The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1897-12-02
WHITMAN.

the Whitman massacre at Walllatpu
and the present day. They have
been fifty years of heroic endeavor
and great achievement. Alaska is
not wilder today than was the vast
region of the trans-M Mississippi half a
century ago. st. Louis, the metrop-
oils of the West and the South, had
fewer than $4,000 people. Chicago
had fewer than 10000. Omaha,
Kansas City. Minneapolis, St. Paul
and Denver were not in existence.
San Francisco had 45O people, and
Portland, with 200 or 800 popula-
tion, was lost in the vast, solemn and
continuous forests of the Oregon.
These fifty years have been lumln-
Gus with the refulgent rise of the
star of empire. States have been
founded, cities constructed, and rail
roads laid across the prairies- and
through the mountain passes. And
with these achievements have come
schoolhouses and colleges, churches
and hospitals, and all the multitude
GUS benefits and blessings which ale
the accompaniment of the highest
civilization. The wild region of the.
Oregon, which fifty years ago stood
as the apotheosis of the wilderness and
desert places Of the earth, has four
cities, all rivaling in population, in
wealth and grandeur any of the
cities of the union then in existence,
with the exception of few places on
the Atlantic seaboard.
Fifty years ago savage ignorance
and fury extinguished Ithe life of the
man who did more than any other
one man to plant the seed of empire
on these shores. Whitman was more
a martyr to the flag than to the cross.
So long as he confined his labors to
the mission work at Waiilatpu he
was in no danger. He was slain for
bringing immigrants into the coun-
try.
"Ever since the return of Whit
man in 1S4S," says Bancroft, she
had lived over a smoldering vol
cano," That was the year in which
he guided nearly thousand immi-
grants into the Oregon country.
Year after year, cont1nues the his
torian, san army of white people
came from east of the Rocky mount
aims, on whom the aborigines looked
with distrustful anger.
They were angry with Whitman be-
cause he did not leave the country,
because he raised grain on their land
and sold it to the immigrants. This
had been their temper all along; but
IN 1S47 it had seemed to take more
aggressive form, either because they
had been told that the United States
then claimed sovereignty, or because
in their own minds their dissatisfac |
tion was fully ripe, ard the sword. so
long suspended, was ready to fall. y
Further proof that the Indians
killed Whitman because he brought
the white people into their country is
found in the fact that his missionary
associates were spared. The mis-
sions at Lapwai, in Idaho, and at
Walkers Pralrle, north of Spokane,
escaped. Indian cunning taught the
savages that Whitman, more than
any other living man, was responsi-
BILE for the increasing invasion of
their country, and In a spirit of re
venge and fear they resolved upon
his murder.
After fifty years of humiliatlng
neglect, the people of the Pacific
Northwest are bestowing tardy re-
spect and honor to the memory of
this patriotic American. The com
memorative exercises at his grave
will be an enduring lesson to old and
young. They will prove an inspira-