Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/25

Rh the agencies of educational, social, moral and religious culture is even greater than its material prosperity. The history of such a city, is worth recording. And to the busy citizen as well as the student of humanity, the narrative of this history will be found more interesting than a romance, and more instructive than the record of any other city in this great nation.

What should this history contain? What will the intelligent new comer of 1912 want to know about the city he settles in? What will the graduates of our high schools in 1950 want to know about Portland? What will the student of history plodding over the dusty past, one hundred years hence, desire to learn about the origin and development of Portland, Oregon?

In preparing this work it has been kept in view that everything should go in which would show how a city came to be located at this point on the Pacific coast, the great facts which led up to its selection, the influences and factors which promoted the building of the city, and the character and labors of the men and women who have contributed to the great work, moulded its character, inspired its aims and ideals and left their impress on its institutions and progress. Facts, experiences, character, biographies and accomplished results have been sought for in all directions and much that has never been before, is now given to the public. Very much material matter and many incidents of a very interesting character have been lost by deaths and the inevitable destruction by lapse of time. But enough remains to show clearly the hopes, aims, ambitions, and true character of the sturdy pioneers who through Herculean labors and indescribable privations trailed their long weary way across two thousand miles of trackless plains, rugged mountains and desert wastes to lay broad and deep the foundations of a new state and a great city.

This must also be to a certain extent, a history of the contest of ideas as well as the development of commerce, civilization and new states, which was tried out on this page in this great valley, and in the foundation of this city, and can't be left out. And striving to apprehend the aspirations and the heroic self-sacrifice of the men and women who founded this great northwest empire, if I shall be able to write a single line that will inspire in our young men and women the spirit which actuated their pioneer fathers and mothers, I shall feel that I have rendered a valuable service to the city and the state.

But no real history of the city would be complete, or present the picture of Portland now before us today, which did not include so much of the voyageurs, sea-rovers and bold mountain explorers as shows the world-wide panorama of thought, interest, speculation and national aggrandizement which concentered on the Pacific Northwest for more than a century to unravel the mystery which hovered over the land in which our lives have been cast. The history of Portland is intertwined with the grandest feats of land and sea discovery which have been achieved since Columbus struck the Island of San Salvador in 1492. And the very existence of the city as an American community has grown out of the shrewdest diplomacy of the two greatest nations of the globe; and was not only made possible, but actually forced by the uplifted hands and patriotic labors of a mere handful of bold border spirits who "called the bluff" so to speak of the greatest military and commercial power of the world; and with prescient minds, strong common sense and invincible courage, set up an independent state and government, and won the game in winning beyond controversy the rich territory now organized into three great states of the American union. The achievements of the pioneer heroes of Oregon are absolutely without parallel or equal in the history of states or nations. Not founded upon conquest or baptized in blood; not purchased by a compromise or pronounced by great commercial interests we trace the foundations of our city and state to the noble and unselfish labors and sacrifices of men and women proud in giving to all others the equal rights demanded for themselves, and ennobling and sanctifying their work by laying broad