Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/16

6 tribes of the west. Jefferson took keenest delight in a project to extend the bounds of knowledge and which he hoped would open a water route of commerce across the continent with Asia. Yet on the face of it the Lewis and Clark expedition had primarily its inception as a means for promoting the success of these government trading posts among the Indians. This governmental policy, connected with the administration of the factory system, was the one comprehensive, wise, and humane national effort to raise a lower race to the plane of civilization. The idea was to supply the Indian at cost, in exchange for his furs and other products, the implements of husbandry and the comforts of civilized life, at the same time to protect him from the demoralizing influences of the vicious among the white men. The Lewis and Clark expedition was thus in its origin associated with a work of the largest philanthropy, "a system," says Captain Chittenden, author of "The American Fur Trade in the Far West," "which, if followed out as it should have been, would have led the Indian to his new destiny by easy stages, and would have averted the long and bloody wars, corruption, and bad faith, which have gained for a hundred years of our dealings with the Indians the unenviable distinction of a 'Century of Dishonor.'"

In his instructions to the leaders of the expedition Jefferson showed the tenderest solicitude for the welfare of the red man. The expedition could not have been in better hands. Captain Chittenden says of it: "This celebrated performance stands as incomparably the most perfect achievement of its kind in the history of the world." Dr. Elliott Coues has this about it: "The story of this adventure stands easily first and alone. This is our national epic of exploration." To appreciate the unique skill of leadership in this expedition we need but compare its success with the wretched failure of the