Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/75

Rh where he had received but one. Men who before were almost hopelessly in debt were enabled to pay. By the amended currency law, all debts that had to be collected by law were payable in gold instead of wheat. Many persons were in debt, and their creditors hesitated to sell their farms and thus ruin them; but all the same the dread of ruin hung over them, crushing their spirits. Six months in the gold mines changed all, and lifted the burden from their hearts. Another good effect was that it drew to the country a class, not agriculturists, nor mechanics, nor professional men, but projectors of various enterprises beneficial to the public, and who in a short time built steamboats in place of sloops and flatboats, and established inland transportation for passengers and goods, which gradually displaced the pack-train and the universal horseback travel. These new men enabled the United States government to carry out some of its proposed measures of relief in favor of the people of Oregon, in the matter of a mail service, to open trade with foreign ports, to establish telegraphic communication with California, and eventually to introduce railroads. These were certainly no light benefits, and were in a measure the result of the gold discovery. Without it, though the country had continued to fill up with the same class of people who first settled it, several generations must have passed before so much could have been effected as was now quickly accomplished. Even with the aid of government the country must have progressed slowly, owing to its distance from business and progressional centres, and the expense of maintaining intercourse with the parent government. Moreover, during this period of slow growth the average condition of the people with respect to intellectual progress would have retrograded. The adult population, having to labor for the support of families, and being deprived through distance and the want of money from keeping up their former intellectual pursuits, would have ceased to feel their