Nothing in the circumstances of the case goes to show that Mr. Rockwell was the first to propose the additional school section. The Wisconsin and the Oregon bills were in the hands of the same committee of the house, and at the same time. Yet the Douglas bill contained the two school sections in every township, and the Wisconsin bill did not. The Douglas bill passed in the house and was sent to the senate in January, 1847, whereas the Wisconsin bill was not reported until February, which gives Mr. Douglas precedence in proposing the change to congress. The question might arise why, since he was chairman of the committee which presented both bills, he withheld the additional section from one and gave it to the other. Did he wish to show favor, or seem to do so, to Oregon, as a reward for her long and loyal waiting? It might well be so, and probably was so. But Oregon was not receiving a special gift in the appropriation of her school lands, as some suppose. In November, 1846, James H. Piper, Acting Commissioner of the General Land Office, made a report to Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury, "on the expediency of making further provision for the support of common schools in the land states."[11] The Secretary, in his report to the house of representatives, referring to the proposed donations of land to settlers in and immigrants to Oregon, recommended, also, "the grant of a school section in the center of every quarter of a township, which would bring the school house within a point not exceeding a mile and a half in distance from the most remote inhabitant of such quarter township."[12] In his report for 1847-48 the Secretary of the Treasury again referred to this subject as follows: "Congress to some extent adopted this recommendation, by granting two school sections instead of one, for education in Oregon;[13] but it is respectfully suggested that even thus extended the grant is still inadequate in amount, while the location is inconvenient."[14] William M. Gwin, Senator from California, remarking on the transfer of the public lands from the Treasury Department to the Department of the Interior in 1849, says: "When a territorial government was established over Oregon, some able men contended for four sections for each township, and they succeeded in getting two," and quotes from Walker's report.[15] He also referred, in a speech before the State Convention of California in 1850, to Piper and Walker as authors of the movement to increase the amount of school land in the new states. Although not important in themselves, these facts are interesting. It is a pleasure to the properly constituted mind to know to whom to give credits. It is also a satisfaction to remove from history falsehoods, whether deliberate or accidental, which blind our vision as to the verity of so-called history.[16]