330 JOHN E. REES
to the effect "That all that portion of the territory of the United States north of the forty-second degree of latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains, shall constitute the Terri- tory of Oregon", which was the first time in history in which the words "Territory of Oregon" were used. 36 By reason of these various agitations public attention was, at least, directed to our western coast, and in his Annual Message to Congress, in 1824, President Monroe submitted to the consideration of Congress "the propriety of establishing a military post at the mouth of the Columbia River." 37
The occupation of the Oregon Country, by the English, was by the Hudson's Bay Company, a single "trading association whose sole aim was the pursuit of material interests of a hand- ful of capitalists. England had not founded a colony in Oregon, but a few Englishmen had constructed there a machine for producing wealth, which was kept going by its employees and in which Indians and Sandwich Islanders were the main wheels. The Company did not aim at the development of the country, but its exploitation. In promoting civilization, it labored only so far as the preservation of its pecuniary inter- ests made this unavoidable. If the interests of civilization actually or apparently came in conflict with these interests, they were trodden under foot." 38
In 1834, an American settlement sprang up in the Willamette valley which built homes for their families, cleared lands, cul- tivated crops and hewed out a place for civilization to exist. This settlement changed conditions of affairs, for American citizens as well as the interests of the country, demanded pro- tection of the government. In 1838, Senator Linn of Mis- souri, introduced a bill in the U. S. Senate to organize Oregon as a territory and establish on the Columbia a fort and custom house. However, from and after 1840, the people began to solve this question by immigration to this new country and "Not only had they brought with them the republican spirit of independence, sucked in with their mother's milk, the habits of self-reliance and self-rule-habits which from infancy were
36Benton's Thirty Years View, I, 13.
37 Richardson's Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
38 Von Hoist's Constitutional History, III, 44.
