Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/422

406 missionaries, who not only established churches of their respective denominations, but founded so many educational and humane enterprises out of their personal means as to almost interfere with each othersoperations. They had, if anything, a zeal that outrun discretion. The mass of the people supported these leaders and were so industrious and temperate that from the first destitution has been practically unknown. No people has been distinguished by a higher level of purpose from the beginning than have we. The famous history of the Atlantic States is dark with contention and superstition compared with our own. Our people of the present day have fallen to a lower level of aspiration, and we are morally degenerate sons; but it is to be remembered that in their intent and true purpose trade and production are also benevolent. Freed from the personal rewards that obscure their true nature these great utilities of industrial life, which we are now seeking to establish here, will also yield peace and good will. The paeans of peace are yet to be composed. Nowhere is there a soil more consecrated to such literature than here. We have the historical setting and illustrations.

6. We also have here already the beginnings of a literature. It has been fitful, provincial in some respects, and like all true literature in its beginnings, little recognized or rewarded; but at any rate it has not been produced by purchase of money kings, or any other sort of kings, or by imperial fiat. It has been free. Nevertheless, Oregon has been the land of authors. We have poets whose verses have gone around the world. We have singers and artists whose work is at the top, as our apples bear off the prize at the expositions. Our literature, so far as it has been developed, is characterized by purity, ideality, depth of emotion, and versatility. Its basis is so broad and vigorous, not to say indiscriminately