Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/113

Rh The author's statements have an inveterate habit of modifying themselves from chapter, and page to page, as the discussion proceeds on its easy, leisurely course.

On some points, however, he is very decided. He is convinced that the Lewis and Clark expedition was "almost negative as far as commercial exploitation and settlement were concerned" (p. 22), therein denying that the succession of American events following that expedition, the attempted exploitation of the upper Missouri trade from St. Louis, the Astor enterprise, and the restoration of Astoria, were related to it as affects to a cause, which is the usual view. He is clear that the "earliest effort made by any group of American citizens with material interests in the country west of the Rocky Mountains to terminate the joint occupation status of Oregon and determine upon a definite boundary, came from these St. Louis fur traders" (Rocky Mountain Fur Company). In this he denies the facts brought out by Professor E. G. Bourne in regard to the Astor influence behind Floyd's efforts. He minimizes the significance of Floyd's pioneer agitation in Congress, charging that "the purpose of the move was probably to lend dignity to his opposition to John Q. Adams" (p. 64 n.), as if motive and result were in such a case interchangeable terms.

Students will be grateful to Mr. Dell for giving us a new interpretation of the beginnings of Pacific Coast history, and this gratitude would be all the greater if we could agree that the new is also a true interpretation in its general scope, as it assuredly is in some subordinate particulars. He has presented a perfectly sound view of the Rocky Mountain fur-trade; has shown with a clearness never before equalled how large a part the mountain trappers assumed in the emigration movement, and in chapter VI (Agrarian Discontent) he has brought together a good many interesting historical facts not heretofore fully considered in determining the motives of the Oregon emigrants. But the present reviewer cannot convince himself, on the basis of that showing, that it was economically prudent for a few thousand to go to the Pacific at a time when many thousands were making shift to find suitable new homes along the older frontier; nor can he agree that the search for a new market probably constituted the dominant motive behind the Oregon movement. Of course the question is incapable of evidential solution. But it seems incongruous to assume that the Oregon emigrants had so reflected on the subject of world markets as to convince themselves of the inadequacy of exist-