Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/198

 190 F. G. YOUNG. far as the people of Washington are concerned, it is an abso- lute necessity that some appropriation be made at an early day. The Governor in an official communication says that 'starvation stares them in the face/ Why, sir, they launched everything they had in this war. They not only volunteered themselves and left their homes, with their wives and children behind them barricaded in blockhouses, but they gave their horses and their cattle, their wagons and their provender everything they had to conduct 'the forays' of which the gentleman of New York speaks. Instead of plundering the public treasury, the public treasury plundered them." But there was an aftermath to this matter or about a score of them that has a less heroic cast. By November 27, 1871, overlooked claims on account of services, supplies, etc., during these Indian hostilities of 1855-6, to the amount of $52,019.78, had been filed at Washington. Items, generally small, but once as large as $33,976.71 for one Congress, were included in the appropriation bills almost regularly down to the nineties, for the payment of such unsettled claims. Such payments are strongly suggestive of the lobbying of the scrip- broker. But the legislature of the State of Oregon, by appro- priations, $100,000 in 1903 and $45,000 in 1905, to make up the pay of the non-commissioned officers and privates to $2.00 per day, and for the commissioned officers to that of the same rank in the army of the United States at the time, in fulfill- ment of the promise of 24th day of January, 1856, brought these long-standing accounts to a close. As payments were to be made only to original claimants this was a fitting finale after the lapse of half a century. F. G. YOUNG.