# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 26/Reviews number 1

REVIEW
David Thompson, the Explorer. By Charles Norris Cochrane, Toronto. The Macmillan Company, 1924. Pp. 173. $1.00.
Mr. J. B. Tyrrell rescued the name and fame of David Thompson from Oblivion. In the Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, 1887-88, he gave the first connected account of this wonderful man and his work. Mr. T . C. Elliott has published with illuminating introductions and explanatory notes many extracts from his journals covering short journeys here and there in the region west of the Rockies. And Thompson's own Narrative with notes by Mr. Tyrrell, Mr. Elliott, and others has been issued by The Champlain Society. But all of these have been for the lover of history, for the person already well versed in the story of the West.
Now appears this little book which makes a very broad appeal to the student; to him who wishes to learn something of the romantic past of the North West; and to him who merely desires to read an attractive, but true tale of adventure.
Professor Cochrane has succeeded in producing a book Which finely combines accuracy with attractiveness. The story ripples along; at the same time a true picture is drawn; and Thompson stands out, a real and living person. The incidents are interestingly told and leave upon the reader's mind a distinct view of the salient features of Thompson's character. There is no pretense to any independent research. The author has, as the preface indicates, merely taken Thompson's Narrative with its full explanatory notes, condensed it discriminatingly, and told the story in terms of modern geography.
Page 106 is, however, a very unfortunate page. It is doubtful whether, in 1806, John Jacob Astor was "exerting all his strength to build up a fur trading empire on the Pacific slope;" nor is it at all clear that, in 1806, the Hudson's Bay Company "for some years had been ​knocking at the Barrier of the Rockies and spurred by competition they might at any moment burst through;" nor had Fraser in 1806 "already advanced from the Forks of the Peace and accomplished the difficult and dangerous feat of descending the Fraser River"—that descent was not made until 1808. Chapter VII, "The Race to the Sea," shows that there really was no "race." I am unaware that Thompson's "orders were to anticipate this ship (Astor's) in reaching the mouth of the river." Thompson in his Narrative (p. 448) states that his "object was to be at the Pacific Ocean before the month of August." As Mr. T . C. Elliott has said, "This argues against any extreme haste on his part to forestall the Astorians."
But these are, after all, merely minor defects or, perhaps, only differences of interpretation which do not in the least detract from the merit and interest of the book.
F. W . HOWAY.
History of the Oregon Country. By Harvey W. Scott, Forty Years Editor of the Morning Oregonian. Compiled by Leslie M. Scott. Printed by the Riverside Press (Cambridge). In six volumes. 1924. Pp. xvii, 2036.
This is a project of constituting a history out of a classified and arranged compilation of representative editorials and public addresses, carefully annotated, of the long-time and renowned editor of the leading newspaper in the Pacific Northwest. These conditions make this an unique undertaking. Insuperable difficulties would seem to debar the possibility of approximating anything near an ideal history with such a plan and materials. History's function is to convey a sense of continuity and unity of the social process depicted. To be true to reality all events must be seen as interrelated and developing as an organic whole. Editorials and public addresses wholly distinct and appearing apropos to casual occurrences, without any thread of sequence, are thus quite unpromising elements for an integrated story of a people's life. And yet the revealing potencies of these constituent units of the text of this work, supplemented by the results of the assiduous ​research of the compiler that are with fine art used to articulate these elements and round out the story, do achieve an effect, different from that of a connected narrative, but probably equal to the highest.
The last volume is wholly taken up with an exhaustive index and bibliography. The contents of each of the first five include a main portion—averaging about two-thirds of the volume—the output of the pen of the elder Scott, functioning as editor and publicist. This main body of each volume is followed by an "appendix" by the son in which we have a most effective exhibit of the historian's art of enabling the reader to get a complete mental picture of the course of events, with references to the sources of pretty much all extant records for the account given. There are thus two positive historical contrbutions fused in the work, the nucleal or textual, that originated during the period from 1865 to 1910, excepting a gap of five years from 1872 to 1877; the second, designated as the "appendix" in each volume, applied to the bringing of additional light from other sources and to the factual setting of each situation discussed by the editorial or address.
No assurance bearing on the character of this work need be offered to the great majority of those who were as adults living in the Pacific Northwest prior to 1910. Definite opinions of Harvey W. Scott's intellectual leadership are held by virtually all of these, either from a confirmed habit of reading the editorial page of the Oregonian or through an acquaintance with the ideas there set forth gained in their community center discussions. That editorial page through the thought and discussion it provoked constituted essentially a folk school, for by it the people of all of the "Old Oregon Country" communities, accessible from Portland, were stimulated and guided towards grappling with their community problems.
This institutionalizing of the editorial sanctum of the Oregonian with Harvey W. Scott in charge came about naturally. As a boy of fourteen he participated in the ​great and trying adventure of crossing the plains with the migration of 1852. Arriving here, his father's accumulations were exhausted, he did his share towards supporting the Scott household, but was left to his own resources for earning the means to attend college. The beginning in this was made through the use of an ax to secure which he had to have a loan. Applying his powerful native intellect with indefatigable energy and with unremitting study of the best books he rose gradually from the level of association with the day laborer to regular companionship in his reading with the best minds of all ages. Having thus shared the conditions of life from the humblest planes he retained a keen interest in the lot of every class through which he rose to become the managing editor of the metropolitan daily, the counsellor and guide of the commonwealth.
Through his assiduous reading and thought on the most fundamental interests in human experience he saw in clear perspective the course of change down through the centuries. The meaning of the occupation by the white man of the Pacific coast in all its relations was clear to him. As he had grown up with the country he was doubly at home in the discussion of any phase of the history of the Pacific Northwest. The following is a list of the subjects under which the compiler grouped the selections used: Discovery, exploration and acquisition; pioneer settlement, especially around Champoeg and Puget Sound centers; Indian affairs—wars and treaties; nomenclature of the Pacific Northwest; varied matters in the earlier and later periods; Oregon colleges; Oregon and California, Northern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads and railroad miscellany; political comment on the admission of Oregon, slavery, the Civil War and the party contests; climate, floods; biographies and obituaries of notable Oregonians.
The agency of change that probably had deepest appeal to him was the railroad. All of volume four is taken up with an account of the development of the railway ​mileage of this region. He hailed the advent of the transforming change inaugurated through rail transportation but his heart and admiration was with the heroic age then fading into the misty past. The trinity of principles most sacred in their relation to our national welfare were from his point of view the indestructible Union, sound money and representative government.
An introduction, including a review of his career and an estimate of his work by Alfred Holman, an able associate trained by him, and a second paper by his son, the compiler, on his writings, give the publication something of the character of a memorial.
F.G.Y.