Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/595

My objection to Mr. Bancroft's methods would refer to the subject matter itself. There were certain important, and other exceedingly interesting features of history which should have been included in the Oregon volumes. One of these was the great "Oregon question", in the preparation of which I took much pains, and some others which related to the early settlement of the country. California was given seven volumes. In the first place Mr. Bancroft wished to restrict the history of Oregon to one volume. When I remonstrated and pointed out that there was really more and better material for American history in Oregon than in California, he yielded so much as to allow two volumes, expecting me to include Washington, whose early history was embraced in that of Oregon. As it turned out, there was no room for Washington in the second volume. Then followed the writing and arranging of the volumes on that division, with Idaho and Montana—all parts of the old Oregon Territory. In the same manner I wrote Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.

There is nothing, perhaps, to distinguish either Mr. Bancroft or myself in these achievements; but such work as I have done I shall continue to claim. Mr. Oak, who was for 16 years in the Bancroft library doing similar work on the native races, and the first five volumes of California, wrote me that I had done quite right in placing my name on the four volumes which were distinctly mine. Other gentlemen in the historical service said the same, and there are witnesses enough to the facts as I have here stated them.

There are many passages in the Oregon volumes from Mr. Bancroft's pen, thrown in apparently with a design to add chic to the style. In my humble opinion, they add nothing to the value of history. They do sometimes startle the unsuspecting reader who comes suddenly upon them, as where I am made to say, in speaking of the conduct of the immigrants of 1841, at Vancouver: "Man is a preposterous pig!" The same criticism applies to some parts of the missionary history, and to the Indian wars. We never agreed on