up its commercial credit, which has protected against the domination of the socialistic political demagogue and the machinations of the professional boomer, which has made education universal, which has conserved the good offices of religion and which has promoted the higher interests of civilization—such a provincialism is a saving salt which any community may thank God for. Oregon has it, and it is to the pioneer spirit that Oregon owes it.
Oregon is curiously faithful to those who redeemed it from the wilderness. Since 1856 the population of the state has multiplied five-fold. Every country and every race have contributed to the expansion; but the forces which started with the earlier years have continued to dominate. Habits planted at the beginning still rule the land. A thousand influences have intruded themselves, but they have bent to the conditions which existed before them. We have now at the end of the century a very different Oregon from the Oregon of the "fifties"; but it has been wrought out by evolution, not by revolution. The Oregon of today is the true child of the earlier Oregon, with the family likeness strong, with the family traits predominating. The pioneer makes, now as ever, the spirit of the country. Others have prospered, in a material sense, more largely than the pioneer. But from him have come, broadly speaking, the lawgivers, the teachers and the preachers of the country. This is the pioneer's land, and his spirit rules it. And the land might be far worse.
THE SLUGGISH WILLAMETTE VALLEY.
(The Oregonian, March 25, 1899.)
The only immediate hope of such a wake-up and shake-up of the Willamette Valley as will stir its latent forces and bring the country into line with modern industrial life and spirit, lies in the possibility of effort from the outside. The valley will do little for itself. The power of adaptation to new ways
