Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/837

Rh Portland and Oregon, that the legislature of the state had been compelled to pass laws, and kind hearted people had been compelled to raise money and appoint officers to protect little children and dumb brutes from the savage cruelties of the fathers of children and the worse than brutal violence of owners and drivers of the noblest of man's dumb animal friends—the horse. For almost an equal length of time—twenty years or more, W. T. Gardner has as superintendent of the Boys and Girls Aid Society had to fight a continuous battle with debased wretches of delinquent husbands and fathers to protect and provide for their neglected or cruelly treated children. While at the same, time W. T. Shanahan waged a similar warfare against the inhuman owners or drivers of horses, and owners of dairy cattle. It is an awful indictment of men raised in a civilized community that such preventives of cruelty are necessary. And the execution of the law in these cases, more or less fraught with personal danger to those who enforced the law, has been and must be one of the most irksome and unpleasant duties that could be laid on any man. And yet Messrs. Shanahan and Gardner never failed nor halted in their noble work in all these years; until now a public sentiment has been created by the persistent and courageous course of these men, that supports, vindicates and honors the enforcement of the law in these cases.

There are many other noble men and women well worth of remembrance on these pages if space would permit. But these names have been the pioneers and leaders in a great work to humanize and spiritualize the public sentiment of a pushing, rushing population intent on building a great city, and piling up a lot of money.

One More Name. But where does "Joe Buchtel" come in? Or rather, the question should be, where does he not come in? For ever since the town was anything much more than a streak of mud holes from Stark street up to Jefferson, and a lot of heterogeneous cabins and frame shanties along the west side thereof, Mr. Joseph Buchtel has been the general utility man of the town and city agitating, pushing, boosting, and never letting up on anything and everything that would help and benefit Portland. And how much did he get for it? Not a red cent. When Buchtel had got the town built up, and it had realized a little cash over and above every day running expenses, and had got railroads to California and Idaho and as far north as the village of Seattle, then the inflated aristocrats imported a booster to work on a big flat salary. It was easy sailing for him. Buchtel had laid the foundation, built the house, put on the roof—and the imported man could put on, the paint. Now over eighty years of age, Mr. Buchtel is still hard at work for more bridges and better ones—more of everything to improve the city. There has not been any citizen of Portland who has worked so long, so faithfully and so successfully for the upbuilding of the city as Joseph Buchtel—and this is the record that will go down to posterity.

It has been remarked by somebody that it takes all sorts of people to make a world. And from that standpoint it may be said that it takes all sorts of people to make the history of any community. Without the people who take the trouble to record the progress of events, to write down the recollection of things past and gone forever, and to treasure up the accomplished works of the men and women of a country or a city, the past would be as much of a blank to us as is the history of the native Indian to all the world. To imagine a relapse into such a state is to take a look into barbarism. Without the light and teachings of history, the human race would be no better than barbarians today. So the men and women who have taken the trouble to preserve the history of the past generations of Oregon are people who deserve to be gratefully remembered, along with all others in the field of effort and progress, by the people of this city of today, and all future generations.

The first formal contribution to the history of Oregon, including the history of this city, are the works of Rev. Gustavus Hines, one of the early Methodist