218 Fred Wilbur Powell
life, who among the first to start the cry, never ceased halloo- ing until his wilderness was a state ....
"All his influence to a very fair extent I am disposed to ac- cord him. Had I been congress I would have given the old schoolmaster^ something to sweeten his second childhood's cup withal, and I would have praised and petted him somewhat in an official way, for he did more than many a well paid officer of the government. But when a human being breaks forth in insensate twaddle like this, 'Let me then be known by the work divinely appointed unto me to do, by the manner of life which the Lord Jesus revealed unto me in visions in my youth, by the eventful, extraordinary, and useful life, which God, ac- cording to his foreknowledge, did predestinate,' I do not much blame the republic for giving the poor fellow the cold shoul- der.^
"The history of human progress shows that great move- ments frequently receive their initial impulse from the most visionary and impractical of men. Perhaps the very quality of being visionary — prone to see visions — makes possible a forecast of results which lack of practical ability in the indi- vidual could never accomplish. John Brown did as much as any man to give direction to public thought in favor of the emancipation movement of the United States ; but a man less qualified than he to bring that movement to a successful issue could scarcely have been found. So with the vital question of the Northwest — the long-disputed Oregon question — it was preached, published, and kept before the public for many years by a man who proved himself wholly unfit to carry out his own schemes. This was a Boston schoolmaster. Hall J. Kelley . . .
"His crusade was a successful one in helping to turn men's minds to a subject of far-reaching importance, and in this respect the American people owe to his memory a debt of grati- tude. Although he never achieved the distinction of martyr- dom in the cause which he so boldly and persistently cham- pioned, he will stand in history as the John Brown of the
24 Bancroft, Northwest Coast, II, 543, 554*5i 559n.
