of ambitious man—while it was still in that condition as when first made by

it is doubtful whether, after all, real beauty is added to it by all the results of all the output of human energy. The encroaching forests and these adjacent hills, which to-day so gracefully lend their charm to the rapid march of maturing civilization, had never heard any sound save the occasional war whoop of the "untutored Indian." The then mystic country, "Where rolled the Oregon," was not far away, but the continuous woods adorned the banks of the near-by river even to the very spot where we are now assembled. Since a time when all calculation is lost in hopeless obscurity the wonderful falls, only a few miles below, had been engaged in a ceaseless round of majestic activity, and then the river moved on, as now, to join the great Columbia, which, we are told, "is sired by the eternal hills, and wedded to the sea"; and, for