Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/245



The main object of his visit to Washington may be gathered from the bill he drew up at the request of the secretary of war, and from the letter with which he accompanied it. To the secretary he wrote :

"In compliance with the request which you did me the honor to make last winter while at Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill, which, if it could be adopted, would, according to my experience and observation, prove highly conducive to the best interests of the United States generally ; to Oregon where I have resided more than seven years as a missionary, and to the Indian tribes that inhabit the intermediate country."

The bill itself exhibits the object here stated in an extended form. It is remarkable for the thorough grasp it shows of the situation, of the needs of every interest involved and of the means best suited to meet each one. No docu- ment of that time exhibits a more full and clear grasp of the Oregon problem, and of the condition of its ultimate solution. A reasonable hope on his part of his being able by any representations that he might make of securing the adoption of such a measure by the government, was itself a justification of his perilous journey.

To a member of the board of missions at Boston after his return to Oregon he writes touching the objects of his visit:

"It was to open a practical route and a safe passage and to secure a favorable report of the journey from emigrants, which, in connection with other objects, caused me to leave my family and brave the toils and dangers of the journey, which carried me on, notwithstanding I was forced out of my direct track, and notwithstanding the unusual severity of the winter and the great depth of the snow."

In the same letter we have frankly stated the other great object of his visit, that which took him to Boston as the other had taken him to Washingon. In close connecion with the passage quoted above he writes :

"The other great object for which I went was to save the mission from being broken up just then, which it must have been, as you will see by reference to the doings of the committee which confirmed the recall of Mr. Spalding only two weeks before my arrival in Boston."

These were two of the main objects of his journey, the one leading him to Washington, and the other to Boston, both clearly stated in his own words.

The third object of this journey had to do particularly with the immigration of that year. His object in connection with this immigration was not in induc- ing men to join it, or in organizing the company when together. It was already assured beforehand that a large immigration, larger than any before, would as- semble in the spring of 1843 and start for Oregon. Immigrants of the year before had brought this word. Whitman had received it before he had even decided upon his journey. He had but little directly to do with gathering the company, further than to drop encouraging words here and there in the western states as he journeyed eastward. His main purpose in connection with it was, as he says, to secure its safe conduct, in a manner as satisfactory as possible to the immigrant, but especially that at Fort Hall they should not be induced to turn aside to California, or to leave their cattle and wagons behind for fear of the difficulties of the road beyond this point. He wished nothing to prevent the safe arrival of the whole body with wagons and stock on the Columbia, so that when the word went back, as he intended to make sure that it did, both the government and the people of the east should know that a highway for immigration was now fully open through the mountains into the Oregon country.

These then were Whitman's chief objects in that winter ride. There were others incidental and subsidiary to these. One was to get reinforcements for his mission, if not of commissioned missionaries, at least of such families as would settle near the mission and aid in furthering its purpose. Another was to secure an appropriation from the secret service fund of the government to aid in the support of schools among the native tribes, and still anothe