morality, the intelligence and the force of its pioneer population, a provisional system embodying everything which modern statecraft deems essential to the welfare of the people.[1] Framed with small ceremony by frontiersmen in buckskin breeches to meet the necessities of a handful of people in a wilderness, it was made to accord with the conclusions of the most advanced political science. For public and private rights it afforded complete protection. It met every want of the time; it suppressed' not alone crime, but, in large measure, vice as well; while the cost of administration was relatively a mere fraction of what states commonly pay for worse service. If the capacity for wise self-government be in truth, as it is declared to be, the highest virtue of a people, multiplied honors are due to the pioneer spirit which created and accepted the provisional system of government—a system related, as the parent is related to the child, to the state government which continues to serve our needs.
The social and moral coordination which is so notable of Oregon life—especially notable when Oregon is contrasted with neighboring communities—is a direct achievement of the pioneer spirit. The sympathy which makes of Western Oregon a homogeneous community; the mutual understanding which checks the energies of social disorder before it rises to the degree of social menace; the friendliness of one "old Oregonian" for another; the respect for leadership which has continuously recognized and supported certain men of large talents in quasi-public relationships—these qualities have their foundation in the pioneer spirit. It is, too, the pioneer spirit that makes the fine social austerity which so pervades the moral atmosphere. It frowns upon a sensational and unclean press; it banishes gambling, even in its minor forms, from respectable circles; it knows not the lottery ticket; it ostracizes the trade in liquors and all who have to do with it. Of course, all this is provincial; that is undeniable; but a provincialism which has saved Oregon from public extravagance, which has built
- ↑ The provisional government of Oregon was created at Champoeg May 2, 1843.
