having the power to revise its own charter. A constitutional amendment of 1906 forbids the formation of corporations by special laws (formerly the constitution provided that corporations “shall not be created by special laws except for municipal purposes”) and says: “The legislative assembly shall not enact, amend or repeal any charter or act of incorporation for any municipality, city or town.” The initiative and the referendum are employed in municipal ordinances as well as in state laws; towns and cities make their own provisions as to “the manner of exercising the initiative and referendum powers as to their own municipal legislation”; but “not more than 10% of the legal voters may be required to order the referendum nor more than 15% to propose any measure by the initiative, in any city or town.”
Miscellaneous Laws.—The value of the homestead exempt from judicial sale for the satisfaction of liabilities is limited to $1500; the homestead must be owned and occupied by some member of the family claiming the exemption and may not exceed in area one block in a town or city or 160 acres outside of a municipality. The exemption is not valid against a mortgage, but the mortgage must be executed by both husband and wife, if the householder is married. The debtor claims the exemption where the levy is made, but if the sheriff deems the homestead greater in value than the law allows, he may choose three disinterested persons to appraise it and sell any portion that may be adjudged in excess of the legal limit. The constitution provides that the property and pecuniary rights of every married woman, at the time of her marriage, or afterwards, acquired by gift, devise or inheritance, shall not be subject to the debts or contracts of the husband; and that laws shall be passed providing for the registration of the wife’s separate property. Marriages between whites and persons of negro descent, between whites and Indians, and between first cousins are forbidden or are void. One year’s residence is necessary to secure a divorce, for which the causes recognized are a conviction of felony, habitual drunkenness for one year, physical incapacity, desertion for one year and cruelty or personal indignities.
Education.—The public school system (organized 1873) is administered by the state superintendent of public instruction, who exercises a general supervision over the schools, and by the state board of education, which prescribes the general rules and regulations for their management. For the support of the schools there is a school fund, amounting on the 1st of April 1909 to $5,861,475, and consisting of the moneys derived from the sale of lands donated by the Federal government and of small sums derived from miscellaneous sources. The fund is administered by a board consisting of the governor, the secretary of state and the state treasurer, and the income from it is apportioned among the counties according to the number of children of school age. The counties are also required to levy special school taxes, the aggregate annual amount of which shall be equivalent to at least seven dollars for every child between the ages of four and twenty years. If the total annual fund for a school district amounts to less than $300, the district must levy a special tax to bring the fund up to that sum. Each school district in the state is required to have a school term of six months or more. Special county taxes are levied for the maintenance of public school libraries also. For all children between the ages of nine and fourteen inclusive, school attendance is compulsory.
The total number of teachers in the public schools in 1908 was 4243; the total school enrollment, 107,493; the average daily attendance 94,333. In 1908 there was paid for the support of common schools $3,061,994; the average monthly salary of rural teachers was $49·60, and of school principals, $80·87. The proportion of illiterates is low: in 1900 of the total population 10 years of age or over only 3·3% was illiterate; of the male population of the same age 3·9%, of the female 2·3% and of the native white population only 0·8% were illiterate.
In addition to the public schools, the state maintains; the University of Oregon at Eugene (q.v.) the State Agricultural College (1870), at Corvallis (pop. 1900, 1819), the county-seat of Benton county, and the State Normal School (1882) at Monmouth (pop. in 1900, 606), in Polk county. Among the institutions not receiving state aid are Albany College (Presbyterian, 1867), at Albany; Columbia University (Roman Catholic, 1901), at Portland; Dallas College (United Evangelical, 1900), at Dallas; Pacific University (Congregational, 1853), at Forest Grove; McMinnville College (Baptist, 1858), at McMinnville; Pacific College (Friends, founded in 1885 as an academy, college opened in 1891), at Newberg; Philomath College (United Brethren, 1866), at Philomath; and Willamette University (Methodist Episcopal, 1844), at Salem.
Charitable and Correctional Institutions.—The state supports the following charitable and correctional institutions: a soldiers’ home (1894) at Roseburg and a school for deaf mutes (1870), an institute for the blind (1873), a reform school, an insane asylum and a penitentiary at Salem, the capital of the state. These institutions (except the penitentiary, of which the governor of the state is an inspector) are governed each by a board of three trustees, the governor of the state and the secretary of state serving on all boards, and the third trustee being the state treasurer on the boards for the state insane asylum, the state reform school and the institute for the feeble-minded, and the superintendent of public instruction on the boards for the school for deaf mutes and the institute for the blind.
Finance.—The constitution forbids the establishment or incorporation by the legislative assembly of any bank or banking company; and it forbids any bank or banking company in the state from issuing bills, checks, certificates, promissory notes or other paper to circulate as money. Except in case of war the legislative assembly may not contract a state debt greater than $50,000. To pay bounties to soldiers in the Civil War a debt of $237,000 was contracted; but in 1870 only $90,000 of it was still outstanding. An issue of bonds (to be redeemed from the sale of public lands) for a privately built canal at Oregon City was authorized in 1870. About $175,000 more of debt was incurred by Indian wars in 1874 and 1878; in the latter year the public debt amounted to more than $650,000, but about $350,000 of this was in 10% warrants for road-building, &c.; the bonds and warrants (with the exception of some never presented for redemption) were speedily redeemed by a special property tax. Revenues for the support of the government are derived from the following sources: the general property tax, the poll tax (the proceeds of which accrue to the county in which it is collected), the inheritance tax, corporation taxes, business taxes and licenses and fees. By far the most important source of revenue is the general property tax, which is assessed for state, county and municipal purposes. The amount of revenue to be raised for state purposes each year by this tax is computed by a board consisting of the governor, the secretary of state and the state treasurer, and it is apportioned among the counties on the basis of their average expenditures for the previous five years. At the close of the year 1907 the state was free from bonded indebtedness; receipts into the treasury during the year were $2,851,471, and the expenditure was $2,697,645.
History.—As to the European who first saw any portion of the present Oregon there is some controversy and doubt. It is known that within thirty years after the discovery of the Pacific Ocean the Spaniards had explored the western coasts of the American continent from the isthmus to the vicinity of the forty-second parallel of north latitude, and it is possible that the Spanish pilot Bartolomé Ferrelo (or Ferrer), who in 1543 made the farthest northward voyage in the Pacific recorded in the first half of the 16th century, may have reached a point on the Oregon coast. The profitable trade between the Spanish colonies and the Far East, however, soon occupied the whole attention of the Spaniards, and caused them to neglect the exploration of the coast of north-western America for many years. In 1579 the Englishman, Francis Drake, came to this region seeking a route home by way of the North-west Passage, and in his futile quest he seems to have gone as far north as 43°.[1] He took possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth and called it Albion. Near the end of the century persistent stories of a North-west Passage caused the Spanish rulers to plan further explorations of the Pacific coast, so as to forestall other nations in the discovery of the alleged new route and thus retain their monopoly of the South Sea (Pacific Ocean). In 1603 Sebastian Vizcaino, acting under orders of the viceroy of Mexico, reached the latitude of 42° N., and Martin Aguilar, with another vessel of the fleet, reached a point near latitude 43° which he called Cape Blanco and claimed to have discovered there a large river. For the next century and a half Spain again neglected this region, until the fear of English and Russian encroachment caused her to resume the work of exploration. In 1774 Juan Perez sailed up the coast as far as 54° N. lat., and on his return followed the shore line very closely, thus making the first real and undisputed exploration of the Oregon coast of which there is any record. In the following year Bruno Heceta landed off what is now called Point Grenville and took formal possession of the country, and later, in lat. 46° 9′, he discovered a bay whose swift currents led him to suspect that he was in the mouth of a large river or strait. In 1778 Jonathan Carver (q.v.) published in London Travels throughout the Interior Parts of North America, in which, following the example of the Spaniards, he asserted that there was a great river on the western coast, although, so far as is known, no white man had then ever seen such a stream. Whether his declaration was based on stories told by the Indians of the interior, or upon reports of Spanish sailors, or had no basis at all, is not known; its chief importance lies in the fact that Carver called this undiscovered stream the Oregon, and that
- ↑ Some early writers assert that Drake even reached the lat. of 48° N. and anchored in the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
