The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-09-24

forests of the Pacific Coast and their
various Tpoducts will annually equal
q sum as great as the present nation
al debt and the forest lands of Ore
gon will some day provide homes for
as many people as there now are in.
the state.
The orchards, the mines, the fish
cries, the live stock. the manufac-
tories to follow-what prodigal
wealth they all mean. 1t is these
vast resources in such happy combin-
alton that constitutes our greatest
strength and widest opportunity.
But | am not attempting today to
portray our possibilities of wealth
but merely to point to it as the mag
net that will irresistably draw to our
state the millions from other states
and foreign lands.
The great problem soon to con-
front the Native Sons and Daughters
is not the production of wealth but
the character of citizenship and in
tegrity of manhood that must be de-
veloped and sturdily maintained to
meet the conditions that will soon
surround and involve us. Thus far
we have had on this coast no foreign
problem of consequence, but the as
sembling of the oppressed, the poor
the unlearned will be part OF our
unavoidable charge, producing prob
lens that cannot be shaken off but
must be settled and settled right, for
we will be dealing with human be-
ings whose rights cannot be denied.
We have had no city problem to har-
rass, no slums in the modern sense.
In the land to which our fathers
brought us it has been all sunshine,
but we now are, and rapidly are be-
coming more a part of the great dis
cordant world whose murmurings
are heard through every source of
communication and are as certain as
the re-appearing of the morning sun.
These problems are to be the testers
of our national institutions and of
the justice of our modern civiliza-
ton.
| Native Sons and Daughters, | re-
peat, there is no more west. no 9TH
er shifting ground-and it is we'll,
for are we not too strong to turn
our backs upon what is inevitable,
burden to be borne by the brave
and true. Certainly we and our i'm
mediate successors are not going to
| live from the fruits of the genera
tion before us, without eXertion,
without sharing responsibility, leav-
ing all to the children of the new
conner. We shall have a part in the
readjustment of the old and the ap-
plication of such newer ideas as JUS
tice demands and human sympathy
compels. If God is enthroned right
will prevail. Public fealty is only a
nobler conception of the duty man
owes to his family; a nation is un-
ion of families and patriotism the
synthesis of their domestic virtues.
The ruin of nations like the ruin
of families come from the same cause
neglect. To neglect ones family
is to lose it, to neglect ones coun-
try is to perish with it.
Native Sons and Daughters of the
Saxon blood, behold the conquests
of thy race! II we glance backward
over the pathway made in the past
century by the race that brought us
here, we will see that no barriers
stopped its course. Wherever man
existed there it has planted its foot
steps. 1t has crossed every sea, ira
versed every desert and sought ev-
cry solitude. 1t has passed over
mountains, moistened deserts and
driven disease from the swamps. 1t
has girdled the earth with path
tragic and heroic. The blessings of
its civilization are so widely flung,
that the sun and stars shine together
upon them and there is no night
shades or morning dawns where its
blessings are not felt. But the past
has given no guaranty of the perpet-
uity of any race or promise that its
achievements will not perish. The
future holds in store these secrets,
but out of the past and from the
living present we read the edict that
without equality and exact justice
there can be no abiding custom.
The Western Native Sons and
Daughters, mingling together as
common citizens of composite race,
will apparently not long be able to
trace their lineage. Their hope
therefore cannot be in the purity OF
their blood but in their fidelity to
the high purposes of mind and heart
minds trained to all that the best
schools can give and hearts attuned
to the infinite song OF common bro
therhood.
Kinsmen, we will be true. Intel
ligence and integrity shall be our
watchwords! Our hands shall hot
grow weary but we shall labor on in
building a civilization worthy of past
sacrifice and fashioned by the un-
folding truth that the future will
mercifully unfold, may it remain as
long as the white crested mountains
stand as the signet of Gods power
and our great rivers flow as emblems
e..