president of the United States).
We live in a land of promise and beauty. Our state is on the threshold of a great career. We are rapidly increasing in population, wealth and power. Our thoughts stretch away in wonder at what Oregon will be when this celebration is repeated at the end of another hundred years. Nothing is necessary to stimulate the material progress of our state, but eternal vigilance is the price of moral character. Our fields may excel in the fruits of the earth, our mountains unbosom their mineral riches, our commerce bring the wealth of foreign lands to our shores; but all these will be as dross if they pour their treasures into the lap of a debauched and degraded people. Oregon, with all its advantages, may aspire to stand in moral comparison among her sister states, as Mount Hood stands among the other mountains, robed in whiteness and purity. To put our young state upon this eminence should be the great ambition of our people. Let us labor to this end. Let the rich man give his money, the intellectual man his learning, and all others their influence, to build up our state upon the solid foundations of intelligence and virtue. Money and merchandise are transient and perishable; but this is something that moth and rust cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Let us do our full duty in this respect, and future generations will be as grateful to us as we are to Washington and his compeers, and
