The American Board was a religious organization working under fixed rules, and expected every member in every field to obey those rules. But here was a man, whose salary had been paid by the Board for special work, away from his field of labor without the consent from headquarters. It is not at all unlikely that he was severely reprimanded. The officers of the American Board had no reason to know, as Christian people can see now, that Whitman was an inspired man, and a man about his Father's business. It is even reported, but not vouched for, that they ordered him to promptly repair to his post of duty, and dismissed him with his pockets so empty, that, when starting upon his ever-memorable return journey across the plains, "He had but money enough to buy only a single ham for his supplies."
One of his old associates who had frequent conferences with Whitman—Dr. Gray—says: "Instead of being treated by the American Board as his labors justly deserved, he met the cold, calculating rebuke for unreasonable expenses, and for dangers incurred without orders or instructions or permission from headquarters. Thus, for economical, prudential reasons, the Board received him coldly, and rebuked him for his presence before them, causing a chill in his warm and generous heart, and a sense of unmerited rebuke from those who should have been most willing to listen to all his statements, and been most cordial and ready to sustain him in his herculean labors." We leave intelligent readers to answer for themselves, whether this attitude of this great and influential and excellent organization has not been, in a measure, responsible for the neglect of this Hero, who served it and the Christian world with all faithfulness and honesty, until he and his noble wife dropped into their martyr graves? If they say yea, we raise the question whether the time has not been reached to make amends?
Dr. Barrows says, in his "Oregon and the Struggle for Possession," "It should be said in apology for both parties at this late day that, at that time, the Oregon Mission and its managing board were widely asunder geographically, and as widely separated in knowledge of the condition of affairs." Dr. Whitman seems to have assumed that his seven years' residence on the Northwest Coast would gain him a trustful hearing. But his knowledge gave him the disadvantage of a position and plans too advanced—not an uncommon mishap to eminent leaders. As said by Coleridge of Milton, "He strode so far before his contemporaries as to dwarf himself by the distance."
He adds that:
"Years after only, it was discovered by one of the officers of the American Board," that "It was not simply an American question then settled, but at the same time a Protestant question." He also refers to a recent work, "The Ely Volume," in which is discussed the question, "Instances where the direct influence of missionaries has controlled and hopefully shaped the destinies of communities and states," and illustrates by saying, "Perhaps no event in the history of missions will better illustrate this than the way in which Oregon and our whole Northwest Pacific Coast was saved to the United States."
This covered directly the Whitman idea. It was, as he before stated, a union of banners—the banner of the cross, and the banner of the country he loved. It took the spirit and love of both to sustain a man and to enable him to undergo the hardships and dangers and discouragements that he met, from the beginning to the end.
From Boston, with an aching heart, and yet doubtless serene over an accomplished duty, which he had faith to believe time would reveal in its real light, Dr. Whitman passed on to make a flying visit to his own and his wife's relations. From letters of Mrs. Whitman, it is easy to see that her prophecy was true; "He would be too full of his great work on hand, to tell much of the home in Oregon." His visit was hurried over and seemed more the necessity of a great duty than a pleasure.
But the Doctor's mind was westward. He had learned from Gen. Lovejoy that already there was gathering upon the frontier a goodly number of immigrants and the prospect was excellent for a large caravan. In the absence of Dr. Whitman, Gen. Lovejoy had neglected no opportunity to publish far and wide that Dr. Whitman and himself would, early in the Spring, pilot across the plains to Oregon, a body of immigrants. A rendezvous was appointed, not far from where Kansas City now stands, at the little town of Weston. But they were in various camps at Fort Leavenworth and other points, waiting both for their guide and for the growing spring grass—a necessity for the emigrant.
Certain modern historians have undertaken to rob Whitman of his great services in 1843, by gathering affidavits of people who emigrated to Oregon in that year, declaring, "We never saw Marcus Whitman," and "We were not persuaded to immigrate to Oregon by him," etc. Doubtless there were such upon the wide plains, scattered as they may have been, hundreds of miles apart. But it is just as certain that the large immigration to Oregon that year was incited by the movements of Whitman and Lovejoy, as any fact could be. There is no other method of explaining it. That he directly influenced every immigrant of that year, no one has claimed.
True, old Elijah White had paved the way, the year before, by leading in the first large band of agriculturist settlers; but men of families, undertaking a two thousand mile journey, with their families and their stock, were certainly desirous of an experienced guide. They may, as some of them say, never have met Whitman. He was not one of the free and easy kind that made himself popular with the masses.