Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/385

Slavery Question in Oregon. 357 time when fate stood pointing the way to immortality as the reward of supreme endeavor. The immediate future seemed big with events, and his old friend and compeer, Lincoln as President, would bring to view still higher summits and broader vistas to stimulate his ambition, wherefore Baker began a triumphal march from the Oregon metropolis to the Golden Gate, addressing the people by the way. His speeches were amazing in their patriotic fervor and altitude, lifting the electorate from the sordid plane of mere self-service and parti- san jealousy, into the generous and starlit atmosphere of heroic social service. The climax was reached in San Francisco in his immortal speech at the theatre, during which one of the re- porters, Frank Pixley, threw away his pencil, rushed bare- headed into the streets and gesticulating wildly, cried at the top of his voice, ' ' Come in ! Come in ! The Old Man is talking like a God." He was near to the condition of the Hebrew prophet who was translated and the whole audience w^as swayed into ecstasy. Baker's whole course from this time until the fatal blunder at Ball's Bluff was the most brilliant and surprising in our history. His speeches in the Senate and the one at Union Square, New York, were such as only Baker could make, and no one can have any just compre- hension of their effects upon an audience by reading them. One must have seen that perfect form in action, must have heard that soul-laden voice, must have witnessed the inde- scribable effects of those wonder-working eyes, to have any proper measure of the power and influence of E. D. Baker. Shortly after the senatorial election, I went again to Rogue River Valley, accompanied by my family, to remain over winter. Democratic politics was as dominating there as in 1857, but not so one-sided, as it was split in twain, the Breck- enridgers claiming the greater part. Though sadly in the minority, the followers of the Little Giant were quite resolute to maintain his principles, and refused any coalition with the ether wing which treated them to the name, Mulattos," a bad stroke of policy, for vinegar never catches flies. When we arrived in Phoenix, Colonel Baker had been there and