Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/274

250 T. W. Davenport. style" is sometimes referred to as though it was a phase of personal controversy indicative of border ruffianism, and that could never occur again for want of a fretful border of civilization to produce it. But this shows how apt we are to accept a false judgment put up in portable shape, like cart- ridges that can be used at a moment's notice and saves the trouble of re-examination. But I am bold to declare that the ' ' Oregon style ' ' was as much superior to the personal gratings which may be seen in almost any number of the present day New York Tribune, as the wit of an Irishman is to the raw slang of an English butcher. What samples I have given of the "Oregon style" contain prima facie evidence that the pioneer editors of Oregon were men of imagination and could put wings to their scorpions. There was one item in The Statesman, penned no doubt by the editor, for which he will never be forgiven, neither in this world nor the world to come. Dr. James McBride, an early pioneer and a most estimable citizen, as well as a very useful member of society, being both a preacher and a practicing physician, was appointed by President Lincoln to some diplo- matic post in the Sandwich Islands. Soon after the appoint- ment, there was a published inquiry as to the whereabouts of the Doctor, to which The Statesman responded that the last seen of him, he was straddle of his cayuse, riding down along the coast and looking for "the ford." That the editor who perpetrated this heartless assault upon even a Black Repub- lican, is still living after a lapse of nearly half a century, goes to prove that he carries the mark of Cain. Human society anywhere is not on a dead level. Like the surface of the earth upon which it dwells, there are heights and depths, gentle savannahs and repulsive jungles; and as in the landscape the heights soonest catch and rivet our at- tention, and serve as monuments from which to fix its boundaries, so, in recording an epoch or phase of human de- velopment, we get our attention fixed upon prominent char- acters or those in the van of the movement, and thereby come to consider them its motive or propelling force, when in fact