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a very unfounded statement. But a careful survey of the whole field of enter- prise, the commerce of the world, and the standard of living throughout the United States, will show that the discovery of gold wrought a greater change in the United States and the financial relations of this country to other nation^, than any other one fact or any other one hundred facts, subsequent to the inde- pendence of these states.
Up to the year 1848 the United States had possessed a very narrow metallic base for a circulating medium. And what the country did possess was mostly silver coin. Gold coin, the delight of kings and the sceptre of millionaires, was exceedingly scarce in the United States ; and on this account the financial stand- ing of this country and the rating of its securities were practically at the mercy of the Bank of England and the house of Rothchilds, which financial institutions either possessed or controlled the great bulk of the gold coin of the world. When the mines of California commenced to pour out their great flood of gold, every line of business in the whole of the United States took on new life. And within five years after this great discovery, there were more manufacturing establish- ments started in the United States than had been for a generation before that event. The banking institutions took on a new phase altogether. From securing circulating notes with deposits of states bonds, which were not payable in gold, and of doubtful specie value on any liquidation of assets, the banks began to accumulate gold. Gold begot confidence as nothing else ever had before, and people more freely deposited their savings in banks. From a starving little near- to-shore business, the banks were enabled to extend accommodations to manu- facturers and producers of wealth. And railroads that had been for twenty years creeping out slowly from Atlantic seaports to the Alleghany mountains, found sale for their securities, pushed on over the mountains and out into the great Mississippi valley, and on across the continent reaching Portland, Oregon, a quarter of a century before they had expected to get to Chicago under the old paper money financiering days before the discovery of the gold. The flood of gold changed the whole face of affairs, put new life into all business and com- mercial undertakings, brought all the states and communities together under one single standard of values, and pushed the United States to the front as the great- est wealth-producing nation on the face of the earth.
And here Oregon comes to the front again. The discovery which lifted America above all the nations, was made by an Oregonian. James W. Marshall, the discoverer of gold in California was an Oregonian. He came to Oregon in the immigration of 1844, and not finding much to do here, went down to Cali- fornia the next year. He was a handy sort of a man, could build a house, run a sawmill or keep store. In California he made himself useful to the old pioneer, Capt. Sutter, and was taken into Sutter's business as a partner, and sent up from Sacramento into the Sierra Nevada mountains to select a site and build a saw- mill. He selected the point at Coloma, on the south fork of the American river, and built the mill. After turning the water on his mill wheel, he had occasion to go and look at the tail-race, and there on the 19th of January, 1848, discovered the shining particles of gold in the tail-race where the water had washed the gold from the sand. Two other Oregonians who had been employed by Marshall to help build the mill— Charles Bennett, and Stephen Staats of Polk county — were there at the mill at the time, and were called to look at the gold in the water and confirm the discovery.
The discovery spread like wildfire and Calif ornians rushed in from all quar- ters. But it was not known in Oregon until seven months after the discovery. And then the Oregonians went wild. Everybody that could get away, rushed to California, and nobody was left but old men, boys and the women folks. Two- thirds of the Oregon men started for California. Only five men were left in Salem, and only a few women, children and some Indians were left at Oregon City. Pack trains were the first means to get to the gold fields ; and after that a train of fifty wagons started. The first account of the gold receiv
