or upon their own recollections. None of this testimony is of earlier date than 1864, and nearly all of it is subsequent to the publication of the story in its most complete form. As much of it repeats the gross historical errors of the story as originally published, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that if these witnesses derived these errors from the printed narrative they probably derived other features of their testimony from the same source. If this is made probable, it does not necessarily convict these witnesses of conscious dishonesty. No one who appreciates the fallibility of human memory as an instrument of precision and understands the subtle influence upon the mind of suggestion need be confronted by the painful dilemma that either they must reject the evidence of their reasoning powers or believe that venerated friends have been dishonest. Again most of the controversy in regard to this matter has involved religious and sectarian interests and has been conducted in large measure by people at once untrained in weighing evidence and profoundly interested in the final judgment.
So far then as the oral testimony or written discussion is found inconsistent with the historical facts such inconsistency may be accounted for either as a conscious effort to deceive, an unconscious perversion owing to suggestion and inaccurate recollection, or as a misinterpretation of the evidence owing either to ignorance or bias.
The original account of Whitman's journey, its causes, purpose, and results was first published in a series of articles in The Pacific, a religious paper in San Francisco, in the fall of 1865, contributed by the Rev. H. H. Spalding, a colleague of Dr. Whitman in the Oregon mission.[1]
- ↑ For the date and place of the earliest publication of this story I am indebted to Mr. William I. Marshall of Chicago, who has made most painstaking and elaborate investigations into the history of the Whitman Legend (cf. his discussion of my paper before the American Historical Association at Detroit. It will be printed in the Annual Report for 1900). I had not been able to trace the story in print with a precise date earlier than the Congregationalist of Oct. 5, 1866. I am also indebted to Mr. Marshall for collating the text of this narrative as it is given by Spalding in Senate Exec. Doc. 37, 41st Congress, third session, with the
