CHAPTER XXIX.
The Benefactors—The Literary People—Historians, Poets and Story Tellers.
Persons are mentioned in this chapter not for the purpose of praise or compliment, but to show what the city produced, and what was the influence of such persons on society. If a given community or people produce murderers, thieves, swindlers and bribers, that may show one thing. If another community produces divorces, brothels, illegitimacy and proverty or crime, that may show something else. And if a community produces self sacrificing men and women, who give their time to caring for orphan children, to furnishing means of education, to housing the poor and unfortunate and curing the sick, that shows another phase of humanity—a wide difference from the supposed cases. And in just so far as any community produces any or all of these examples of human conduct, just that far it shows not only the character of the people, but also the moral or immoral and educational influences which combined to produce the good or evil state of society. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"
The far reaching influence of such men as Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman and John McLoughlin, can never be estimated or described. As this world goes now in the year 1910, neither of these men would be considered a success. They heaped up no riches, they gathered no worldly honors and they tasted but little of the price of power or place. They were the product of another age than ours, of other ideas than those of 1910, and of principles of thought and action that is but an historical reminiscence. And yet their lives, their ideas and ideals, and their examples are insensibly exercising a greater power on society for good than any one hundred Oregonians who have lived and died since their day. If history is to teach us anything it should show who were the teachers, and what it was they taught.
Some men and women are continually in the public eye, and yet their lives are mere bubbles, flotsam and jetsam on the stream of time, to be picked up or dashed down by any wind of circumstance. Of others we get only a glimpse from some noble act or work, and touch them only at one point or trait in their lives. Portland can boast the names of many noble men and women who have shown from unselfish lives and deeds their real character. It is to this class a page should be devoted, that their example might not only lead to emulation, but also show by what root of thought or training they came to bless the world.
The first three men that gave anything to the city were Coffin, Couch and Chapman who donated the row of parks between East and West Park streets. Their great beauty, and their blessing to the little children is only now becoming fully appreciated. As time goes on and the trees attain a larger size the attractions of these little parks will be such as to greatly increase the value of the residential property in the vicinity and make them the most delightful resting places to be found. Captain Couch gave also 10 blocks for a railroad depot, and on which the Union depot is erected.
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