The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-11-15

had made these men low spirited; they
wanted a change Of climate and scene
under nilder winter air. even if under
more watery skies. This feeling Joined
to that restless love of wandering in
search OF new soil and scenes that Cooper
describes in his picture of Ishmael Bush
explains fairly that extraordinary move
ment of emigration from the Middle
West and Northwest to the Pacific
coast, for the Oregon emigrant was
not gold seeker primarily, IKE
those who fIocked to California in
1s49; he was not driven into exile by per-
secution like the Mormons who colonized
Utah; he was not primarily hunter or
trapper for the sake of peitry; he was
restless American of vigorous body and
mind, who was ready to risk the dangers
and privations of q long overland journey
to reach a country chat would satisfy his
desire to mind his own business in his own
way and allay his discomfort with the
land of his birth. Perhaps his home civil
ization had begun to grow tame to him;
perhaps he disliked the smell Of trade, and
hated to hear the rumble of peddlers' carts.
Only men Of exceptional courage and indi-
yiduality would have exchanged the COM
paratiye comfort of the Middle West for
the uncertainty Of new. unknown and
untried land.
This type of American pioneer is extinct
because there are no longer any lands in
America for this type of the American
pioneer to conquer. He has reached the
ocean on the west; on the north or south
there is nothing left for him. The rail-
roads that web the country were the death
of the old type of hardy. daring men who
marched from the Missouri to the Colum.
bia and the Pacific as boldly as an average
Seattle sportsman today would take q
hunting trip on the mountains. John
Dunn, who saw Oregon in 1874, described
1t in his book as country that would
never have a decent population or .
state of society worthy of the
name Of civilizations; for nature
had made it too rugged a region
to invite rapid settlement. This was only
forty-eight years ago. and today the
land that was John Dunn's despair is
bound by railways to the Atlantic sea-
board, to the North, to the South, to the
East and to the West. You can start
from Seattle and reach by rail Montreal
or Mexico, New York, Washington City or
New Orleans. There are more of the COM
forts and luxuries of civilization enjoyed
in the state of Washington today than
rural Massachusetts, had when Washing
ton was given a territorial government,
and all this wonderful change has been
wrought chiefly in the last twenty-five
years.
The American pioneer and Indian war
veteran began his career with the settle
ment of New England and he ended it
when he reached the Pacific. It took him
about $50 years to conquer nature and the
Indian from Casco bay to Puget sound.
but 1t is done and SO well done that it will
not have to be done over again. The
American pioneer is henceforth histor-
ically dead; he has expired by the same
law Of limitation that makes soldiers dis
band when the war is over. The pioneer
stopped with the Pacific, not because he
was satisfied. but because there was moth
ing left to conquer. Nebraska is seven
years younger today in statehood than
Oregon. because the restless American pio-
neer. compelled to halt at the Pacific,
found time to turn around and form q
state