a sound and stable currency. He was among the first to recognize the hazard involved in any and all schemes of inflation. He foresaw clearly the dangers involved in the earlier efforts of the inflationists and long before the silver menace was realized elsewhere, he spoke in Prophesy and in protest. During many years his was a lone voice crying in the wilderness; and as the silver movement developed and waxed strong his protest became more earnest and vehement. And as he stood in the front of the fight at its beginning so he stood in the mighty struggle of 1906 in which it culminated. No other man in the country, in public life or out of it, carried on so long and so able a campaign as did Mr. Scott.[1] I chance to know that it is the opinion of those best qualified for judgment that Mr. Scott's earnestness and strength in this great contest was from first to last the most powerful individual force in it. And to my mind his early insight into this subject with his subsequent presentments of fact and reason with respect to it form perhaps the best exposition of the powers of his mind exercised in relation to a purely practical matter.
I am loath to pass on from the professional phase of Mr. Scott's career, for though my reverence is more for the man than for the editor, there was that in his purely professional character which sustained very exceptional standards of journalism—standards which under the amazing prosperity which recent years have brought to the business of newspaper publishing have been well nigh overborne. A fine sense of social responsibility, an intense respect for fundamental considerations, the disposition to get from himself the best that was in him in matters small and large, the quick conscience with respect to fact no matter how grievous the labor required to develop it, an integrity of mind which would not descend to the smallest public deception, a mental intrepidity which reckoned not at all upon consequences, the ability to work and the
- ↑ Mr. Scott began his fight against free coinage of silver in 1877; the contest culminated in the November election of 1896. It was universally admitted that Republicans then carried the gold standard issue in Oregon through efforts of Mr. Scott. Fourteen years later, shortly before his death, Mr. Scott said that that issue was the grayest that had confronted the nation since the civil war, on account of the industrial and political danger threatened by debased standard of value.
