Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/112



The author tells in the preface:

The present monograph has grown out of a wish for more light on one early phase of this expansion [to the Pacific] ... The pioneers opened a road across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast the preface to territorial expansion because they wished to realize the benefits from its geographical position in opening a new market for agricultural produce, and because they could not await but must have a hand in making their own destiny.

The above quotations give by far the clearest statement of purpose which the book affords, and the reader does well to keep this declared purpose clearly in mind as he reads.

The author departs widely from the method of exposition through narrative, traditional with writers of histories on the scale of this one. His is pronouncedly a monographic "disquisitional" method. By this we do not mean that he fails to display a sufficient grasp on facts and incidents bearing on his theme. He has an abundance of these, but instead of causing them to stand up and tell their own story he, so to speak, makes them lie down while he explains what happened. This method always involves the temptation to subordinate the facts to the discussion of their meaning, and it is to be feared the author has not always been able to resist that temptation. One of the outstanding merits of the book is the thoroughness of his search for the printed sources, and the author has used some imprinted material in addition.

As interpretation the book seems needlessly long and repetitious. The interpretation, in fact, is given practically in chapter IX., which is a review and restatement of what has gone before and is far clearer than the argument of the body of the book. Another partial restatement occurs in the appendix which follows chapter IX. And there is in the main section of the book, much repetition of ideas and facts, and much "cutting and fitting" of facts to new turns in the discussion.

This last tendency is particularly disheartening to the reader.