CHAPTER 22
Harvey W. Scott
A great nature is a seed. . . . Thus it is that man is the only being that cannot die. . . . The path of glory does not end in the grave. It passes through it to larger opportunities of service—into a spirit that it stimulates and feeds, and into the spirit that survives it, in men's minds forever.
HARVEY W. SCOTT
No book is as important as a big daily newspaper the day the paper is published. Almost any good book is more important the day afterwards. The man who writes an editorial writes literature of no longevity; there is convenient forgetfulness of the one today for the one tomorrow. It may have a long existence for the student or antiquarian, but for the average man it is as perishable as a banana.
The writings of Horace Greely once had the widest influence of any writings in America but out of their great mass most people of today remember only "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country." So it is with Harvey W. Scott. There are still thousands living who used to read his editorials, but how many can quote him, how many carry in the depths of their appreciation the felicity of his language, how many find comfort in the remembrance of his philosophy? A newspaper is unmatched as an agency for impressing a personality upon contemporary life; but it has no reach in time; it affords a poor liaison with posterity.
Harvey W. Scott came closer than any other man to being a successor to John McLoughlin. His ipse dixits had almost the same force and their reach was greater. The vast region of Old Oregon Territory, politically separated, he rejoined in fealty to his imperious journalism.
