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Fifty Years in Oregon was written by Theodore T.
Geer, a grandson of Joseph Carey Geer and a shirttail ancestor of
ours.
I have put much of the book on
this website. I started because several
chapters describe the early roots of our family history in Oregon. I
kept going because
I found many of the chapters from this perspective on the early
settlers and the history of Oregon to be quite
interesting.
Table Of Contents
This book was originally published in 1912 by The
Neale Publishing Co. If you are interested in a copy, search at
Powell's Books.
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Fifty Years in Oregon
EXPERIENCES, OBSERVATIONS, AND COMMENTARIES UPON MEN, MEASURES, AND CUSTOMS IN PIONEER DAYS AND LATER TIMES
BY T. T. Geer, formerly Governor of Oregon, and one of her native sons
CHAPTER LXVI
While reviewing the political
successes, disappointments and occasional upheavals which have overtaken all of
us who have been actively connected with public affairs in Oregon during the
past thirty years, I am often reminded of a remark made to me once by President
McKinley. It was while in Chicago in October 1899, when he was there to
officiate at the laying of the cornerstone of the new Federal Building. He had
invited such Governors as had responded to his invitation to be present on that
occasion to lunch with him at the Union League Club rooms and while we happened
to be alone for a few moments, he said:
“You didn’t expect to be
Governor of Oregon when you called at my home that time on your way to
Washington with the electoral vote of your State, did you?”
“No,” I replied, “at that
time I hoped to be the next collector of Customs at Portland.”
This reference to that
contest in which our delegation had “turned-down” my aspirations brought a smile
to his face, and he said:
“Well, Governor, these
defeats are often victories in disguise — it was so in your case and it was in
mine once. You, no doubt, remember that I was a candidate for Speaker of the
House of Representatives at the time Tom Reed was elected. I am sure I have
never so intensely desired to succeed in my life as I did then and the defeat
about destroyed my ambition to continue longer in public life — in fact, I
thought it had closed my public career.
“That disappointment was
followed, you remember, by my defeat for a re-election to Congress through the
gerrymandering of my district by the opposition; but the growing popularity of
what was known as the ‘McKinley Tariff Bill’ came to my relief and election to
the Governorship of Ohio followed, and then the Presidency.
“It is altogether likely that
if I had been elected Speaker of the House I would have remained a member of
that body until now, for on account of my defeat I was made chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee, and by reason of that position was instrumental in framing
the tariff law which bore my name. This measure became very popular and had more
to do with my election to the Presidency than any other one thing.
“So, as I said, we never know
in advance the real value of a defeat — we usually think it will kill at the
time, but it is frequently the best kind of medicine. In your case, if you had
been appointed collector of customs when you wanted that position, the
probability is that you would never have been Governor of Oregon. We poor
mortals are not well qualified to read the future or to judge correctly from the
appearance of things.”
That last observation by
President McKinley to the effect that we should not be too fast in forming our
conclusions, recalls an experience I once had while traveling through Missouri.
It was in October, 1887, the year in which the question of prohibition was
submitted to the people of Oregon as a separate proposition at a special
election held in November. About the first of October I made a visit to the
Eastern States, but before going had made a few addresses in favor of the
proposed amendment.
Among other places I wanted
to visit on this trip was the birthplace of my Grandfather Eoff, in Kentucky,
from which he had been gone more than fifty years. He was then, of course, an
old man and as I started away he asked me to get a bottle of the real Kentucky
applejack, such as they made when he was a boy, and to get it, if possible, at
the old homestead.
In the course of my
wanderings I arrived at the old place down in Pulaski County and found that it
was owned by a distant relative who remembered my grandfather well. I slept that
night in a room in the hickory log house, nearly a hundred years old, and next
day told John Green Eoff of the particular request of my grandfather. “All
right,” he said, “we will go right by an old still where we can get just what he
wants.”
We walked through the woods,
across country, to the station, two miles distant, and on the way came to a
small stream on which was a rickety building called a distillery. A bottle
holding a pint was procured. It was filled with Kentucky applejack and I put it
in an inside pocket of my overcoat.
I stopped in an Illinois town
afterward with a cousin who was a pronounced prohibitionist and in discussing
the question he gave me a paper containing an article on the subject. As I had
not the time then to read it I put the paper in my overcoat pocket.
After I had become settled in
my seat, upon leaving St. Louis for home, I became acquainted with a minister
from South Carolina who was going to Astoria. After awhile, drifting into a
discussion of some religious questions, I discovered that he was a strong
believer in future endless punishment, to which I objected. Our friendly
argument lasted an hour, much to the interest of the passengers, who were
attentive listeners.
The next morning after everybody had been to
breakfast some reckless passenger suggested that “to while the time away” the
preacher and I engage in another “debate.” Something was said by somebody that
brought up the question of prohibition, when it transpired that the minister was
opposed to prohibition by law, taking the high ground that any kind of
abstinence that is the result of force and not of “moral suasion” is chaff —
utterly worthless.
This opened the way to a
somewhat heated controversy, in the course of which he made a statement that
recalled a point strongly made in the paper which was in my overcoat pocket. So
I said:
“My friend, if you will wait
a moment I will get a paper from my other coat which plainly shows the fallacy
of your proposition.”
The coat was in a vacant seat
at the farther end of the car and all the passengers, together with the
minister, watched me as I hurried down the aisle to get my paper.
Arriving at the seat, I
picked up the coat, by the tail of course, being a man, and that measly bottle
of Kentucky applejack dropped to the floor in plain sight of everybody, and
instead of sliding at once under the seat, found its place in the very center of
the aisle and rolled fully ten feet before it disappeared!
To say that all the
passengers roared, fell over their seats, slapped each other on the back and
performed like a pack of idiots generally, is but to recount what I would have
done had I been a spectator of such a ludicrous happening.
Of course I was greatly
embarrassed, being an entire stranger to everybody, but joined in the general
laughter, though I am quite sure my effort in the matter had a rather sickly
complexion. After the fun had subsided somewhat I began to explain how it was,
when the preacher, wiping his eyes on his handkerchief, said:
“Oh, that’s all right; it is
usually the case, when you find one of these prohibition cranks, that he has a
bottle about his clothes somewhere!” And that ended the discussion.
On another occasion I was
returning home from Chicago, when, at a small station in Dakota, the train
stopped for a few minutes and all the passengers but myself went out on the
platform for a little exercise. I was reading a book and kept my seat. When the
passengers re-entered the car as the train started, I observed a young woman who
had a seat across from mine turning her hand-satchel wrong side out, rapidly
looking under and around her other belongings and appearing to be very much
excited. Pretty soon a neighboring woman asked her if she had lost anything. She
replied that her purse was missing, containing her ticket from Portland to San
Francisco, and fifty dollars in bills. Then others became interested in her
misfortune, took the cushions out of both seats, found a porter and had him
search under the seats — all without avail.
She explained that, just
before going out on the platform she had put her purse on the seat by the side
of her hat, and that when she returned it was gone. At this point the conductor
asked her if anybody remained in the car while she was out, and she said,
pointing to me:
“Yes, that man was here all
the time, I think.”
At this the conductor turned to me and, with a look
that plainly said, “You must be the man,” inquired if I had seen anybody in the
car while the passengers were out. I told him I had not, that I had been busily
engaged reading a book, and that, of course, some one might have come in without
being seen by me. While this was taking place all the passengers were looking
directly at me, quite sure, doubtless, that I had “swiped” the lady’s purse; and
I realized that I was the very picture of guilt. Thus cornered, with all
appearances dead against me, I felt like jumping out of the window, which was
raised, but concluded to wait a little longer before doing anything so rash.
A little sceptical of the
woman’s story, the conductor again asked her if she was sure she had left the
purse on the seat. She repeated her asseveration that she had done so. At this
the crowd again turned their accusing looks toward me and I was just ready to
give myself up when a brakeman entered the car, carrying a purse in his hand,
and asked if anybody had lost it, explaining that he saw it drop from a woman’s
hand, or belt, as the train was about to start from the last station and had
picked it up.
This timely entrance of the
brakeman saved my life, covered the face of the young woman with blushes,
brought from her an oft-repeated apology and made her the butt of many a joke
between there and Portland.
She and I became quite chatty
after that, but I still felt somewhat hurt over the affair until, just as we
were entering the Portland city limits, she confidentially told me that she was
not going to the Philippines to teach school, as she had informed all of us
several times, but that she was going to meet her sweetheart who had been over
there a year — they were both from Illinois — and that they were to be married
immediately after her arrival.
After that confession I of
course fully understood the cause of her rattled state of mind and looked upon
her with the utmost pity, knowing that her complete recovery was but a matter of
a few days — and miles.
During four years of the last
ten I was interested in a daily newspaper, serving in that more or less
hazardous capacity of editor, and as everybody knows there is no calling
followed by man more full of annoyances, especially when the literary and the
business ends of the establishment are combined, and more especially if it is a
paper which permits its country subscribers to pay when they get ready.
The incident I am about to
relate occurred when I had charge of the Pendleton Daily Tribune. When I
entered upon this work the paper had delinquent subscribers not only all over
Umatilla County but in all parts of eastern Oregon, many of them being in
arrears for five years.
One of the first things to
do, I decided, was to send out notices to these individuals informing them of
the state of affairs — that printers had to live, that the cost of living was
high, that white paper had to be paid for, that “it cost money to run a daily
paper,” and that, in short, something must be done, and that as the Tribune
had been sent to them for five years without any pay, it was not asking too much
to request a remittance — sell a calf or a peck of potatoes — any thing — but
pay up, if you please!
Everybody who knows anything about the newspaper
business, that is, the kind of newspaper business of which I am speaking,
understands that the subscriber who becomes delinquent for one and two years
always feels that he has been personally insulted if he is asked to settle the
bill. The exceptions to this are so rare as to be unworthy of mention.
About a month after I had
sent out these polite reminders, a rough-looking old customer came in the office
and without vouchsafing a greeting to anybody, said: “Here, I want to pay up and
stop my Weekly Tribune.”
I looked around, and there
stood a man with as forbidding a countenance as one would seldom see outside a
jail. His face was smoky, his hair evidently had not been combed for a month
(and then slighted), his whiskers long, tangled and one-sided, collar
unfastened, and his general appearance that of a Bad Man from the Head of the
Creek! His manner of addressing me made me angry, for that had been a hard day
anyway. There had not been one response out of every ten sent out to the
delinquents, and four out of five of those who paid up ordered the paper
stopped. There had been two dozen phone calls that morning asking why the paper
had not been delivered — if it happened again they would have it stopped and
take the sheet down the street instead; a linotypist had given notice that he
intended to quit, and there was no other in town, and the bookkeeper was sick
that day — the result of which was that I was in no humor to coddle the freak
who stood at the counter wanting to pay up and stop his paper.
So I said: “All right, sir.”
The fact was I was almost
glad he was going to stop it. I felt that I didn’t want to have such an
unprepossessing old duffer taking so good a paper as the Tribune and I wasn’t
going to bandy words with him. I found his account, told him how much it was and
he paid it. I could see he was eyeing me very closely, but I knew he was doing
so hoping to pick a quarrel — wanted to shoot me, doubtless — and I would not
thus humor such a dastardly galoot. Patience had ceased to be a virtue and I
would assert myself.
As the man folded up the
receipt, he said: “Wouldn’t you like to know why I stopped my paper?’.
This was just the chance I
wanted, so I hotly said: “No, sir, I would not give a whoop in the great
hereafter to know why you stopped it. I don’t care.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you
anyhow. A neighbor of mine takes your daily, which I see once in a while, and I
like it so well that I thought I’d stop the weekly and take the daily. I want to
pay for it a year in advance — if you’ll let me!’
Honesty compels me to admit
that I felt so very mean and contemptible over the manner in which I had treated
the old fellow that I could not bring myself to apologize for it, for to have
suddenly changed my demeanor would not have looked well; so I let it go at that,
preferring he should think me so deeply immersed in thought connected with my
editorial duties that it was a case of pure absent-mindedness. I became better
acquainted with him after that and found he was a really fine man who lived on a
splendid ranch up about Cabbage Hill somewhere.
Oh, yes, President McKinley was right in his remark
that it is not always safe to judge from outward appearances.
Next Chapter -
Geer climbs Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams.
If you are interested in finding this book, Fifty
Years in Oregon, it can
often be located at Powell's Books in Portland
which is one of the largest used book stores in the United States or, through the
Alibris
 service
which catalogs used books from stores across the country. For more information on the Geer Family, visit the
Geer Family website. Other resources
and references include:
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