Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/252

236 of happiness. This race has large powers of assimilation, and its great ideas of liberty and of the rights of mankind caused other races to become a part of it, so it became a people as well as a race. In early historic times it made its power felt and for centuries contended for the rights of the people in England, where it had made its home, and finally succeeded in making England a free country, as evidenced by the Revolution and Settlement of 1688 and the policy of the English people ever since. Its instincts and traditions caused some of its people to come to North America to begin and to continue its settlement and civilization. The first of these people came about three centuries ago. Many of them came thereafter from time to time. They landed on the Atlantic Coast and pushed on westward. They soon adapted themselves to conditions and earned self-reliance and how to overcome the difficulties of establishing themselves in a new country, theretofore peopled only by Indians. They continued to push on westward and occupied what are now the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and other western lands, now the Central States of this country. Their courage, their powers, their self-reliance and their ideals increased as they moved westward. They fought Indians; they cut down forests; they reclaimed wild lands; they established homes, schools and churches. It is of this people that most of the early Oregon pioneers are a part.

The instincts and traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race have ever been to move westward. The star it had followed, which showed the westward course of empire, at last stood and shone over Oregon. Here was a wild land to be made useful and become a part of the civilized world. It was about two thousand miles west of the forefront of civilization in the United States at that time. Between that forefront and Oregon there are great plains, rugged mountains and large rivers to be crossed, a road to be established for them and for others, coming after them, to travel successfully to Oregon—"the land where dreams come true." There were great numbers