Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/213

 In June, 1894, a railroad strike halted Mr. Scott's return from an Eastern trip, at Tacoma, and he had to quit the Northern Pacific Railroad there, and make his way as best he could to Portland. This amused a number of Populist editors and they directed jibes at Mr. Scott, which he answered with the following in The Oregonian of July 24:

""Several Populist papers are chuckling and cackling over the fact that some two weeks ago the Editor of The Oregonian, then at Puget Sound on business, was stopped at Tacoma by the strike and had to make his way as he could across the country to the Columbia River. Of course the poor milksops do not know how little such an incident disturbs a man who all his life has been accustomed to obstacles, and yet never to allow them to stand in his way. The Editor of The Oregonian in pioneer times was accustomed to foot it between Puget Sound and the Columbia and carry his grub and blankets on his back, and to think nothing of it. He and all others at that day went through without complaint conditions a thousand-fold more laborious and difficult than those against which our Populists and anarchists and 'cultus' people generally now protest as intolerable hardship and grinding slavery. Trifling as this particular incident is, it illustrates right well the difference between purposeful energy and poor, pitiful inefficiency. The one does things, the other whines and complains, says it can't, and wants somebody to help, or government to give it a lift.""

In December of the same year, when "soup kitchens" were abundant, Mr. Scott had said in his paper: "It is their duty to put their wits and energies at work, to make employment for themselves, not to stand all the day idle offering the excuse that no man has hired us." A critical editor replied that he would like to see what Mr. Scott would do, "out of money and out of work and without friends." To which Mr. Scott answered in The Oregonian, December 23, 1894:

"He was in exactly that position m Portland over 40 years ago. But he didn't stand round and whine, nor look for resources in political agitation or bogus money nor join Coxey's army. He struck out for the country, dug a farmer's potatoes, milked the cows and built fences for his food and slept in a shed; got a job of rail-splitting abd took his pay in an order for