Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/172

154 without his family, which gave a transient air to his patriotism, to which people objected. They felt that their representative should be one of themselves in fact as well as by election, and this Lane declared his intention of becoming, and did in fact take a claim on the Umpqua River to show his willingness to become a citizen of Oregon. The opposing candidate was W. H. Willson, who was beaten by eighteen hundred or two thousand votes. As soon as the election was over, Lane returned to the lately discovered mining districts in southern Oregon, taking with him a strong party, intending to chastise the Indians of that section, who were becoming more and more aggressive as travel in that direction increased, and their profits from robbery and murder became more important. That he should take it upon himself to do this, when there was a regularly appointed superintendent of Indian affairs—for Thurston had persuaded congress to give Oregon a general superintendent for this work alone—surprised no one, but on the contrary appeared to be what was expected of him from his aptitude in such matters, which became before he reached Rogue River Valley wholly a military affair. The delegate-elect was certainly a good butcher of Indians, who, as we have seen, cursed them as a mistake or damnable infliction of the Almighty. And at this noble occupation I shall leave him, while I return to the history of the executive and judicial branches of the Oregon government.

Obviously the tendency of office by appointment instead of by popular election is to make men indifferent to the opinions of those they serve, so long as they are in favor with or can excuse their acts to the appointing power. The distance of Oregon from the seat of general government and the lack of adequate mail service made the Gaines faction more than usually independent of censure, as it also rendered its critics more impatient of what they looked upon as an