MEMORIAL ADDRESS FOR F. X. MATTHIEU 77
It was their high good fortune to face an opportunity that is seldom offered in the history of any nation. It was a call, not so much for men of talent, as men of purpose, fitted for taking the raw material that frontier conditions provide and moulding it into form. The black frock coats of Gray and Parrish, of Griffin and Beers, of Willson, Babcock and Hines, contrasted no less strangely with the buckskin suits of Meek and Newell and Ebbert, than did their habits, their ideals, and their life purposes. But they were as one in their impulses, and their conceptions of the orderly forms, that were needed to promote the commo'n good. Political opinions, considered in the narrow party sense, did not divide them.
Such differences as existed were based upon various social and moral conditions, and their respective national, religious and commercial affiliations. Any ordinary public hall would have housed the whole American population the'n living in the western half of the continent. The American population at the beginning of 1842 was 137, including women and children, although this number was almost doubled by the end of the year. Of the 102 men who voted at the meeting of May 2, 1843, the 50 who voted against organization were all of the Catholic faith, and of French or French-Canadian descent, whose relations to Dr. McLoughlin and the Hudson Bay Com- pany were such as to make it almost a duty to take the stand they did.
For their course there cari be no reasonable word of censure. The sincerity of their motives is not open to question. Of the 52 men who took the American side when Joe Meek dramatically called for a divide, five including Matthieu and Lucier, were of the Catholic faith, four were Baptists, six Congregationalists, six Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians and fourteen Methodists, while the affiliation of nine are unknown. Five were natives of England, two of Scotland, one of Ire- land, two, Matthieu and Lucier, of Canada, one each of Ala- bama, North Carolina and the District of Columbia, three each of Ohio and New Hampshire, four each of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, ten of New York, and six unknown.
