# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 37/Number 2/Reviews

REVIEWS
A General History of Oregon, volume II, by Charles H. Carey, Metropolitan Press, Portland, 1936, 499 pages, $3.50.
By Leslie M. Scott
Mr. Carey's long and busy life, as lawyer, public citizen, history worker and author, culminates in this monumental book of two volumes, the second volume of which is recently published, representing the decade between the provisional and the state governments (1849–59), with prior and later overlappings.
For more than fifty years Mr. Carey has made Oregon history a subject of his active study. He contributed to the Evans History of the Pacific Northwest (1889); the Scott History of Portland (1890); has written frequent monographs, and has generously aided other authors. He wrote History of Oregon (1922) and The Oregon Constitution (1926). He has been president of the Oregon Historical Society since 1927.
Mr. Carey's latest work is a fine product of the able Oregon printers, the Binfords. His authorship and their handicraft make this book an especial object of Oregon satisfaction.
Volume II is distinctive in at least four respects: the Oregon boundary question, the Indian wars, territorial politics, and early schools and colleges. Particularly impressive is the chapter on the boundary. The author makes clear that American settlement was the final factor in winning from Great Britain the line of 49°, and that the American desire for Texas and California was a potent influence in causing withdrawal from claims of 54° 40′. He cites John Quincy Adams as the American chiefly responsible in diplomacy for establishment of the American claims, against Russia, Spain and Great Britain. Other effective American diplomats were Rush, Gallatin and Calhoun. The keenest British diplomat against them was Canning.
Political rivalries of the capital controversy and the slavery and secession issues, are treated with better historical perspective and brevity than in works previously written by other authors. These were heated questions in Oregon politics, which the seventy and eighty subsequent years have enabled Mr. Carey to appraise at truer historical values than other authors have attained. One surmises that Mr. Carey has halted his narrative at the Civil War to afford similar opportunity to historians who shall come later. An interesting sequel, discussed by Mr. Carey, was the eclipse in 1860 of the proslavery, secession leader, Joseph Lane. The book contains a good narrative of events leading to adoption of the state constitution in 1857 and the creation of the state in 1859. Although Democrats predominated, Oregon opposed slavery and supported the Union.
Gold discoveries in California (1848), in southern Oregon (1851), and in the Upper Columbia region (1860), brought comforts and means of transportation. This notable aspect of progress has the particular attention of the author. He treats of judiciary, newspapers and public schools and colleges with a fullness that is not found in histories hitherto published. Indian relations, wars, treaties and reservations he discusses with a maturity of judgment that makes the book an indispensable authority. General Wool closed the interior as an Indian reserve and opposed settlement there in 1855-57, but subsequent events reversed him, and caused ratification of the reservation treaties which he opposed. Growth of the power of the Klickitats in western Oregon, after the missionaries came, led to the Yakima War of 1855-56. Conflicts with Indians during the Civil War, together ​with unwillingness of citizens to enlist in the military service, engendered controversies and delayed the pacification of the interior Indians. Mr. Carey gives the best narrative of the campaigns of that period.
Agriculture, horticulture and livestock, roads and steamboats, are subjects of narrative; also manners and customs, individual and family and community life.
Mr. Carey has made good use of the source materials which have become available in recent years, and of the opportunities afforded by passing time to reach impartial conclusions. To save from delay of narrative, he has no references in footnotes; all such are in the back of the book.
The volume contains 373 pages of text, 20 of chapter notes and references, and 106 of index to volumes I and II.
Henry Harmon Spalding, by Clifford M. Drury, Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho, 1936, 438 pages, $3.
By T. C. Elliott
Henry H. Spalding was a Protestant missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Nez Perce Indians, in what was known as the Oregon Mission, 1836–47. The work of the mission ended (but not that of Spalding) with the Whitman massacre, a vivid account of which occupies thirty pages of this book. These, together with 220 pages preceding, may be classified as a history of the mission as well as a biography of its, in many respects, most prominent member. The first seventy pages contain preface, chapter list and details of Spalding's earlier life and education. The final seventy-five pages relate the events of the last twenty-seven years of his career; and also include bibliography, sources and index. This analysis indicates a lack of balance, which the author endeavors to explain. As a history the book contains not a little prime material both as to personnel and events in the form of excerpts from, and references to, original documents. The controversial "Whitman-Saved-Oregon" story is admitted to be a fiction of Spalding's mind.
As biography the life story is exceedingly intimate and abounds in small details; but weakens toward the end, suggesting a hurried finish. As far as possible the author has copied verbatim from original letters and records. He is to be commended for the evident intent to be fair by stating faults as well as good traits. He reveals that Spalding was not the only one who caused trouble in the missions and that in actual achievements in the field he was the most successful member. Perhaps not enough is said concerning Spalding's mental obsession from childhood, which was notably increased by the terrible experiences at the time of the massacre, and which manifested itself in exaggerated opinions and statements, and affected his entire career. A devoted, courageous wife is given due credit for a share in their work among the Nez Perces.
The author is a Presbyterian clergyman writing about a Presbyterian missionary and with very natural sympathies for his subject. His theory as to an organized delegation of four Nez Perce Indians to Saint Louis in 1831 in search of religious instruction can be assigned to such sympathy. The letters of Spalding, after his arrival among the Nez Perces, are entirely silent as to any such Indian delegation, and the records of the Hudson's Bay Company apparently show that Spokane Garry did not return to his tribe until 1832.
Some errors in names and references are incidental and not vital. Some titles mentioned in the bibliography are worthless as authority. ​The book may help to soften a certain bitterness toward Spalding which has been expressed by some writers of our history.
The book is illustrated and beautifully published.
This is Oregon, by Charles L. Emerson, The Geographers, Inc., Portland, 1936, 207 pages. $1.00.
By Lewis A. McArthur
The volume entitled This is Oregon is a sort of informal guide book for the state. It is a publication of over two hunderd pages, and it is very creditably filled with a large amount of useful historical, geographical and statistical information. Oregon has not previously had a publication of this sort, and it ought to fill a long-felt want. The book is well printed and well illustrated, and a great deal of work has been done in assembling the information.
It is probably too much to expect that work of this sort can be made completely accurate in the first production. The reviewer feels that the work is out of balance in some respects, with the result that a few localities receive more attention than they deserve and in contrast to this there are a few places where information is stinted. A few of the illustrations are not particularly well chosen, and some of them have erroneous captions. Besides all this, there are many small errors in proof reading.
The reviewer feels that the publication is well worth while and deserves support, but that should not deter the author from subsequent revision, and a more careful proof reading for later editions.
Story of the Far West, by Joseph G. Masters, Ginn & Company, New York, 1935, 297 pages.
By Arthur Samuel Taylor
This book is designed to provide entertaining reading material dealing with Pacific northwest frontiersmen, and is primarily intended for boys and girls. Mr. Masters, who is principal of the Central High School, Omaha, Nebraska, has traveled extensively through the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast regions and has a keen appreciation of the difficulties that the early pioneers experienced. Some of the characters treated in Mr. Masters' book are, Old Bill Williams, Jedediah Strong Smith, Joseph L. Meek, James Bridger, and Kit Carson. The author has included a chapter on the discovery and exploration of the Oregon country and one on the Astorians. Included also is a story by the English traveler, George Frederick Ruxton, which was published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1848.
Mr. Masters has drawn his account from secondary sources and as a result, prejudices and inaccuracies found in them are given credence. For example, he quotes Bancroft's account of the Champoeg meeting, reiterating Joe Meek's appeal for a division of the settlers, a story now generally questioned. Mr. Masters, however, gives the child reader no feeling of doubt as to its authenticity.
Whatever the book may lack in the historical sense is supplied by the abundance of its interesting anecdotes, episodes, etc. The author possesses unusual facility in this regard. Reading this book should be, probably, a part of the experience of the normal 12-year old boy, since, by it, his interest in western history will be stimulated.
The book is amply illustrated with reproductions of photographs. Most of them were taken by the author on his travels. The vocabulary, except for an obvious tendency toward modernism: i.e. "rubbed out" for “killed," and other like expressions, is especially good. The liter​ary style is adequate. When one considers the loyalties of boys to the books that they like one may reasonably predict a long-time popularity for Mr. Masters' book.
The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, April, 1936, contains the following articles and documents: "Native Villages and Groupings of the Columbia Basin," by Verne F. Ray; "Party History in British Columbia, 1903-1933," by Edith Dobie; "The Nez Perce War: The Battles at Cottonwood Creek, 1877," edited by Dorothy O. Johansen; "A Journey Across the Plains in 1866," by Cora Wilson Agatz; "Historical Materials at the Southern Branch of the University of Idaho," by Harold C. Vedeler; "Samuel Benn," by John L. Christian.
The Program of Conditions to Govern a Competition for Selection of an Architect for the Oregon Capitol Building, issued by the State Capitol Reconstruction Commission in March, 1936, has a Foreword on "Oregon History and Background," by Charles H. Carey, president of the Oregon Historical Society.
Agricultural conditions in Oregon in 1852 are shown in a letter of Thomas S. Kendall, of the Associate Presbytery of Oregon, and first printed in the Evangelical Repository, September, 1852. J. Orin Oliphant has reprinted it with introduction and notes in "Agricultural History, volume IX, October, 1935.
The 1936 Pulitzer prize for the best novel of the year was awarded to Harold L. Davis for his book, Honey in the Horn. Mr. Davis was born in Oregon, and his novel deals with the homesteading period in Oregon in the early 1900s. The same book also received the Harper's prize last year.
The Beaver, March, 1936, prints a history of the famous Beaver Club by Clifford B. Wilson. The club was founded by the North West Company partners in 1785 and flourished till 1827.
Kenneth W. Porter gives the origin of the story that the fortune of John Jacob Astor was founded on Captain Kidd's treasure in "Myths after Astor," printed in the Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, February, 1936.
"Vancouver's Romance," by E. R. Yarham, in United Empire, April, 1936, is a historical sketch of the founding and growth of Vancouver, British Columbia.
NEWS AND COMMENT
SURVEY OF FEDERAL ARCHIVES
A survey of the records of the agencies of the federal government, one of the projects of the WPA, was begun in Oregon in March and will be continued until June 30, 1936, under the supervision of Jesse S. Douglas, regional director for Oregon and Washington. The purpose of the survey is explained in the following announcement by Mr. Douglas:
"The survey of federal archives is being conducted throughout the United States by the works progress administration in cooperation with the National Archives. The purpose of the survey is to locate and obtain information concerning the condition and use of the records of all agencies of the federal government. The data obtained will become a part of the permanent records of the National Archives at Washington, D. C., and will lead to the preservation of historical material that might otherwise become lost.
"Although records of recent date, as well as older files, are included within the scope of this survey, it is hoped particularly that unknown materials of discontinued agencies and files which have been stored in out of the way places may be discovered. It will facilitate the work of the survey if anyone knowing of such records will inform the regional office of the Survey of Federal Archives, Myler Building, Portland, Oregon."
MEETINGS
The annual celebration of Founders Day drew 1000 persons to Champoeg, May 2, 1936, to commemorate the establishment of a government in the Oregon country, May 2, 1843. Governor Martin spoke on the future of Oregon. Other speakers included C. A. Howard, Rufus Holman, Earl Snell and Austin Flegel. The Portland municipal government was represented by Mayor Joseph K. Carson and Commissioner Bean. Leslie M. Scott, as secretary of the Portland chamber of commerce, presented an Oregon state flag to Champoeg park, Students of the manual training schools of Portland presented a number of birdhouses. Bettylou Swart dedicated an elm tree in memory of Tabitha Brown, one of the founders of Tualatin Academy, which later became Pacific University.
The Wasco Pioneer Association held its annual meeting at The Dalles, May 2, 1936. Ralph Moody, assistant attorney general of Oregon, was principal speaker. Of special interest was the display of 2000 pictures showing events in the history of the state. The Albina Pioneers' Association met at Weimer's Hall, Portland, March 19, 1936. Judge C. H. McCollock, of Baker, made an address, after which several pioneers gave reminiscences of the early days of Albina.
The Geological Society of the Oregon Country elected the following officers at the annual meeting February 27, 1936: Clarence D. Phillips, president; J. C. Stevens, vice president; Lillian Neff, secretary; Mrs. Ben Smith, treasurer; A. F. Pratt, member executive committee. O. R. Bean spoke on the geological work of his grandfather, Dr. Thomas Condon. The society gave Dr. Edwin T. Hodge, the retiring president, a life membership in the grade of honorary fellow, the highest honor in the society.
Twenty-five of the fifty-four members of the Octogenarian Club of the First Presbyterian Church, Portland, were able to attend the annual luncheon at the church April 23, 1936. Mrs. Nancy Paxton, 94,