Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/51

POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 43 As a contributive force to the movement for Democratic organization, Bush began gradually to reopen the capital loca- tion question in the Statesman. The governor maintained his position that the location act was invalid and therefore not binding upon him. On this ground he refused to concur in the expenditure of the appropriations for public buldings. This action had the force of a veto upon the bill as the attorney- general of the United States had given his opinion that the governor's concurrence was necessary to make such expendi- ture legal. 1 General dissatisfaction resulted and the hostility to Governor Gaines increased. A perusal of the personal cor- respondence of some of the Democratic leaders at this time shows that there was a hesitancy felt by some in forcing this issue as a basis for party alignment. The aggressiveness of Bush in the matter was questioned by his colleagues in 1851. He maintained privately that while he did not "consider it exactly a political matter, yet the parties concerned necessarily make it somewhat so, especially if we look ahead a few years." 2 His influence was apparently dominant in the matter as some of the conservative ones soon became the most active in the cause. The Statesman of September 16th contained a three- column contributed article on the location law from the Salem point of view, signed "Yamhill" and evidently written by M. P. Deady of La Fayette, to whom Bush had written only the month before, justifying himself. Deady was one of the most prominent of the young Democratic leaders and was a man of marked ability. Bush called attention to the article editorially, justifying the amount of space given to it by the importance of the subject and the ability and research with which it was discussed. And in view of its importance to the people of Oregon, he invited communications "from all sources and upon all sides, written in the spirit of courtesy, candor and honest inquiry which characterizes the one we publish i Bancroft, Vol. II., p. 160. aBush to Deady, August 19, 1851. "Now Deady just place yourself in my position with a very natural feeling of hostility to the band of government officers . . . and tell me in what respect you would Jave taken a dif- ferent course."