Page:The Columbia River Historical Expedition.djvu/2

Rh delectation of railway travel patrons. This scheme in its appeal to the imponderables is somewhat in a class with the cooperative pact recently effected by the Great Northern for the securing its Scobey-Opheim branch.

The monumental memorials at Bonners Ferry, Wishram, Astoria and Seaside, dedicated this year, along with those at Verendrye, Meriwether and Summit, dedicated last year, will indirectly have their influence even on the freight tonnage passing over the line, as communities enlightened as to their historical backgrounds will get insight and inspiration that will make them better producers and consumers.

While the enduring bronze tablets and imposing columns with their impressive emblematic historical representations, will stand as appealing sentinels, daily reminding the dwellers at these sites of a heroic and romantic past, the enthusiastic receptions given the Columbia River Expedition at the larger cities, like Great Falls, Spokane, Portland and Astoria, may kindle an influence with even more vital results through the prestige thus given regional history. Clio had never had such a train of votaries before. New charms of hers may have been unveiled to the eyes of the populace and more ardent worship inspired for the future

For those who participated in these expeditions the experience was that of witnessing a grand pageant in which the stage was the railway's great stretch of country, past which the special train carried them during the week of presentation. The permanent objective of all this constructive and interpretative effort in monument erection and dedication is, of course, that of bringing every ticket holder for a Great Northern trip under a similar spell, making his passage as amid an edifying and delighting pageantry, the monuments functioning as "open sesames" revealing to the mind's eye of the wide awake and intelligent the great dramas enacted on these scenes by the Verendryes, Lewis and Clark, David Thompson, Astor's men and the great hosts of fur traders, missionaries, pioneers and commonwealth builders.