USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 12
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as the Omnibus Bill-this included New Mexico. It was the re- sult of much caucusing, and was greatly changed from the orig- inal proposition made by both Senate and House representing the dominant party in each House. Neither of these proposi- tions proposed the absolute division of Dakota or its prompt ad- mission. It was, however, debated on that day. In that debate I had the honor, along with the delegates interested from the Territories, to take a somewhat prominent part. When the bill came up on January 17th it was debated at length, but it went over until the 18th. Again on that day an amendment, offered by Mr. McDonald, of Minnesota, was voted down. Then an amendment by Mr. Springer, of Illinois, was proposed, resub- mitting the Sioux constitution of 1885 to the people, with some incidental provisions as to boundary, etc. ... Other amend- ments were offered. The amendment of the majority of the com- mittee of the House was debated on that day. Thereupon Mr. Baker, of New York, proposed to recommit the bill, with in- structions to admit South Dakota into the Union, and to provide enabling acts for North Dakota, Montana, and Washington Ter- ritories.
"The bill went to the Senate. It was disagreed to by that body. Then there was a long hiatus, and the friends of the Ter- ritories were becoming restive. However, it was called up on February 14th, with the report of the failure to agree between the two Houses. Amendments were tendered to the motion, among them one of Mr. Baker, of New York, which was an in- struction for the House conferees to recede so as to allow, first, the exclusion of New Mexico from the bill, and second, the ad- mission of South Dakota under the Sioux Falls constitution, and third, the resubmission of that constitution to the people, with provisions for the election of State officers only, and with- out a new vote on the question of 'division.' It also provided for the admission of North Dakota, Montana, and Washington, either by the proclamation of the President or by further action by Congress in the way of formal acts of admission. This was an advance, but it left for the conference to say whether the old question should come up again in a new Congress, either at an extra session or at the regular session of the Fifty-first Congress.
" Thereupon I had the honor to propose a sweeping substitute, which I had outlined and urged in the New York World, in the
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caucus, and in the House. Inasmuch as time was precious and was fast gliding away, and as I knew the intention of many friends, who honestly thought that Congress ought to do noth- ing, and as the Senate would not admit New Mexico, I proposed, first, its absolute exclusion from the bill ; second, an unqualified instruction to the Committee of Conference to provide for the division of Dakota and the admission of South Dakota under the Sioux Falls constitution by proclamation, and a new elec- tion of federal officers, as well as State ; and third, the admission of North Dakota, Montana, and Washington on the same basis, and all of them under proclamation by the President. The last instructions referred all other matters of detail to the Commit- tee of Conference for their discretion. This proposition was in- tended to be a finality. It was instruction, not advice or re- quest-absolute instruction. There was in it no 'if ' nor 'and,' no ambiguity or alternative. It was attacked bitterly ; but at last the House was brought to a vote upon it directly. A Ken- tucky statesman insisted upon a separate vote on every separate proposition. This, under the rules, he had a right to do. The vote on the exclusion of New Mexico was 135 against 105. Mr. Breckenridge voted in the affirmative, in order to move a recon- sideration, and the fight was kept up. He failed on a vote of 136 to 109.
" The second proposition, for the admission of South Dakota by proclamation under the Sioux Falls constitution, and for a new election of State and federal officers, and without a new vote on the question of division, then came up. It was carried by 137 to 103. The Territories were gaining, and the opposition was losing. Then filibustering began by a motion to adjourn. That failed by 82 yeas against 143 nays, the Territories still gaining and the opposition losing. Another motion to adjourn failed. The subject then went over until the next day, on the condition that no more dilatory motions should be made. Upon the next day the second proposition was again voted on a mo- tion to reconsider. The House stood by the Territories and the instructions.
" I confess that I did not spend a very quiet or sleepful night ; but I was gratified when in the morning the vote showed that the Territories had 146 yeas and the nays only 109, the in- structions still gaining. The resolution as to North Dakota,
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PUGET SOUND PULP AND PAPER MILL. EVERETT, WASH.
PUGET SOUND REDUCTION COMPANY, EVERETT, WASHINGTON.
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Montana, and Washington to be admitted on the same basis, and all of them by proclamation, went through without an aye and no vote, together with the last proposition as to indiffer- ent matters. Thereupon the indefatigable gentleman from Ken- tucky insisted upon a vote upon the initial clause of instruction. He desired to submit a preliminary inquiry to the Speaker. The Chair heard it. He desired to know whether, if the enacting clause of instructions was voted down, the conferees would not be free and uninstructed. The Speaker replied, except in so far as they may accept these votes as expressing the sense of the House. The gentleman undertook to argue it after the previous question. To this I objected. The vote was taken. The yeas were 148 and the nays 102. So that from the beginning to the end of the struggle the sentiment of the House was expressed in favor of the instructions. This was on the 15th day of Febru- ary. Congress was drawing to a close. Day after day passed.
" The friends of the Territories again became restless and anxious. Should there be an extra session ? Should the whole matter be taken up in the Fifty-first Congress, or should the matter be ended promptly ? After much conference outside, of which gentlemen who are here are well advised, there were a few accommodations made, and the instructions were complied with, and very slowly the conference reported, and the bill be- came a law. It was signed by the President with a quill taken from an American eagle, which, it was said, had once been given to some Indian champion to entwine around his scalp-lock.
" Thus it appears from this record, the pages of which are open to all, that the straight line to settle the question of admis- sion and division not only of the two Dakotas, but of the other Territories of Montana and Washington, was carried in such an em- phatic manner that the people have universally accepted the four States and placed their starry emblems upon our flag in advance of the formalities which are to-day proceeding in the Territories."
The bill was entitled " An act to provide for the division of Dakota, and to enable the people of North Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form constitutions and State governments, and to be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to make donations of public lands to such States."
With excellent good taste, as involving a most patriotic suggestion, President Cleveland selected the anniversary of
9
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Washington's birthday, February 22d, 1889, as the most ap- propriate on which to add his official and final approval to the congressional act, and, as above stated, it was signed accord- ingly.
Its provisions included an election of delegates, seventy-five in number, who were to convene at Olympia on July 4th, 1889. The State was certainly favored in the selection of national anni- versaries for its entrance days. The convention met and re- mained in session until August 22d. The constitution, the re- sult of its labors, was submitted to the popular vote on October 1st, 1889, when it was ratified by a vote of 40,152 favoring to 11,789 opposed. In accordance with its provisions, the first State Legislature of the State of Washington assembled at Olympia, the seat of government, for the purpose of electing two United States Senators and otherwise perfecting the organization of the State government. But an omission had occurred in the certifi- cation of the adoption of the State constitution, required by the enabling act to be sent to the President of the United States, which omission delayed the President's proclamation of admis- sion until November 11th, 1889. As provided by the constitution, the State officers were inaugurated on Monday, November 18th, 1889 ; and, as directed by the enabling act, the State Legislature, on Tuesday, November 19th, elected John B. Allen and Watson C. Squire the first United States Senators of the State of Wash- ington-a choice attended by rather more than the usual rival- ries and those heated conflicts of words which both at the time and afterward are apt to leave bitter germs, fostered by disap- pointment, and sure to gender future political feuds.
As may well be imagined, the citizens of the new-born State celebrated with no little enthusiasm the culmination of its star, the consummation of her espousals with Uncle Sam by the Ter- ritory whose long engagement seemed at times to threaten the annulment of the match. It was, indeed, a most auspicious event, and the marriage feast of Washington and the federal sis- terhood was worthy of the occasion. There were public and pri- vate rejoicings, many reunions, and much gratulation ; some with blare of bugle and roll of drums, with roar of cannon fired in national salute, with a universal flinging to the breeze of that beloved banner now enriched by a quartet of stars. There were quieter gatherings also, no less marked by feeling, which, if not so
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demonstrative, flowed with deeper tide. Those were the meet- ings of the men and women who had borne the burden and heat of the day ; had heard, some of them at least, the war-whoop of the Indian and fled from blazing homes, or, it may be, returned to gaze upon the faces set in the last agony of their mutilated dead ; who had let in the light of day with their keen axes upon wilds unbroken for centuries, bending the forest to their will and converting its gloomy pines into the roof-trees of happy home- steads ; who had cleared the fields and given the virgin soil to the kisses of the sunshine ; who had hoped and struggled on, even when hope seemed dead and further effort useless, seeing silver linings to the clouds when the prospects of the infant Ter- ritory were dark as the gloomiest day that ever folded its wings of mist and rain above the waters of Puget Sound. There were odes and oratory, with prayer both before the altars of conse- crated temples and beside the hearths where two or three were gathered together to meet their Lord, entreating the Divine bless- ing upon the future of the new-born State.
And here we leave the path of our direct history. Washing- ton is still in the infancy of her statehood-a child of five years' growth, but a wonderfully progressive one, increasing daily in all that most nobly constitutes a State ; making wise laws and carrying them out ; extending equal rights to all, to the meanest as well as the most honored of her citizens ; gener- ous and far reaching in planning for the education of the young by a public-school system which, considering the newness of its inauguration, is the marvel of all who examine it ; developing and maintaining a militia whose national guard is the pride of the people, and under its zealous and devoted officers rapidly advances toward perfection ; and, best of all, when considered with relation to the character of the bulk of her population, as advanced as any of her sister States in the quality if not in the quantity of her people, men and women of whom any com- munity might well be proud-not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, and in many cases as deeply interested in the moral im- provement as in the temporal progress of the community. Well may they of Washington, in view of her early trials and present condition, declare that her march has ever been onward and upward, though too often, like the motto of her sister of Kansas, " ad astra per aspera"-" through sorrows to the stars."
CHAPTER XXIX.
A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE COUNTIES OF WASHINGTON.
" Fair factors of a sovereign State, We pray you meet us here, And tell your story while we wait With most attentive ear. Disclose your area and age, Your names, and how begot- Of Indian chief or modern sage, A varied polyglot. With nomenclature wild and strange, Mixing the old and new, Permit us through your bounds to range And pass in grand review. CHEHALIS sits by MASON's side, With WHATCOM close at hand, While CLALLAM northward stretches wide By Juan de Fuca's strand. PACIFIC, bounded by the wave, Near WAHKIAKUM is found ; But names that CLARKE and LEWIS gave Lie inland from the sound.
COWLITZ with SKAMANIA mates, And PIERCE agrees with KING, While STEVENS north of LINCOLN waits, 'Neath OKANAGON's wing. SKAMANIA and YAKIMA Hold KLIKITAT in ward, Nor call we WALLA WALLA far, With FRANKLIN close aboard. See THURSTON point with modest pride To fair OLYMPIA's walls, Where mingled wit and wisdom meet In legislative halls.
SNOHOMISH, SKAGIT and WHATCOM With KITSAP kiss the sound ; But many leagues is JEFFERSON From far COLUMBIA found. WHITMAN and GARFIELD side by side, With ASOTIN will wed ; DOUGLAS and ADAMS, once our pride, Recall those statesmen dead.
بهار
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KITTITAS holds a central place, But boasts her mountains brown, While ISLAND and SAN JUAN must face The billows when they frown. Last but not least, SPOKANE invites The farmer to her fields ;
With wealth of wheat his heart delights, And wondrous harvest yields." -BREWERTON.
OUR best excuse for this unusually long poetical heading is this : holding, as we do, in bitter remembrance the difficulty with which, in our long-ago school-days, we endeavored to mem- orize the names of persons and places whose queer jargon of syl- lables seemed suggested by the evil one himself, we fancied that our rhyming review, which includes every county in the State of Washington, might aid some unfortunate child in acquiring their nomenclature, who would bless our memory accordingly.
And now to our task, for their bead-roll, with the record of their charms, both natural and artificial, is somewhat of the longest --- their aggregate being no less than thirty-four. Queer- ly christened are they withal, the old and the new being about equally favored. Savage chiefs, or the titles of the territory where once they stalked, sit cheek by jowl in peaceful geographi- cal accord with old-time pale-face enemies. The memory of the dead explorers, whose feet, now turned to clay, once trod the soil that bears their earthly appellations, is perpetuated in Lewis and Clarke. Far-seeing Jefferson and Adams, with Franklin, the Quaker-garbed friend of the " Old Thirteen," are not forgot- ten. The " Little Giant" and the wise governors, whose deeds and words of patriotic fire are inseparably entwined with the early territorial struggles of Washington, are enshrined in Douglas, Stevens, and Mason. The legislative acts which created them were eminently appropriate in the naming of sea-washed Island and Pacific, grew Spanish in San Juan, became a recaller of martyrs in Whitman, Lincoln, and Garfield, were kind to Pierce, and though apparently disloyal in honoring the king, were grandly patriotic in their 'recognition of our own Columbia, sit- ting in queenly state by the broad river christened by the Yankee skipper, Gray, a full century ago.
And now, from what point shall we pass these subdivisions of a great State in review ? Let us imagine a position and create for the reader a grand stand from whence, as from a favored
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" coign of vantage," he may consider their relative attractions, and, it may be, criticise the word painting through which we endeavor to present them to his view.
If the eternal snows of Mount Tacoma, or, as our good friends of Seattle greatly prefer to call it, Mount Rainier, could be lifted up many thousand feet above its present altitude into the un- clouded skies of the brightest summer day that ever smiled on favored Puget Sound, so as to enable some eagle-eyed observer to command a radius of vision sufficiently extended to embrace the whole State of Washington, the prospect it would reveal might not inaptly be generically painted as follows :
A vast extent of territory, expanding on the west till it was lost in the mists of the Pacific's horizon ; bounded on the south by Oregon, the State from whence it came, with the rugged steeps of British Columbia on the north, and varied Idaho for an east- ern terminus. Seen in detail, it would present a mingling of lake, valley, and sierra-carpets of verdure flecked and broken by darker shadows of the endless pines, here and there walled and divided by sunlit crags and yet higher ledges of glittering snow peaks ; foothills and lower lands seamed with immeasur- able meander lines of silver, interrupted by waterfalls crowned by rainbows and founded on foam, marking the courses of the streams that go singing to the sea to join the diapason of that eternal anthem whose chorus is the thunder of the billows that break upon the shore. But best of all, scattered here and there, encroaching upon the empire of the wilderness, like diamonds on a bed of mossy green, would be beheld towns and villages-fair cities, the children of yesterday, yet already assuming the toga virilis of Eastern conventionality, with hamlets nestling among the hills, the embryo of a metropolis yet to be. The very thought is bewildering ; till amid all this embarrassment and largesse of natural and artificial wealth the historian stands in doubt, like poor Ruth among the gleaners, hardly hoping that those strong reapers gone before have left even a waif of ungathered thought or stray of unappropriated description.
We write, too, in wholesome dread of that unsparing criti- cism, ever ready to detect a neglect of its own special locality, to whom Squashtown, if they dwell there, is all the world, and for whom, therefore, no history, however elaborate, is perfect which neglects allusion to that which they regard as all-important --
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themselves -- a personality which they patriotically extend to the place, however inconsiderable, which they favor with their pres- ence. What, then, shall we do ? how treat a chapter which ought to particularize, but must generalize, the beauties and advantages special to each of the counties of Washington ? To select seems invidious ; to detail is impossible ; while to give place to extended eulogy, however great the temptation, would exhaust our space and beggar us in words of commendation even upon the threshold of our theme. Let us, then, marshal them in their order, and endeavor as best we may to say a pleas- ant and instructive word for each.
We will, therefore, standing with the reader upon this our suppositious " coign of vantage," arrange them alphabetically, like the roster roll of the soldier, and in that order call them one by one to the front. First, then,
ADAMS COUNTY.
Sandwiched in between Whitman and Douglas, with Frank- lin and Lincoln-excellent company-for near neighbors, lies Adams, named for that statesman of the past, strong in his men- tal individuality, and, like Gladstone of our own day, well entitled to the reputation of " the old man eloquent." Topo- graphically considered, Adams County is flat, but neither " stale nor unprofitable." Relieved by no hill or mountain shadow, it is one vast plain, without a natural tree or even shrub of consequence to break the monotony of its sunlit area. But Dame Nature, ever a believer in compensation, hides beneath this outer dearth of promise a rich soil, so wonderfully fertile that it matures crops without requiring artificial irrigation. It is, nevertheless, a fit subject for the beneficent offices of the so- called modern rain-makers, with whose help it might do even greater things. With its almost two thousand square miles of territory and even larger number of inhabitants, it is certainly entitled to the favors of that most uncertain god Jupiter Pluvius. Adams was admitted in 1883. Its county-seat is called Ritzville, after a pioneer nurseryman of Walla Walla. So far this is the only town of importance. Another decade may tell a far differ- ent story. In shape it is almost square, save a little corner on the southeast, nibbled off by the incursion of Whitman. It is for- tunate in the presence of the Northern Pacific Road, which
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crosses it diagonally, and makes five stations besides the " shire town" in its transit. With so powerful a helper, Adams should have no difficulty in marketing her products.
ASOTIN COUNTY.
Poor little Asotin ! What have you done that you stand in the southeastern corner of the State like a bad boy subjected to punishment ? Evans himself, usually complimentary, speaks of this county rather irreverently, ranging it last upon his list, and referring to it as "a short horse and soon curried," perhaps because it is so little, being the smallest county east of the Cas- cades, with only six hundred and forty square miles of territory ; and who does not know that the weak and diminutive, even among counties, are apt to go to the wall ? There is nothing in- secure or slippery about it, though, even if it be named after that elusive water snake, the eel, hashotin being the Nez Percé word for that semi-amphibious creature, which greatly abounds in this vicinity. Unlike Adams, Asotin is a broken county, so diversi- fied as to be attractive to the eye ; it possesses, moreover, a re- munerative soil, well adapted to tillage, only needing the labor of the husbandman to give excellent results. Irving voices Bonneville's opinion in "The Adventures" when that worthy explorer, carried away by the beauty and fertility of the sur- rounding landscape, was moved to prophesy that "one day there would be farms there." It has been verified, and in com- ing years will doubtless be more abundantly fulfilled. It was admitted in October of 1883, has a population-or had in 1890- no doubt larger now-of 1580 souls. Its county-seat, Asotin, looks over into Idaho, being situated on the left bank of the Snake. Anatone, Theon, and Tilcott are minor towns. Taken all in all, Evans' "short horse" is well worthy of being trotted out and critically examined by those intending to invest.
CHEHALIS COUNTY.
The next on our alphabetical roll finds its origin in an Indian word meaning " sand." Sitting in queenly state beside the waters of the Pacific, this county, though a large portion of its northern boundary is devoted to an Indian reservation, has made great advances, having a population of 9214 and an assessed financial value of over two millions. It rejoices in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Chehalis, rich in farming lands of the best
Eng ªby F G. Kernan NY
James Cook
Senton
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quality, boasts of Gray's Harbor-the Duluth of the Pacific- formed by an arm of the ocean which thrusts itself in, some five- and-forty miles north of the Columbia, as though weary of the monotony of the straight coast-line between Toke and Hanson Points and anxious to look upon the interior. If this be so, its visit of curiosity is a rare blessing to Chehalis, for this fine body of water, navigable for fifteen miles inland to the mouth of the river, penetrates and unlocks many resources, giving them export access to the sea. The entrance of this beautiful bay, though, like its sisters of the Northwest coast, unhappily barred at its mouth, opens with a width of over a mile ; this in- .. creases to twelve in breadth, and then gradually diminishes, as if more modestly to meet the kiss of the incoming stream. The general shape of this bay is almost exactly that of a huge skate. It has a channel fifteen hundred feet wide, which carries twenty- two feet at low tide. In the bay itself there is nearly ten square miles of anchorage, with an average depth of twenty-five feet of water even at the lowest ebb. The rise and fall of the tides on this portion of the Pacific coast give from eight to fourteen feet, so it will easily be seen that with a harbor so placid and shel- tered as Gray's vessels of average, though not the largest size, may enter and find safe anchorage. Then, too, the bar, that bête noir of mariners on the Northwest coast, is, in this case, a " re- spectable" one, keeping regular hours, having lots of "sand," but by no means "rocky," and openly defining its position, for it maintains the old stand and never shifts, by hanging out its sign in the shape of a line of breakers white as the driven snow. In a word, it is an honest bar, like that of John Willet's famous Maypole Inn, in no way deceptive. Into this bay flow no less than twenty rivers and streams, so freshening its waters that even the teredo, the destroyer of all wooden structures exposed to the sea and a dreadful bore to the shipmaster, finds the local- ity too enervating for his pursuits, and with his fellow-parasites fails to do damage. What wonder, then, with all these advan- tages, that Gray's Harbor, like many another promising loca- tion on the coast, should be afflicted with " booms," which break out periodically, not only leaving something solid in the way of progress behind them, but, as in this case, frequently " coming to stay." It takes its name from the smart Yankee captain of the Columbia who in sailor phrase " wiped Vancouver's eyes for him," nearly a century ago, when that eminent British discov-
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