The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society Part 8

As early as shortly after Lincoln's election in 1860, Senator Gwin, of California, with the undoubted knowledge and cooperation of Joseph Lane, of Oregon, formulated a plan for a slave-holding republic on the Pacific coast, with an aristocracy similar to the old Republic of Venice, vesting all power in a hereditary n.o.bility, with an executive elected from themselves.

Should the Southern States succeed in withdrawing from the Union and setting up a Southern Confederacy without war, then with a continuous line of slave territory from Texas to the Pacific, the Pacific coast should combine with the South; but if war ensued between the North and South, then the coast should be captured, and the Venetian Republic be inaugurated separately, and slaves imported from the Isles of the Sea.

Bancroft, the historian, a.s.serts that but for the strong restraining advice of Jesse Applegate and the overwhelming sentiment against him on his return, there is no doubt but what General Lane would have embarked in the enterprise, and that the boxes of arms and ammunition which accompanied his return were intended for that purpose. In 1862 it became known all through the Pacific coast that an oath bound secret organization of confederate sympathizers were holding almost nightly meetings at many places; and self-appointed Union detectives, from points of vantage could hear the tread of martial feet and the hoa.r.s.e notes of command.

High authority has a.s.serted that Gwin of California, Lane of Oregon, and a man named Tilden of Was.h.i.+ngton, were the instigators and advisors of this second movement to steal the Pacific coast from the Federal Union and hold it for the forces of disunion and secession.

They chose for a t.i.tle the quaint and striking name of "Knights of the Golden Circle."

One of the best posted historical authorities on the Pacific coast told me a few days ago that he had in his possession cipher doc.u.ments of that strange disloyal order, which some day experts should decipher and give to the world, but as yet it was too early for history to record anything but the things that were notorious. The same authority told me of how one night in San Francisco, eight hundred Knights of the Golden Circle, armed to the teeth, had met to make the initial outbreak, capture the Benicia a.r.s.enal and arm all rebel sympathizers of San Francisco therefrom and carry out the long cherished plan of seizing the Pacific coast for disunion.

At the last moment realizing the awful, momentous responsibility of their projected attack they clamored for a leader whom they could follow as one man. In a moment one name was on every lip, an old hero of the Vigilante days--in haste he was sent for (he was not a member of their order) and their plan revealed to one whom they thought disloyal like themselves, but they had reckoned without their man--he was as loyal as the st.u.r.dy patriots who fell at Bunker Hill, fighting the earlier battle of freedom with bare hands and clubbed muskets.

Knowing that by a brief delay only could he lull them to security, and at the same time save the day for the old flag, he asked until 9 o'clock the next morning to give his answer, they to remain where they were until his answer should be returned. Taking this as a practical a.s.sent, and that he only went to arrange his private affairs, the balance of the night wore on; but the old Vigilante was not idle; calling together as many of the old Vigilante Committee as were available and of known loyalty, he unfolded the treason that was lurking in the city's midst, and as they were swift to act in the days of '49, so were they now; the loyalty of the commandant at the Benicia a.r.s.enal being questioned, he was promptly replaced by one of true and tried steel, and loyalists were armed and ready in more than one secret place in the city midst if needed and then at 9 o'clock as agreed the answer went to the waiting Knights of the Golden Circle that the old Vigilante could not be their leader.

Thus all up and down the Pacific coast there was work to be done by the troops at home in guarding against the spirit of disloyalty which fostered by the early reserves of the Union arms was dangerous and threatening.

The situation of Oregon at this time was one of peculiar danger. Both England and France were in open sympathy with the states in revolt.

The French Government were setting up an empire in Mexico. England was causing trouble over the disputed boundary at the entrance to Puget Sound. Not a single fort or coast or river defense existed in either Oregon or Was.h.i.+ngton, and at any time these hostile foreign powers might combine with the Indians as they had done in earlier wars and with the disloyal and disaffected within. Separated by such vast reaches of country from the loyal states of the Union nothing of a.s.sistance could be expected from them in case of trouble, in time to be effective and hence it was that for upwards of three years, not merely the peace and security of Oregon but its permanency as a part of the Federal Union depended on the First Cavalry.

The War Governor, Addison C. Gibbs, a strong and patriotic man, organized a valuable addition to the military forces of the State in a state militia, whose chief duty was to hold in check the Knights of the Golden Circle, to which it was a direct ant.i.thesis.

At the second election of President Lincoln it was a known fact that the Knights had their arms cached in the neighborhood of the leading polling places, and intended to carry the election by force of arms.

This was only prevented by the militia who were superior in numbers and who adopted similar tactics which proved effective.

One shudders at the fratricidal bloodshed and awful guerilla warfare that would have come to pa.s.s in this mountainous and thinly settled country had the first outbreak happened and the torch of rebellion been lighted. That it did not so come to pa.s.s was another evidence of the mysterious workings of Divine Providence.

In 1864 Governor Gibbs called for ten companies to be known as the First Oregon Infantry, each company to consist of eighty-two privates, maximum, or sixty-four minimum, besides officers. Eight companies were ultimately enlisted, and at first were chiefly employed in garrison duty throughout the Northwest, but later performed gallant service in the Indian wars that were ever in progress.

I wish that it were possible within the necessary limits of this article to write down some of the many deeds of matchless heroism wrought by the loyal men of the Northwest in the dark days of the war--deeds fit to rank with the gallantry of Sheridan's das.h.i.+ng troopers, with the glorious achievements of Sherman's March to the Sea, with the steadfastness of the iron phalanxes of the immortal Grant. But we can at least pay our tribute of praise to those rude frontiersmen of the Pacific, who loved their country, their country's flag, and the cause of freedom,--who fulfilled, without murmur, the self-sacrificing duty placed upon them by the martyr President, who wrought out in blood and fire the destiny of the Northwest, and whose only reward has been the sense of duty done. Of each of them the beautiful words of Tennyson are peculiarly appropriate:

"Not once or twice in our rough island story The path of duty was the way to glory: He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes, He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden roses.

Not once or twice in our fair island's story The path of duty was the way to glory: He that ever following her commands, On with toil of heart and knees and hands, Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevailed, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled Are close upon the s.h.i.+ning table-lands To which our G.o.d himself is moon and sun.

Such was he, his work is done.

But while the races of mankind endure Let his great example stand Colossal, seen of every land, And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure: Till in all lands and thro' all human story The path of duty be the way to glory."

ROBERT TREAT PLATT.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] An address delivered before the University of Oregon, May 20, 1903.

THE GREAT WEST AND THE TWO EASTS.

A resounding chorus of gratulations will herald to the world within the next two years the first centennial of two events upon which the history of the Great West is founded--the purchase of Louisiana and the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the mouth of the Columbia River.

Whether the student of history at the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904 pause in admiration of the political foresight of Jefferson, or join in the general acclaim of the heroism of our first explorers at Portland, in 1905, the fact that will most impress him is that geographical lines have been obliterated and there is no West.

Migrations having their origin in the dim, remote past, and continuing down to the present, have brought the Aryan race face to face on the opposite sh.o.r.es of the great western ocean, and the world finds itself confronted with that condition which William H. Seward predicted, when, addressing himself to the commerce, politics, thought, and activities of Europe, he said they "will ultimately sink in importance, while the Pacific, its sh.o.r.es, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter." The East that Columbus sailed westward from Spain to discover will ever be the world's East; the West, "the remote sh.o.r.es that Drake had once called by the name of New Albion," will be the East of the World's Great East, and the West only in its geographical relation to the Atlantic seaboard of our own country.

The West has fulfilled every promise of its value to the Union made by its champions when its cause was before the people of the new Republic; it has refuted every prediction of dire effect made by the opponents of its acquisition. When the purchase of Louisiana was under consideration, the fear was expressed that people who would move to that region would scarcely ever feel the rays of the general government, their affections would be alienated by distance, and American interests would become extinct. The generous response of men and money made by Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, when the Union was in the throes of a struggle for its preservation, attests the loyalty of the Louisiana region. A Southern senator asked, in 1843, what good was Oregon for agricultural purposes, and said he would not give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. Yet the Oregon Country has given the Union three sovereign states, and part of its territory has been taken to form two other states; its occupation by Americans was a direct cause of the annexation of California; it has in the Columbia River and Puget Sound two important bases for military and naval operations; far from being inhospitable to the honest farmer of the Atlantic seaboard, or the Ohio Valley, it has one hundred thousand farms, valued at nearly $600,000,000. Alaska was denounced as a barren waste, that would never add one dollar to our wealth, or furnish homes to our people. Yet in less than forty years Alaska has supplied gold, fish, and furs worth $150,000,000, and has paid revenue to the government exceeding by $1,500,000 the price Russia got for it in 1867; and at no distant day Hawaii and the Philippines will justify American occupation by statistics as telling as those here presented of Louisiana, Oregon, and Alaska.

If a nonexpansive policy had prevailed in our national councils at the beginning of the nineteenth century; if the presidential chair had been occupied by another than the broad statesman who saw beyond the Mississippi, over the Rockies to the Pacific, and over the Pacific to the cradle of the world, we should now have an intolerable situation of affairs in North America. Had we refused Louisiana from Napoleon, what is now the United States would be part.i.tioned, geographically, about as follows: East of the Mississippi would be the Republic of the United States of America of 1783, with England in Canada on the north, and Spain in Florida and fringing the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana would have fallen into England's hands as a result of the Napoleonic wars, and so, perhaps, Oregon, either by reason of a favorable interpretation of the Nootka convention, or Vancouver's discoveries.

Mexico, as the successor of Spain, would own Texas and all the remainder of the west south of the forty-second parallel and not included in Louisiana. With a republic on one side, and European sovereignty on the other, the Mississippi would to-day be bristling with cannon. The purchase of Louisiana was political foresight, and the completion of our t.i.tle to Oregon was a direct result of the Louisiana transaction. The war with Mexico was the logical sequence of both. From whatever point we may regard it, the acquisition of the trans-Mississippi region, viewed in the perspective of a century, was worth what it cost in money, actual war, and risk of war with what, in the early stages of our history was the most powerful nation on the globe.

The beginnings of the West date from 1850. Further back the census reports do not present statistics that can be compared for valuable purposes, with present standards, although as early as 1840 there were nine hundred thousand people along the western sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, and Missouri. These states were long on the firing line of American civilization, and their people subsisted by general farming, or by outfitting ox-train merchandise caravans for Santa Fe and Chihuahua, or by outfitting and trading with pioneer settlers _en route_ to Oregon, or gold seekers flocking to California. Jim Bridger put up in southwestern Wyoming in 1843 the first post for the purpose of trading built west of the Mississippi River, and its establishment marked the beginning of the era of emigration to the Far West. Until a comparatively recent period a goodly portion of the public domain lying west of the Missouri River, and comprising perhaps five hundred thousand square miles, was mapped as the "Great American Desert" and they who penetrated its solitudes and returned unscathed to "civilization" were regarded with that curiosity that pertains to a traveler who has visited an unknown land. With the upbuilding of the country and the spread of knowledge of its capabilities, the t.i.tle of "Great American Desert" has been swept away, and the colored maps that ill.u.s.trate the books of the twelfth census, regard the white portion as "unsettled area." This includes a considerable area in every state and territory west of the ninety-ninth degree of longitude. East of that line the only white portion is in southeastern Florida. Progress in the half-century comprehended in this brief review has been remarkable and the present position of the West is strikingly shown in the appended statement, which represent its percentages of the total for the United States for the different items tabulated. In a few instances comparisons are made with 1890 and 1850:

=====================================+============================ Per cent.

+---------+---------+-------- 1900. 1890. 1860.

+---------+---------+-------- Gross area with Alaska 75.4 ---- ---- Gross area without Alaska 59.1 ---- ---- Population, gross 27.5 26.6 8.6 Urban population 17.6 [1]13.1 14.1 Number of farms 35.8 32.6 8.2 Acres improved 48.8 44.4 6.3 Farms, total valuation 44.1 [37]36.7 6.9 Farm products, value 43.2 37.4 20.3 Farm animals 59.4 ---- 11.9 Wool, yield 69.8 ---- 4.7 Hops, yield 64.3 ---- 7.1 Timber, area 55.4 ---- ---- Lumber product, value 32.4 24.9 10.0 Gold, yield 99.6 ---- ---- Silver, commercial value 99.8 ---- ---- Coal 15.1 ---- ---- Railroad mileage 45.2 ---- .25 Manufactures, value of product 16.1 14.5 3.9 Operatives in factories 12.2 11.9 3.1 Imports and exports 19.0 ---- ---- -------------------------------------+---------+---------+--------

POPULATION.

Aggregate population has increased 957. per cent in fifty years, and foreign population has grown faster than native:

==================+============+============+===========+=========== Per cent 1900. 1890. 1850. of increase, 1850-1900.

+------------+------------+-----------+----------- Americans 18,375,337 14,117,931 1,785,462 929.0 Foreigners 2,659,317 2,556,478 213,942 1143.0 +------------+------------+-----------+----------- Total 21,034,654 16,674,409 1,999,404 957.0 Per cent American 87.3 84.6 89.2 Per cent foreign 12.7 15.4 10.8 ------------------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------

The proportion of native born, which suffered a sharp decline between 1850 and 1890, because of the influx of foreigners to the mines of California, Montana, and Nevada, and to the farm lands of Minnesota and the Dakotas, is again in the ascendant, the net gain for the decade just ended having been 2.7 per cent. The native population is largest in the group of southwestern states and territories, Arkansas leading with 98.9 per cent; Indian Territory, 98.8 per cent; Louisiana, 96.2 per cent; Oklahoma, 96.1 per cent. Along the Pacific coast it is highest in Oregon, with 84.1 per cent, and lowest in California, with 75.3 per cent, Was.h.i.+ngton coming in between with 78.5 per cent. North Dakota, with 64.6 per cent, makes the poorest showing.

The proportion of natives in the West as a whole in 1900 was 1 per cent above the average for the Union, which was 86.3 per cent. The per cent of foreigners is highest in North Dakota, where it is 35.4, and lowest in Arkansas, where it is 1.1. Minnesota is the only State having to exceed 500,000 foreigners. California and Iowa have over 300,000 each.

The population of the West in 1850 consisted of 1,500,000 farmers and traders in the Louisiana country, that is, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Minnesota; 200,000 odd who had swarmed into Texas after it had been wrested from Mexico, some 60,000 in New Mexico, a group of gold diggers in California, a few thousand Mormons in Utah, and a handful of hardy pioneers who had braved privations and hostile savages on the plains in following the footsteps of Lewis and Clark to the Oregon country. At that time there were not quite 2,000,000 people in all the boundless region west of the Mississippi River. The establis.h.i.+ng of direct communication by the overland stage, followed by the building of the transcontinental railroad, stimulated growth, and by 1870 the West had attained considerable importance in population. In 1850 it reported 8.6 per cent of the total population of the Union; 26.6 per cent in 1890, and 27.5 per cent in 1900. In 1890 it had over four times the population of the new Republic in 1790 and not quite twice the population of the nation in 1820. In 1900 its population was somewhat under that of the whole country in 1850, the ratio being about 21 to 23. The appended table shows how the several states and territories of the West have progressed in the matter of population:

=================+============+============+============ 1850. 1890. 1900.

+------------+------------+------------- Arkansas 209,897 1,128,179 1,311,564 California 92,597 1,208,130 1,485,053 Colorado 412,198 539,700 Idaho 84,385 161,772 Iowa 192,214 1,911,896 2,231,853 Kansas 1,427,096 1,470,495 Louisiana 517,762 1,118,587 1,381,625 Minnesota 6,077 1,301,826 1,751,394 Missouri 682,044 2,679,184 3,106,665 Montana 132,159 343,329 Nebraska 1,058,910 1,066,300 Nevada 45,761 42,335 North Dakota 182,719 319,146 Oregon 13,294 313,767 413,536 South Dakota 328,808 401,570 Texas 212,592 2,235,523 3,048,710 Utah 11,380 207,905 276,749 Was.h.i.+ngton 349,390 518,103 Wyoming 60,705 92,531 Alaska 32,052 63,592 Arizona 59,620 122,931 Indian Territory 180,182 392,060 New Mexico 61,547 153,593 195,310 Oklahoma 61,834 398,331 +------------+------------+------------ Total 1,999,404 16,674,409 21,034,654 -----------------+------------+------------+------------

Louisiana, with 11.4 inhabitants to the square mile, was the most thickly settled state in the West in 1850. Missouri followed with 9.9; Arkansas with 4, and Iowa with 3.5. The average for the Union was 7.9.

That year the little State of Delaware, with 91,532 inhabitants, boasted of one two hundred and sixty-third part of the total population of the Union. Where was Oregon with about one seventh of Delaware's population and Minnesota with less than one half of Oregon's? In 1900 the density of the Union was 25.6 inhabitants per square mile. Three western states, Missouri, with 45.2, Iowa, with 40.2, and Louisiana, with 30.4, exceeded the general average. In the remainder of the states the density ranged from 0.4 in Nevada to 24.7 in Arkansas.

The colored population of the trans-Mississippi region is largely confined to the states in the southern belt, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In the Pacific states the colored population is princ.i.p.ally Chinese and j.a.panese.

Throughout the West, with the exception of Louisiana, the number of females to each 100,000 men is under the national average, which is 95,353. Louisiana reports 98,871, and Utah, for obvious reasons, follows with 95,324. Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Texas also have between 90,000 and 95,000 females to each 100,000 men, and in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, the average is over 85,000 and under 90,000. The proportion of women to each 100,000 men is exceedingly low in the Pacific coast and mountain states, being 80,987 in California; 73,265 in Idaho; 62,390 in Montana; 65,352 in Nevada; 77,495 in Oregon; 70,329 in Was.h.i.+ngton; 59,032 in Wyoming. Alaska reports 38,629.

Here, as in other parts of the Union, urban population is growing faster than rural. Comparison for this discussion is with the census of 1870, as the returns for any previous year would make too meagre a showing. In 1870 the West had 56 of the 226 places that reported a population of 4,000 and over. In 1890 the number was 176 out of 899, and in 1900 it was 251 out of 1,158. Of the West's total population in 1900, 20.3 per cent was urban, against 37.3 percent for the Union. In 1900, 17.6 per cent of the total urban population of the country lived in the West, 13.1 per cent in 1890, and 14.1 per cent in 1870.

California with 48.9 per cent and Colorado with 41.2 are above the average for the Union, while Was.h.i.+ngton, with 36.4 makes a close approach to the mark. For other states the average is: Iowa, 20.5; Kansas, 19.2; Louisiana, 25.1; Minnesota, 31; Missouri, 34.9; Montana and Wyoming, 28.6; Nebraska, 20.8; Oregon, 27.6; Utah, 29.4; Arkansas, 6.9; Idaho, 6.2; Nevada, 10.6; North Dakota, 5.4; South Dakota, 7.2; Texas, 14.9; Arizona, 10.6; Indian Territory, 2.5; New Mexico, 6.1; Oklahoma, 5. The following statement shows the drift of the population into the cities:

=================+=============+============+============+=========== Increase 1900. 1890. 1870. per cent, 1870-1900.

+-------------+------------+------------+----------- Urban population 5,024,876 3,723,427 1,145,033 338 Rural population 16,009,778 12,950,982 5,732,063 179 +-------------+-------- ---+------------+----------- Total 21,034,654 16,674,409 6,877,096 206 -----------------+-------------+------------+------------+-----------

In 1870 Saint Louis, New Orleans, and San Francisco were the only cities that had over 100,000 population. In 1900 ten cities exceeded 100,000, while eight other cities, Portland leading the contingent, had between 50,000 and 100,000. Since 1880 Seattle has advanced from one hundred and fifty-first place to forty-eighth place in the rank of American cities; Los Angeles from one hundred and thirty-fifth to thirty-sixth; Duluth from one hundred and fifty-second to seventy-second; Kansas City, Kansas, from one hundred and fifty-fifth to seventy-sixth; Portland from one hundred and sixth to forty-second; Tacoma from one hundred and fifty-seventh to one hundred and fourth; Spokane from one hundred and fifty-eighth to one hundred and sixth, and Dallas, Texas, from one hundred and thirty-seventh to eighty-eighth. So rapid is the growth of Portland and Seattle that before many years they must take position among the country's twenty largest cities.

AGRICULTURE.

The area of improved land in farms has increased nearly thirty-fold in fifty years, but has not kept pace with population. This table shows the details: