“Strangely enough, England, too, claimed this same territory by virtue of rights ceded to it by Russia and also by the Vancouver surveys of 1792. The Hudson’s Bay Company established a number of trading posts and filled the country with adventurous fur traders. So here was a vast territory, as large as New England and the state of Illinois combined, which seemed to be without any positive ownership. But for Marcus Whitman, it would have been lost to the Union.
“It was in 1836 that Dr. Whitman and a man by the name of Spaulding, with their young wives, the first white women that ever crossed the Rocky mountains, entered the valley of the Columbia and founded a mission of the American board. They had been sent out to christianize the Indians, but Whitman was also to build a state.
“He was at this time thirty-five years old. In his journey to and fro for the mission he soon saw the vast possibilities of the country, and he saw, too, that the English were already appraised of this and were rapidly pouring into the territory. Under the terms of the treaties of 1818 and 1828, it was the tacit belief that whichever nationality settled and organized the territory, that nation would hold it. If England and the English fur traders had been successful in their plans the three great states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho would now constitute a part of British Columbia. But it was not destined to be.
“In the fall of 1842 it looked as if there would be a great inpouring of English into the territory, and Dr. Whitman took the alarm. There was no time to lose. The authorities at Washington must be warned. Hastily bidding his wife adieu, Dr. Whitman started on his hazardous journey. The perils, hardships and delays he encountered on the way we can but faintly conceive. His feet were frozen, he nearly starved, and once he came very near losing his life. He kept pushing on, and at the end of five terrible months he reached Washington.
“He arrived there tired and worn; a bearded, strangely picturesque figure, clad entirely in buckskin and fur, a typical man of the prairies. He asked audience of President Tyler and Secretary of State Webster and it was accorded him. All clad as he was, with his frozen limbs, just in from his 4,000-mile ride, Whitman appeared before the two great men to plead for Oregon.
“His statement was a revelation to the administration. Previous to Whitman’s visit, it was the general idea in congress that Oregon was a barren, worthless country, fit only for wild beasts and wild men. He opened the eyes of the government to the limitless wealth and splendid resources of that western territory. He told them of its great rivers and fertile valleys, its mountains covered with forests, and its mines filled with precious treasures. He showed them that it was a country worth keeping and that it must not fall into the hands of the British. He spoke as a man inspired and his words were heeded.
“What followed—the organization of companies of emigrants, the rapid settlement of the territory and the treaty made with Great Britain in 1846, by which the forty-ninth parallel was made the boundary line west of the Rocky mountains, are matters of history.
“The foresight and the heroism of one man and his gallant ride had saved three great stars to the Union.”
Compare those perils and horseback rides of Whitman “then” to what Vice President Stevenson says of his ride from the Pacific coast to Washington, D. C., “now.”
He said: “The passenger service on the Great Northern railway is equal to the best in the land, not to speak of the buffet car, which, in itself, is one of the greatest conveniences to tourists in making long journeys I ever enjoyed. So elaborate and complete are the accommodations that a man hardly realizes that he is traveling. It is a comfortable thing to find a library of books and tables spread with magazines, daily papers and writing materials, easy chairs and bath rooms, a barber shop and smoking room. It really seems as though a man had left his home and gone to his club, to step aboard this car.”