Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/412

406 for the systematic collection and preservation of such contemporary records.

The capital ready at hand, therefore, when this Society was organized nearly seven years ago, was the existence here of historical sentiment from an appreciation of the heroic in the beginnings of Oregon. This the annual meetings of the pioneer associations had brought strongly into the community consciousness. The main idea added when this Society had its origin was that of an appreciation of the higher authenticity of the contemporary record in all its various forms and a sense of the urgency of an immediate and thorough canvass for them and the printing of the most important in a form absolutely faithful to the original. This idea had been acted upon some two or three years in the then Department of History and Economics of the State University by which cooperation in Portland was awakened which resulted in the founding of this Society.

The two main assets for a historical society in Oregon, then, were a well-founded pride in a heroic past and the idea of the value of contemporary records with full appreciation of the urgency of an immediate canvass for them that they might be collected and preserved. Alongside these two advantages in the situation for the society there must, however, be mentioned a stubborn disadvantage in the form of a strong individualistic or laissez faire attitude among our people discountenancing State support for activities of the nature of those of a historical society. The warm feeling for the pioneers and for the preservation of pioneer relics and records was, however, strong enough to overcome opposition to State support for an organization engaged in this line of activity.

Such were the ideas and sentiments embodied in this society at its origin, and such were and are the elements in the Oregon environment in which this society must