332 W. C. Woodward be no longer any question as to which had fulfilled the second condition for valid title, in occupation and settlement. The American settlers had won, for themselves and the United States. In the first place they were winners of empire ; in the second, builders of state. "This great movement of immigrants to Oregon from 1843 to 1846, inclusive, may not even now be thoroughly understood nor explained, but it is fully appre- ciated. With all its dangers and hardships, with all its mystery and simplicity and its commonplaces, it stands today one of the most daring colonizing movements for, and the most re- markable, interesting and romantic story of the settlement and upbuilding of any part of the continents of the two Americas." 1 iF. V. Holman, "Dr. John McLoughlin," p. 89.
