Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/166

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136
Whitman's Ride

He held conference with many members of Congress, and felt that his work at the national capital was ended.

Whitman was not a man to loiter, and we next hear of him closeted with the staunch friend of Oregon, Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune. Greeley knew and admired a heroic character, and he highly complimented Whitman and his work in the Tribune. He proceeded to Boston to report to the American Board, to receive any reprimand for violation of rules and to transact minor affairs of the missions in Oregon. The enemies of Whitman have again and again gone over the old records of the American Board to find some severe rebuke to the man who "dabbled in politics." But if any rebuke was offered, it was careful to make no record of it. But it may be said the governors of the American Board evidently failed to comprehend in their anxiety to keep clear of all complications between "Church and State," that they were dealing with an inspired man, who had rendered the greatest possible service to the nation and to Protestant Christianity. They did another good act, either through pride for one of their missionaries or from generosity they sent him to a tailor shop for a complete suit of cloth clothes, which his own slim pocket-book could not afford. It took the American Board just fifty years from the date