Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/274

254 As an editorial writer he was a success. Some of his leaders written that winter were powerful, their texture being a combination of logic, wit, sarcasm and eloquence. It was a golden era for political writers. The country was stirred to its depths over fundamental principles of government, involving, as they did, social and moral problems. "Lish" was a champion of the Republican party. That party was young then and stood for great principles. The purpose of its organization was to withstand the aggressive policy of the slave holders. Although believing slavery was morally wrong and an industrial mistake, still it did not propose to interfere with it in the States where it existed, but was strenuously opposed to its extension. Its principles were of a kind to enlist the young and generous, and in its formative period was largely a young men's party.

He did his work so well as an editor that upon the opening of the Presidential campaign of 1860 he was employed by the Republican Central Committee to canvass the State for Abraham Lincoln. In this role he was also a success. Indeed, he was the peer of any of the speakers of that campaign, in Oregon, with the exception of that renowned orator, Col. E. D. Baker. His success was so marked that his friends predicted a brilliant future for him. Indeed, the outlook was bright, but coming years developed that in that campaign he reached the zenith of success and ceased to grow in intellectual power. It is true he continued to be an important factor in Oregon politics for many years thereafter, but he never attained the prominence in the councils of his party or in the affairs of state that his friends predicted he would. The cause of this arrest of development was lack of application and over-indulgence in intellectual whimsies. The science of political economy and the true principles of statesmanship do not come by intuition even to the most acute and luminous minds. The old maxim "there is no excellence without great labor" applies to everyone, no matter how great his intellect may be. Furthermore, an ever increasing tendency to grotesqueness and buffoonery in the discussion of all sorts of subjects seemed gradually to sap his