I well remember the last time I essayed a public address before the people of Salem. It was on the occasion of my graduation. The subject of my oration was the Latin adage, "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis." The times change and we are changed in them. I stood on the threshold of life, wondering what place I could fill in the world's work, vaguely anxious and afraid to take a step for fear it would be wrong. I peered into the future, wondering what changes the passing years would bring, and now returning after years of absence to represent a great state upon a great occasion, the words of my old commencement oration recur to my mind, "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis."
For this is a great occasion. We have come here to pay honor to the memory of one who made the great Northwest as we know it possible; to one to whom that highest tribute of praise can well be given, "He has done what he could"; to one who builded better than he knew. Well was his name Jason, for, like argonauts of old, he and his little band braved the terrors of unknown seas and the perils of unknown lands, not, indeed, in search of golden fleece or of any material aggrandizement, but to establish civilization and enlightenment upon the then most remote parts of this Western continent; to lay the foundations of an empire upon the Pacific slope, and to establish therein an institution of learning whose beneficent and widening influence should extend to the uttermost parts of the earth, and whose children should rise up and call her blessed. Such, then, have been the results of the work of Jason Lee, greater by far than any man then living would have dared to anticipate. Of the three states secured to the Union by the early advent of the missionary colonists headed by Jason Lee, I am asked to represent the youngest of the trinity, Idaho. I accept the task with alacrity. It is a pleasant duty to perform,
