Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/157

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Hall Jackson Kelley
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may have thought this harsh. Our people did not know, or care for, the equality he had perhaps been accustomed to. It should be borne in mind that discipline in those days was rather severe, and a general commingling would not do." Again, "Kelley was five feet nine inches hig^, wore a white slouched hat, blanket capote, leather pants, with a red stripe down the seam, rather otUri, even for Vancouver."^ To such straits had our dreamer come! But his "vision" had at last become a reality, and the lordly chief factor himself was soon to face it and to be overcome by it.*^ Somewhere it is written, "Some- times we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit."

26 Bancroft, Northwest Coast, 11, 5S0.

2/ "I early foresaw that the march of civilixation and i>rogres8 of peopling the Anftencan Territories, was westward and onward, and that but a few years would pass awajr before the whole valuable countij b^ween the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, then used as hunting and trapping grounds, and as the resting place of native tribes, must become the abode ox another race — ^American. This could neither be successfully resisted, nor did I deem it politic or desirable to attempt it. In this spirit I prepared myself to encourage, hasten, and further what I thought would be not only attended with good, but inevitable ....

"From 1834 to the present hour, I have spared neither time nor means, but liberally used both, to facilitate the settling of Oregon by whites; and that it has been my good fortune to do much in years stone by to relieve distress and promote the comfort and happiness of immigrants, I may fearlessly assert, and for proof need only to refer to the candid and just Americans who first came to the country." — McLougfalin, letter to Oregon Historical Society, Quarterly, VIII, 295–9.