Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/84



76 F. G. YOUNG

as the eyes of one narrator and actor were dispensed with and those of another were made use of.

Such a method of treatment in which "bias" and "elabora- tion" are barred out, and which tells the story as the actors "understood it," without interpretation by the author, has prime negative virtues, but also decidedly positive defects. It makes a synthesis of annals but hardly history. However, the author fortunately does not fully keep the pledge made in the preface. She does indulge in effective interpretation, particularly in connection with conditions under which the Spanish explora- tions and attempted occupations were made ; in the fine picture given of the influx of people into the first belt of the trans- Mississippi region ; in the summary of the causes of the virtually complete failure of the Spanish occupation of California. With all the advantages of perspective the author had, as compared with the points of view of the individual narrators, and with the birds-eye view of the whole field and of the course of the three-centuries-long struggle, it is difficult to see wherein the author's self-restraint under such circumstances can be called a virtue.

As a rule each actor is brought upon the scene without in- troduction and the reader is also left to his own resources as to the lay of the ground, resources, climate, prior occupation of the region in which an economic beginning is to be at- tempted. If the reader is to be interested and enlighte'ned with regard to the play of economic forces, should not an economic survey have been made of each region as it was brought within the field of view ? Should not the standards of living of the natives and of the incoming white men have been compared, their different valuations of the goods of life and the facilities of transportation and markets used referred to? But this is a matter of judgment and is probably suggesting an impossibility if the admirably clear cut views of the actual course of events in each case were to be realized.

A very serious complaint must, however, be registered against the author of this work. She evidently spared herself the