The San Francisco call., 1910-07-11

u
tribute to fund for the erection OF
a monument at Donner lake. near
Truckee This monument will be
raised in memory of the Donner party
and California pioneers. Many people
will consider that a curious, IL not a
sacrilegious conjunction Many others
living in California today will ask in
unshamed ignorance, What was the
Donner party?'
But in the face of ignorance and OF
criticism the people are to be asked
to contribute to the monument fund.
for there is most determined and in
defatigable native son, DIR. c. W.
Chapman of Nevada City. in charge of
the work. For 10 years the order has
been working on the project and has
raised about $4,000, but now the idea
is to raise between $4,000 and s5o,ooO.
Doctor Chapman's plan permits of wide
variations. With the money raised
monument would be erected near the
shore of Donner lake, at an authenti-
Gated spot, where one of the cabins Of
the victims stood, and near the pro-
posed line of the Southern Pacific
company.
Travellers. riding swiftly by in the
elegant Pullman diners can reflect, be-
tween the incidents of mastication,
that in the winter of 1857 3s human
beings perished in the environs of the
monument, 3e out of company OF "a.
and of the As that survived nearly all
of them subsisted for a time at least
on the remains of their comrades.
While it would seem meet TO SORROW
fully erect a monument to mark
the place of misery and thus in pity
to keep as sacred as may be the ter
rible ira gedy of early California days,
yet on first consideration it seems
scarcely fair to the glorious memory
of the triumphant pioneers of Cali
fornia to link their fame withI such a
hideous story as that of the Donner
party The California pioneer, the
seeker for gold, the argonaut, was all
conquering, all triumphant sure, able,
resourceful, unbaf1ied by storm or
stress.
Few of the connotationS which sur
round our conception of the pioneer
may be remotely associated with the
Donner party. There is but one trait
discerned among the Donners which
California pioneers, and that was the
trait of heroism-and God knows it did
not distinguish all OF the Donner par
ty-though who is fit in this day Of
ease and Pullman cars to pass on the
travails of those lost souls in the snow
walled valleys of the Sierras in the
year following the occupation of Cali
fornia by Commodore Sloat2
On the first consideration of the Don
ner party there will be seen little of
that nobility which merits monu-
ments. On a closer view of their
case the whole scheme of the Donner
party flashes upon one like fresh
ray of the morning sun. Then it Is
understood that the members of the
cause of California immi gra ton These
were selected by providence to suffer
as few Americans have ever suffered; +;
to pass through a hideous ordeal such
as no considerable number of men and
women were ever subjected 10. After
internal strife and chickering's party
of "a men and women and children,
divided into cliques and estranged
groups, were tossed by providence into
a snow masked valley high in the
the Sierras, under the ban of early
storms there to starve to death, to
suffer all the tortures OF hunger and
cold, to face the fearful alternative OF
friends. TO wait for relief that came
not: 10 perform deeds of heroism that
may be held unparalleled-for such
was the fate of the Donner party.
Nature desperate, cruel, cynical,
seemed to have used all its talents TO
add to the horror of that snowbound
camp.
of the Bonner party or to argue that
their ordeal was foreordained. Lewis
Keseberg. of all members of the party
most blackened by the tales that have
come down from the time of the trag-
edv. said, 80 years afterward, If l be-
lieve in God Almighty having anything
to do with the affairs of men, be-
lieve that the misfortunes which over
took the Donner party and the terr1ole
part / was compelled to take in the
great tragedy were predestined-
The ingenuity of the suffering which
the party had to undergo seems now
almost too complicated to havs been
fortuitous.
But that is metaphysics. Assuming
for an instance that the tragedy, ter
rible as it might have been, was pre-
destined. no one can deny that the
fate of the Donner party was per-
petual warning to all emigrants 10
advance to California over the Sierras
with the utmost preparation and eau
tion, and it can not be gainsaid tnat
If the fate of the Donner party had
not been constant warning 10 subse-
ouent travellers many more would have
come to their death, unprepared and
unwarned, while the thousands of emil
grants were crossing the mountains in
1S49 and later years. When the Don
ner party left independence, Mo-, to
break a path through the wilderness
there were 80 in the train Six died
before reaching the winter camp, leay-
ing S4 to face the agony in the noun