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Copyright, 1923, by the Oregon Historical Society

The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.

Oregonians, Fellow Citizens of the Great Republic:

We have assembled for the purpose of giving expression to an ideal. Governments and institutions are dependent upon the quality of citizenship, but unless a nation cherishes its ideals and nourishes its higher aspirations it loses the things of the spirit, gravitates into gross materialism, and soon falls into decay.

In this thrice blessed country of ours, wherein we enjoy the gifts of bounteous nature and have as well the blessings of liberty under a free government, we should never lose sight of the fact that our peculiar development as a people is due to idealism. The pioneer preachers, with rare self-sacrifice and devotion to a belief, typify in a degree the spiritual influences that have permeated and characterized our civilization and our social and political structure.

This is particularly true of Oregon where the first permanent settlers were missionaries, and where the first attempt at popular government, the first steps toward universal education, and the first impulse toward