I have said that Thurston claimed the Oregon land bill as his own. It was his own so far as concerned the amendments which damaged the interests of men in the country whom he designated as foreigners, but who really were the first white persons to maintain a settlement in the country, and who as individuals, were in every way entitled to the same privileges as the citizens of the United States, and who had at the first opportunity offered themselves as such. In no other sense was it his bill. There was not an important clause in it which had not been in contemplation for years, or which was not suggested by the frequent memorials of the legislature on the subject. He worked earnestly to have it pass, for on it, he believed, hung his reëlection. So earnestly did he labor for the settlement of this great measure, and for all other measures which he knew to be most desired, that though they knew he was a most selfish and unprincipled politician, the people gave him their gratitude.[1]
A frequent mistake of young, strong, talented, but inexperienced and unprincipled politicians, is that of going too fast and too far. Thurston was an exceedingly clever fellow; the measures which he took upon himself to champion, though in some respects unjust and infamous, were in other respects matters which lay very near the heart of the Oregon settler. But like Jason Lee, Thurston overreached himself. The good that he did was dimmed by a sinister shadow. In September a printed copy of the bill, containing the obnoxious eleventh section, with a copy of his letter to the house of representatives, and other like matter, was received by his confidants, together with an injunction of secrecy until sufficient time should have
- ↑ Grover, Public Life in Oregon, MS., 98–9, calls the land bill 'Thurston's work, based upon Linn's bill;' but Grover simply took Thurston's word for it, he being then a young man, whom Thurston persuaded into going to Oregon. Johnson's Cal. and Or., which is, as to the Oregon part, merely a reprint of Thurston's papers, calls it Thurston's bill. Hines, Or. and Institutions, does the same; but any one conversant with the congressional and legislative history of Oregon knows better.
