Speech #490063065

I am not concerned about the sum that would find its way into the public Treasury if the lands were restored to the operation of the land laws. My concern is to know what is for the best interest of the people of Oregon and Washington Territory and of the whole country. If any people deserve liberal treatment at the hands of Congress it is the people who braved the dangers and endured the toils and hardships incident to pioneer life in that country. and who have waited so long for the tide of immigration just now setting toward it. I am asking of Congress in behalf of Oregon. in view of our great extent of territory. our great and rapidly increasing internal. interstate. and foreign cominerce. our great rivers. our extended seacoast. our rapidly increasing population and development. liberal appropriations for the improvement of our rivers and harbors. I should feel in a measure estopped from asking such liberal treatment in this regard as our people deserve if the reasons for doing so were not strong enough to prevent me from assisting in depriving the people of Washington Territory of the aid heretofore granted by Congress for the construction of the great highway across the continent which for the last quarter of a century has been the object of their hopes by day and the subject of their dreams by night.