Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/182

 lead to the hope that among the first acts of congress will be the passage of an act to establish a territorial government in Oregon.

This will release us from our present embarrassments and place us under a permanent form of government. Hoping that this may be the case, I will call your attention to such subjects as are most pressing in their character, and which cannot well be dispensed with. The judiciary, as now regulated, answers every purpose required of it, and proves to be a far better system than the old one. There is one thing, however, needed very much in connection with it, and that is a prison. Should an offender be sentenced to imprisonment by the judge, there is no place in the territory to confine him, and consequently he escapes the punishment his crimes justly merit. This should not be so, and I hope you will provide means during your present session for the erection of a jail.

In my message of 1845, I recommended that in addition to gold and silver, wheat should be the only article used in the country as a legal tender. The legislature added treasury drafts and orders on solvent merchants. I would recommend the repeal of that part of the act which makes treasury drafts and orders on solvent merchants a lawful tender—receiving treasury drafts, however, in payment of taxes and debts due the government. Gold and silver are much more plentiful in the territory now than two years ago, and could be made the only lawful tender without detriment to the community; still, I think wheat had better remain in connection with gold and silver; it is a staple article, and can always be disposed of to merchants and others.

I would recommend an alteration in the law relating to the recording of land claims. The organic law requires that claims be recorded in the office of the territorial recorder. This answered very well while our population was small and nearly all living in one district, but our population is increasing rapidly and spreading over a large extent of country; new counties have been formed, and probably in a short time others will be set off and lands taken up still further from the territorial recorder's office than at the present time. In view of this, I think it advisable that you propose an amendment to the organic law making the clerk of the county court recorder of all land claims located within his county, and dispense -with the office of territorial recorder.

Our relation with the Indians becomes every year more embarrassing. They see the white man occupying their land, rapidly filling up the country, and they put in a claim for pay. They have been told that a chief would come out from the United States and treat with them for their lands; they have been told this so often that they begin to doubt the truth of it; at all events, they say he will not come till we are all dead, and then what good will blankets do us? We want something now. This leads to trouble between the settler, and the Indians about him. Some plan should be devised by which a fund can be raised, and presents made to the Indians of sufficient value to keep them quiet until an agent arrives from the United States. A number of robberies have been committed by the Indians in the upper country, upon the emigrants, as they were passing through their territory. This should not be allowed to pass. An appropriation should be made by you, sufficient to enable the superintendent of Indian affairs to take a small party in the spring, and demand restitution of the property, or its equivalent in horses. Without an oppropriation, a sufficient party could not be induced to go up there, as the trip is an expensive one.

The emigration the past season has been much larger than any preceding one, amounting to between four and five thousand souls. They have all arrived in the settlements, unless a few families should still be at The Dalles and Cascades, and scattered themselves over the territory. The most of them are farmers and mechanics; they will add much to the future welfare and prosperity of Oregon.

During the past year we have been visited by a number of vessels, some of them drawing more water than the vessels which have usually visited us. I