jury.
In another line of work, there was Brother C. C .
Riley, Oregon immigrant of 1853, who was pastor of
the Baptist churches at Lacreole, Union, Yamhill,
Shiloh and French Prairie:
Of all the ministers that I have had the good pleasure to
labor with or listen to, he was the ablest in exhortation I
ever heard; highly poetical in his flights of oratory.
Even Moses, an Indian chief, could break down the
prejudices against his race by the hallowed gift of
speech and oratorical looks:
He is now fifty years old...
.
Aside from the uncanny
and searching look of his restless eyes, he is almost the per
fection of barbarous beauty...
.
On account of his oratorical
ability and majestic mien, he has often been called the
Webster of the Columbia.
Marion Francis Mulkey, of Portland, came to Ore
gon in 1 847 as a boy and later went east to Yale with
J. W. Johnson, who became the first president of the
University of Oregon. But even the restraints of a
Yale training were sometimes broken through :
As a speaker he was logical, and kept his point in constant
view, compelling the attention of the jury, and convincing
them to the full extent of his premises. While usually cool
and unemotional, he was capable of breaking into passages
of deep feeling and eloquence.
The nature of the situation when there were two
well-known orators on the platform, opposed to each
other in tense and dramatic debate, has been described
by a reporter, perhaps by the editor himself, in any
thing but a non-partisan way, in the State Journal,
Eugene City, May 28, 1864:
Last Saturday a large crowd assembled in the court house
to hear the ex-Senator and secession candidate for the Vice
Presidency, Joe Lane. Gov. Gibbs, being present, was per
