fluence the prevailing economic situation and that the publishers were perfectly willing to devote extensive space to this type of material.
California as a market for Oregon products was discovered even in advance of the great gold discoveries of 1848 and was presented to the people of Oregon by the Spectator[1] in the light of an opportunity; as witness a letter from C. E. Pickett "of California" to General McCarver, P. H. Burnett, Colonel Ford, and D. Waldo, published in part, which related that "the Toulon (flour steamer) has sold out for $15 per barrel, making just about $10 cash profit on each barrel, in a ten days' sail from the Columbia." Also, "California wants 10,000 barrels of flour from Oregon the present year, if not more. . . . Tell your farmers to put in every grain of spring wheat they can possibly sow, and also a large crop next fall. California will have to import flour for two years to come, at least—and Oregon and Chile must supply this demand.
"Pine lumber . . . $80 per thousand feet, and still in demand; shingles, $8 per thousand
"Butter 50 to 62½¢ per pound; cheese, 25¢ send a good lot down. . . . Our currency is now all cash"
Years before the war department authorized the railroad surveys made by Isaac I. Stevens and others, in the fifties, the Spectator printed[2] a long editorial, more than a column, urging the practicability of a railroad to Oregon.
The subject of a national railroad to Oregon was one of the main topics of a public meeting held in Oregon City late in September of 1846. The Spectator in its issue of October 1 gave about a column of space to the proceedings of the meeting, at which not only was a resolution passed urging the government to put through such a line to Oregon but a committee of five headed by A. L. Lovejoy was appointed to take into consideration the propriety of devising some means whereby a general expression of opinion from the people in this territory could be had, relative to memorializing Congress on this and any other subject.
Communications published by the Spectator in the first few numbers of its second volume, under the editorship of George L. Curry, dealt extensively with roads into Oregon, with more or less argument over the relative advantages of northern and southern routes. There appeared also a two-column letter from A. Whitney, "projector of the great railway from the lakes to the Pacific," describing the proposed route and concluding
Immediate action is necessary; this question must be decided by next Congress—the lands from the lakes to the Mississippi are fast being taken up, and will soon be so much so as to defeat the object.[3]
Now for a few words about the various editors who conducted
