Tardy Appreciation of Whitman 261 
raised. That college, when erected, as it doubtless will be, will 
be a fitting and lasting monument to his name. 
Whitman succeeded in disabusing the minds of Daniel Web- 
ster, President Tyler, Thomas H. Benton, and other public men 
as to the character and value of Oregon territory. They had 
come to believe, through the continuous misrepresentations to 
which I have referred, not only that Oregon territory was of little 
value but that it was a physical impossibility to go from Fort 
Hall to Oregon with wagons. Whitman had taken his wife ina 
wagon over these mountains eight years before (in 1835) and he 
assured them there was no insurmountable difficulty ; and he 
proved his assertion by leading back to Oregon an emigration 
the same year, the summer of 1848, with 200 wagons and over 
1,000 men, women and children, not losing, as I remember the 
history, a single wagon or a single life in the journey west of Fort 
Hall. 
Dr Whitman was a born leader of men. He had the courage 
to face every danger, however perilous. in defense of the right. 
His efforts while in Washington, coupled with the magnificent 
successes of his expedition the same year, turned the scale in 
which that vast: territory was being weighed and balanced be- 
tween the two countries in favor of the United States. 
Had Dr Whitman been possessed of the egotistic assurance of 
Horace of old, and could he have gazed down the long avenues 
of coming ages, he might, with him, have truly said: 
I have achieved a tower of fame 
More durable than gold, 
And loftier than the royal frame 
Of pyramids of old ; 
Which none inclemencies of clime, 
Nor fiercest winds that blow, 
Nor endless change, nor lapse of time, 
Shall ever overthrow. 
I cannot perish utterly ; 
The broader part of me must live, and live and never die, 
But baffle Death’s decree ! 
For I shall always grow, and spread 
My new-blown honors still, 
Long as the priest and vestal tread 
The Capitolian hill. 
T shall be sung when thy rough waves, y 
My native river, foam, 
And when old Daunus scantly laves 
