LETTER OF JESSE APPLEGATE
399
the engine, the pioneer follows the beaver to a
more
quiet
land.
True, there are some
among
us
who
differ
from the
rest,
who came
to preach the gospel to the heathen. They are entitled to honor for their motive, however small their success.
But for myself and those of my class I claim no higher motive for coming here than the inherent restlessness of our nature, and if we have done any praiseworthy thing it has only been incidental to aims purely selfish, and so far from being proud of the years I have been in this country, I am ashamed to confess the insufficient motives
upon which
I acted.
Most of us were
well-to-do farmers or, rather, graziers, in the valley of the Mississippi, had young and growing families and the means to educate them up to the requirements of civilization,
which must overtake us
advantages to a land almost
in the end.
unknown, and
We
fled these
to be reached only
by a journey so long and exhaustive that there was no more retrieving it than to return from the grave. Yet we started with slow moving ox teams, encumbered with our wives and children and all our worldly wealth, to cross a continent intersected by great rivers and high mountain ranges and the way beset by fierce and treacherous enemies. Those who came to Oregon in 1843 can never forget the toils,
the dangers, the sufferings of that journey, nor the years that followed after
of want and struggle True, our coming
!
incidentally established or at least hastened the establishment of the Republic on the shores of the Pacific. But is even this much of honor our due? Is it not rather the due of Senator Benton, whose far-seeing statesman-
ship comprehended at that early day the great value of our Pacific possessions, and whose sagacity directed him to the choice of the proper instruments to secure them?
Decree a statue to the Hon. Thos. H. Benton, if you choose, let his humble and almost blind instruments slip away to
but
their
unknown
graves.
Very
respectfully,
JESSE APPLEGATE.