practical a method. It will soon be half a century since 257 Dr. Whitman and his noble wife fell at their post of duty at Waiilatpui. Had Dr. Whitman been a millionaire, a man of noble birth, had he been a military man or a statesman, his praise would have been sung upon historic pages as the praise of others has. But he was only a poor missionary doctor, who lost his life in the vain effort to civilize and Christianize savages, and an army of modern historians seem to have thought, as we have shown in another chapter, that the world would sit quietly by and see and applaud while they robbed him of his richly won honors. In that they have over-reached themselves. The name of Dr. Marcus Whitman will be honored and revered long after the names of his traducers have been obliterated and forgotten.
It is a name with a history, which will grow in honor and importance as the great States he saved to the Union will grow into the grandeur they naturally assume. There is not a clearer page of history in all the books than that Dr. Whitman, under the leading of Providence, saved the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to the Union. There is a possibility that by a long and destructive war we might have held them as against the claims of England. There were just two men who prevented that war and those two men were Drs. Whitman and McLoughlin. The
