1897: More Chinook doggerel
An honorary member of our collection of Chinuk Wawa doggerel poetry is this political paean to the Chinook salmon…
THE CHINOOK SALMON.
Just before the holiday recess Senator Mitchell of Oregon introduced in the Senate a concurrent resolution directing the Secretary of the Interior to set apart the Clackamas River, in his State, as a natural spawning ground for the Chinook salmon. The resolution speaks in the most flattering terms of the Chinook salmon and in one place speaks of it as the royal Chinook. The resolution has moved the bard of the Capitol to poetry. The bard is a Mississippian and the only excuse he makes is that he couldn’t help it. He sings thus:
Ah, Chinook salmon of the West,
“Rose-red, oiIy” and the best
With which Columbia’s tide is blest
Thy propagation’s now assured —
Thy peerless flesh by packers cured —
If Congress only speaks the word.
Lo, the House funds for “culture” bent
Are running out, are well-nigh spent,
While “young Chinook,” ’tis very clear,
In output are not running near
To half the average per year
That Oregon’s brave packers claim
Is worthy of their meed and fame;
So Uncle Sam Is asked to frame
A statute that will boom the same.
Two millions is the wage roll now
Of fisherman who daily plow
Columbia’s tide with net and hook
In quest of royal red Chinook,
If Congress, with our quest at heart,
Will Clackamas River set apart.
And all the lands along its shore
Ye Chinook’s friends will ask no more.
No veto will this bill await —
No honeyed words for White House bait
Need Oregon’s grim statesmen utter.
No trepidation or heart flutter
While clerks transfer the legislation
To the head-center of the nation,
He’ll sign it, yes, of course he will,
Though it helps the salmon packers’ till,
And the fish with “rose-red” golden gill;
Unless, while visions piscatory,
Fill his heart with dreams of glory,
The silver scales his soul may shock.
And thus renew the same old story
Of wreck upon the silver rock.
— from the Washington (DC) Morning Times of January 9, 1897, page 4, column 7
