Page:Oregon, End of the Trail.djvu/13

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political. Finally, an amateur artist drew a dust cover depicting the setting sun and proffered "The Sunset State."

And what of Oregon's future? It is, after all, only a few short years between the time when William Cullen Bryant wrote in one of his greatest poems about the primitive country "Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound," and the present, when Bonneville Dam has made a great gash in beautiful Columbia Gorge, and when the greatest structure in history, Grand Coulee, looms portentously to the north. Oregon today is still the most unspoiled and most uncluttered spot in America — partly because the gold rushes of California and Alaska left it undisturbed. Soon, perhaps, it will be changed by the coming of Power, the inrolling of immigration from the dust bowl, the devastation of timbercutting and forest fires, and the boosting activities of chambers of commerce. It may be regrettable to see this peaceful beautiful land transformed into a network of highways, clogged with cars and defaced with hot dog stands, the groves littered with tin cans and papers, the hills pock-marked with stumps, and the cities cursed with the slums that seem to accompany industrial progress.

The sons of Oregon today are tall and sturdy, and the complexion of the daughters is faintly like that of the native rose—a hue gained from living and playing in a pleasant outdoors. Will the sons of the impending industrial age be shorter and shrewder, and the daughters dependent for their beauty upon commodities sold in drug-stores; and will Oregonians become less appreciative of nature and rooted living and more avid and neurotic in the pursuit of wealth? These are some of the questions and misgivings in the minds of native Oregonians, including some of those who wrought the Oregon Guide.

Yet the writers of the Guide worked hard and gladly, though aware that their names would never be known. And only here can acknowledgment be made of their zeal and devotion. They were aided and encouraged by many citizens of Oregon who served as consultants, and by many institutions which gladly and courteously opened to them their stores of history and tradition and current fact. Among those who helped are: Leith Abbott, Dr. Burt Brown Barker, J. R. Beck, C. I. Buck, Dr. V. L. O. Chittick. Dr. R. C. Clark. H. L. Corbett, Dr. L. S. Cressman, Dr. H. C. Dake, Wm. L. Finley, George H. Flagg, Dr. James A. Gilbert, Frederick Goodrich, Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Griffith, Mrs. Charles A. Hart, M. T. Hoy, Herbert Lampman, Mrs. Katherine Lawton, Lewis A. McArthur, Roi Morin, Glen W. Neel, J. A. Ormandy, Dr. E. L. Packard, Jamieson Parker, Phil. Parrish, Professor