216 HARRISON C. DALE
expedient and subserve the best interests of and promote the general welfare of the society," made provision by taxation for the incidental expenses of the society, audited all accounts, and kept minutes of all meetings. Along side this civil organi- zation was a set of military officers including a captain, two lieutenants, and three sergeants, "whose duty it shall be to drill and exercise the company in military tactics." All able- bodied men between the ages of seventeen and forty-five were obliged to perform military duty while on the march. It was clearly provided in the following articles that the military authority was to be subordinate to the civil. "They (the Trustees and Councilmen) shall also when on the march meet in council and consult with the military officers of the com- pany and a majority of the whole shall determine the course to be pursued in any case of emergency." As there were six- teen civil officers to six military, control by the former was assured. Even more specific constitutional regulations were made to the effect that the Trustees and Councilmen shall have "a general supervision over and regulation of the military and have appellate jurisdiction of any decrees of the military officers of the company." 423 -
The adoption of the final or essentially military organization was frequently postponed until the emigrants had got well under way. Thus the Burnett-Applegate company of 1843 waited till they had been out ten days, 43 and the company of 1845, of which Joel Palmer was the historian, seven days, 44 before proceeding to a supposedly final military organization. Such a proposition to postpone the final election of officers until the emigrants had passed the Kansas river was made at the first rendezvous of one of the companies of 1846 but was rejected. 45 This same tendency is perhaps discernible in the provisions of another company that no lieutenants (i. e.
42a Constitution of the Oregon Emigration Society of Iowa Territory, at Iowa City, in Iowa Journ. of Hist, and Pol. X, 419-423.
43 Burnett, Recollections and Opinions, Oreg. Hist. Quart., VII, 329 ff.
44 Joel Palmer, Journal of Travels Over the Rocky Mountains, Thwaites, Early Western Travels, Vol. XXX, pp. 9, 15.
45 Bryant, Whet I Saw in California, p. 31. Cf. F, O. M'Cown, Address, O. P. A. Transactions, 1884, p. 19.
