History of Oregon Newspapers/Journalism in Salem
JOURNALISM IN SALEM
When statehood came to Oregon. Asahel Bush, the founder, was still the editor of the Statesman, continuing until March 1863.
L. F. Grover, later congressman, governor, and United States senator, was Mr. Bush's assistant with editorial work on the Statesman, doing the writing when Bush was absent from the city. In 1861 and 1862 Harvey Gordon was managing editor. He was elected state printer in 1862 but died before he could take office.
J. W. Nesmith, prominent in early Oregon, was partner in the Statesman with Bush when it was leased in 1863 to C. P. Crandall and E. M. Waite. Crandall and Waite conducted the paper until November 26, 1863, when it was purchased by a group composed of W. P. Huntington, Ben Simpson, Rufus Mallory, Chester N. Terry, George H. Williams. D. W. Craig, who spent a long lifetime in Oregon journalism, was running the Argus in Salem at the time. It was combined with the Statesman, and Mr. Craig and J. N. Gale taken in. Craig became principal stockholder in the Oregon Printing and Publishing Company, a corporation formed at that time. The paper supported the Union cause in the Civil war with outstanding vigor.
A feature of an early issue (August 19) was 200-word editorial explaining that there was no room for publication of several addresses and essays read at a recent teachers' institute and suggesting to the teachers' association management that "the difficulty would be obviated by the publication each year of a small pamphlet containing the proceedings of the session and all productions worthy of publication." Here the germ of the educational publications, such as the Oregon Teachers' Monthly which Charles H. Jones built up so successfully at Salem in later years. "We publish a political newspaper," is one announcement of interest, "and in these times that 'try men's souls' we have to consider numerous questions of exciting interest."
Joseph Gaston became editor a short time before Craig sold out, in August 1866, to Ben Simpson, who put in his sons, Sylvester and Sam L., as editors and managers. It was Simpson's hope to re-elect Nesmith to the United States senate, but he was disappointed.
Sam L. Simpson, better known to fame as a poet, was editor of the Statesman for about four months. His writing gifts failed to save the paper, which his father was compelled to sell, December 31 of that year. The purchasers were William McPherson and William Morgan, who a few months before had started the Salem Unionist. McPherson and Morgan had been publishing the Journal in Albany, but they moved to Salem and started the Unionist when McPherson took over the office of state printer.
Sam Simpson, writing his last editorial on the Statesman on the closing day of 1866, pronounced the paper dead. He headed the editorial "Valedictory" and said with a fine literary flourish unaccompanied by any pride in his achievements or capacities as an editor:
"With this issue terminates the existence of the Oregon Statesman, the oldest newspaper but one in the state. Sixteen years ago its publication was begun when the present editor was still puzzling over the mysteries of a pictorial primer. . . .
"The Statesman is dead— let us write on its melancholy tomb those generous words of the Latin maxim—Nil nisi bonum—
"'And no further seek its merits to disclose,
Or draw its frailties from their dead abode.'
"As to myself, I shall not be garrulous. A few months ago I mounted the tripod of the Statesman, with many misgivings for the future and no little distrust of my own abilities for so arduous and exalted a work."
The name Statesman was dropped in favor of Unionist. It was revived in 1869 when Samuel A. Clarke, formerly of the Oregonian, purchased the Unionist, including whatever was left of the Statesman, and made the name Statesman and Unionist. Clarke's purchase was made after the death of J. W. P. Huntington, who had bought the paper in 1868. Announcing the change of name Clarke wrote:
April 1, 1870, Clarke dropped the words and Unionist from the nameplate. A letter from James Applegate to R. P. Earhart, written from Yoncalla August 4, 1869, indicates that Clarke's deal for the Unionist was made with Earhart, for he says: There is a prejudice existing in some minds against the Unionist, caused by circumstances that we cannot control and are not responsible for. ... It seems impossible to convince people at a distance that the new management is not in the least connected with the old. So for the purpose of completely identifying the paper with its new control we assume again the name of Oregon Statesman, to which we are as much entitled by purchase as that of Unionist. The latter will be kept in view for a few months (in a subdued form) to prevent misunderstanding.
I certainly do think. . . . that you did 'bully' in the sale of that concern [the Unionist]. If I have proper understanding . . . you get $5,000 and are released from all further trouble about the concern, now and forever.
Within four years after leaving the Statesman, Simpson was to place himself near the top rung in poesy with his "Beautiful Willamette," which, written at Albany in 1870, will keep readers enjoying its flowing rhythm and haunting melody as long as the river shall run. The last stanza:
On the roaring waste of ocean
Shall thy scattered waves be tossed,
'Mid the surge's rhythmic thunder
Shall thy silver tongues be lost.
Oh! thy glimmering rush of gladness
Mocks this turbid life of mine!
Racing to the wild Forever
Down the sloping paths of Time.
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
Softly calling to the sea;
Time, that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench on thee.
Sam Clarke, in a lesser way than Simpson, was himself a poet of considerable repute, besides being a capable newspaper man and highly versatile. Born in 1827, in Cuba, where his father was a merchant, and educated in New York City, he was a gold-hunting forty-niner in California, coming to Oregon in 1850. A year later he drew the plan of the new city of Portland on the occasion of its incorporation. Buying a donation claim near Salem, he resided there for several years, in fact came to regard Salem as his settled home. In 1862 he became the first clerk of the new Baker county. Running a sawmill in Portland was another of his many activities.
In 1864 he was back in Portland as editor of the Oregonian. Two years later he was one of the incorporators of the Oregon Central Railroad, which was taken over by Ben Holladay in 1868. In the Modoc Indian War he made a fine record as correspondent for the New York Times. After a short time on the Salem Daily Record in 1867 he purchased the Unionist, as already noted. Changing the name back to the Statesman, he conducted the paper as a daily for a time. With D. W. Craig he purchased the Willamette Farmer in 1872, buying his partner out eight years later. In 1897 the paper was merged with the North Pacific Rural Spirit. Clarke now spent several years at the national capital as librarian in the United States general land office. He died in Salem August 20, 1909. A son, William J. Clarke, has been an Oregon country publisher for many years. Sam Clarke left one book, a history entitled Pioneer Days in Oregon.
Mrs. Sally Dyer is a daughter and W. Connell Dyer is a granddaughter of Mr. Clarke. Both live in Salem.
In 1872 Clarke and Craig sold the Statesman to C. P. Crandall, who had been a lessee of the paper from Bush in 1863. He stayed at the helm until December 1873, when he passed the paper back to Clarke and Craig of the Willamette Farmer. The next April Crandall had the Statesman again, after some litigation. The Statesman Printing and Publishing Company was then formed to conduct the paper and the printing plant. Directors of the company were H Carpenter, T. C. Shaw, L. S. Scott. Calvin B. McDonald was editor, Captain Scott business manager, and J. W. Redington city editor. E. O. Norton later became business manager.
The picturesque city editor, J. W. Redington, one of the most colorful characters in Oregon journalism history (26) has some interesting stories, one about Editor McDonald.
He (McDonald) was always ready to relax (wrote Redington) in the Statesman's eightieth anniversary number) when Uncle Davy Newsome would come in from Howell Prairie and sub for him, specializing on love stories located in his old home region, Greenbrier county, W. Va. . . . When we gave "Ten Nights in a Barroom" at Reed's Opera House, Calvin held the paper back three hours so that he could get in a column describing the magnificent stage presence of Carrie M. Foltz, the star. . . ."
In the city editorship of Redington the Statesman's circulation was fully 500. "Pay days," he wrote, "were scarce, for the business manager was also running the hack and dray company. I used to rustle ads for the four-page paper, but it was worse than painful dentistry, and when I tried to collect bills I invited getting shot, or at least half-shot. So I got scared, and got out of the danger zone by blowing boots and saddles, mounting my horse and riding across the Cascade range, where I joined the army and went scouting through three Indian wars, thus getting into the safety zone."
In those days city editors were not just newsgatherers; they had to turn their hand to anything. In addition to rustling ads and collecting (perhaps) bills, Redington used to solicit subscriptions for the weekly. "I attached one subscriber," he related, "by swapping a year's subscription for a bear to Merchant Wolfard at Silverton." . . . .
"Those were the days," he said, "when local news was scarce, and imagination had to be drawn on to fill up the allotted three columns."
A sidelight on politics and poker in 1876 was told by Colonel Redington. "General Nesmith," he wrote, "had the U. S. senatorship in his vest pocket in 1876, and the Democratic caucus at the state house had decided to thus honor him, but one man insisted on sending a committee after Nes to bring him up and outline his policy, etc. The committee found Nes in a poker game at the Chemeketa hotel, and asked him to come on up. He said that he could not just then, but would come up when he finished the game. The committee went back and reported just what he said. Then the caucus got mad, and said that any man that put poker above a senatorship didn't deserve the high office, and then they went ahead and nominated Governor Grover, whose place was then filled by Secretary of State Cradwick."
The story is interesting, though possibly somewhat heightened by Redington's class-A imagination.
Tracing the Statesman's personnel through, we find (27) that in 1875 Waters Bros. (Capt. A. H. and W. H. H.) bought the paper and W. H. H. Waters became editor.
Then in June, 1877, W. H. Odell bought the paper and took the occasion to procure some news type. In about seven years' ownership Mr. Odell had successively as partners L. G. Jackson, George E. Good, C. W. Watts, George P. Dorris, and A. Gessner.
R. P. Boise Jr. and Whitney L. Boise edited and managed the paper from July, 1881, to December, 1882, when A. Gessner took over the business and editorial direction.
W. H. Byars, well known as surveyor general and state printer, and a former Roseburg publisher, who later was to buy the new Capital Journal within a few months of its founding, bought a half interest in the Statesman and installed H. H. Hendricks as editor, in 1883.
In the next year a young man appeared on the scene who was to retain his connection with the Statesman, most of the time as editor and manager, for more than half a century. This was R. J. Hendricks, who, with George H. Saubert, like himself from Roseburg, bought Odell's interest in the paper. Hendricks became editor and manager, and Saubert headed the mechanical department. In December, 1884, Byars sold out to D. W. Craig, who was always either buying or selling an interest in the Statesman. In September of the next year Craig sold his interest to Hendricks and Saubert. The Statesman Publishing Company was incorporated. Hendricks continued as editor and manager for 44 years.
The Statesman was a school for a good many rising young newspaper men, prominent among them Edgar B. Piper, who succeeded Harvey W. Scott in editorial charge of the Oregonian. He was a reporter on the Statesman as early as 1887 and was elected to membership in the newly formed state editorial association in October of that year.
When Hendricks and Saubert became owners of the paper in 1884, they were young and enterprising. One of their early expressions of their faith in the future was the installation in 1893 of the second and third linotypes ever used in Oregon; the first was set up in the office of the Morning Astorian the year before. The Oregonian had not as yet adopted the machines, and there were still a great many printers who predicted that the new invention would never be really practical and economical. Mr. Hendricks went to Astoria and saw No. 578 in operation. He returned and immediately ordered two. The machines were shipped from the factory in Brooklyn, N. Y., March 31, 1893. The Astoria lino had been sent from the factory the previous August 15, and the eight installed by the Oregonian left the factory May 11, 1894. This was additional evidence of what was in store for the typesetting vocation; hand composition was rap idly ushered out after the Oregonian's move.
One of the two linotypes purchased by the Statesman in 1893 remained in service for 30 years, until August 1923, making its service approximately equal to that of Astoria's No. 578, which was in use from September 1892 to November 1922. Operators estimate (28) that the old Salem machine yielded nearly 1,800,000 column inches of news matter, almost 30 miles, one column wide.
The Statesman came down the years, most of the time under Mr. Hendricks' direction, until 1928, when he retired. He and his part ner, Carle Abrams, sold out, and the paper was placed under the direction of Earl C. Brownlee, late of the Washington County News-Times at Forest Grove, and Sheldon F. Sackett, who had been named on the All-American Country Weekly Eleven in recognition of his exceptionally competent handling of the McMinnville Telephone Register. Mr. Hendricks has since continued on the paper, either as editorial writer or as director of the comment column "Bits for Breakfast," paralleling the competitor's "Sips for Supper." Mr. Hendricks throughout his newspaper career of more than half a century, has had a keen interest in Oregon history, has written much on the subject, including Bethel and Aurora, the history of the settlement of Aurora, Oregon—which work has been read with interest by throngs of Oregon history fans. Mr. Abrams on his retirement had been connected with the Statesman for more than 25 years in a variety of capacities.
Mr. Brownlee soon retired from the partnership and removed to California, and Charles A. Sprague, Illinois native, former school teacher and former country editor in Washington, who for the last four years had been associated with Claude E. Ingalls and Myron K. Myers in the direction of the Corvallis Gazette-Times, purchased an interest. He later obtained the controlling interest in the Statesman and withdrew from the Corvallis connection. Mr. Sprague was nominated for governor by the Republicans of Oregon in the May primary and elected in November, 1938. Under Mr. Sprague's direction, with the cooperation of Sheldon F. Sackett, for several years his managing editor, the Statesman has taken a place of exceptional influence in the public affairs of Oregon. During Mr. Sprague's tenure as governor Mr. Sackett is editing the paper.
The Capital Journal, not long past its half-century mark, was founded by Will H. Parry, a native of Independence, Ore., who had run a newspaper there and had later been employed as editor of the Corvallis Gazette while the paper was having financial difficulties. He was soon to move to Seattle, where he became city editor of the Post-Intelligencer, later becoming a prosperous real estate dealer there. When he died, in Washington, D. C., nearly 40 years later, he was a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
But to get back to the paper: The first issue of the new evening publication, bearing the name of Will H. Parry as manager, appeared March 1, 1888. The paper was to be published every evening except Sunday and was to cost the subscriber $5 a year or 15 cents a week if delivered by carrier.
This newspaper, one of many started in Salem in the 80's, Was to outlive all others except the Statesman. A paper calling itself Talk had been started in 1879 as a morning daily, and Frank Conover and associates (Conover & Co.) had carried it on as a daily for seven years. In 1886 it dropped to a weekly and suspended the next year. The old Vidette, established by E. O. Norton, and published for a time in East Portland, was back in Salem, with J. B. Fithian editor. It was, as Fred Lockley recalls, in the same building as the new Journal.
Parry's paper started with an announcement that "The Capital Journal is issued today in the interest of the Republican party succeeding the Oregon Sentry." (The Sentry had been running, as daily or weekly, for ten years.) Proceeding, the Journal declared that "the Republican party is the party of progress" and that "in the van of this conflict [Harrison was making his successful campaign against Cleveland that year] will be the Capital Journal holding aloft the banner of true Republicanism and fighting for the principles of the noblest and greatest party that the world has ever known." But that, as the now Democratic Capital Journal observed in its special edition celebrating its new building in 1934, "was in 1888."
Within a few months the paper was purchased by Surveyor General W. H. Byars and Martin L. Chamberlain of the state land office. They employed Frederic Lockley, father of the present Oregon Journal historian and special writer, as editor, and Fred's brother-in-law, J. R. Shepherd, as manager. Fred Lockley himself went to work in the summer of that year as pressman of the Capital Journal at $9 a week. Mr. Byars acted as editor as well as manager for a time between the terms of Mr. Lockley Sr. and Clare B. Irvine, formerly of the Statesman, later of the Sentinel, in editorial charge. Going away on a surveying trip, Mr. Byars turned the direction of the paper over to his young pressman, instructing Lockley that all he would have to do would be to select from "a bushel basket of clippings for editorials, write an occasional local editorial, rustle what advertising I could, and keep all employees satisfied by paying them as promptly as possible." The young manager never missed a payday although he had to do some close figuring and get some of the subscribers to pay a year ahead in order to provide the needed cash.
The typesetters were Elsie Goodhue, Minnie Foley, Carrie Hass, Luella Cary, with Will Torey as "devil."
The paper was purchased in 1892 by Ernst (Col. E.) and Andy Hofer.
A later owner of the Capital Journal was Charles H. Fisher, who purchased the paper from the Hofers in 1912, built it up tremendously, and sold it in 1919. In December 1934 the newspaper emphasized its prosperity by moving into its own palatial Gothic fireproof building, 100×50 feet and two stories high above a basement 12 feet deep. The building is air-conditioned, has modern lighting, deadened noise, and every modern facility for small-city newspaper production.
The special edition celebrating the new building carried pictures of all the staff members as of 1934:
Editorial staff—George Putnam, editor and publisher; Harry N. Crain, managing editor; Don Upjohn and Stephen A. Stone, staff writers; Rovena Eyre, women's editor; C. K. Logan, editor valley news; Fred Zimmerman, sports editor; Ruby Laughlin and Margaret Burdette, copy desk. (Crain has a reputation as a political seer Upjohn does a smart column, "Sips for Supper.")
Business department—E. A. Brown, advertising manager; W. A. Scott, circulation manager; Helen Yockey, treasurer; Frank Perry, mechanical superintendent; John Whitehead, classified advertising; Charles R. Morrison, display advertising; Mary Arthurs, bookkeeper; Addison Lane Jr., mail clerk; Hackley Burton, pressman.
The Salem Sentinel, of Republican politics, was started by C. B. Irvine, a former editor of the Statesman, as a Saturday weekly December 4, 1897. It was an eight-page five-column paper, neat looking, with headlines modern in form but written without action. The paper carried 16% columns of advertising out of a total of 40, and the advertisers were allowed to place their ads, apparently, wherever they wished. An odd feature in the third issue (December 18) was a sensationally played story with a four-column streamer head in 48-point type (two-thirds of an inch deep) on PILATE'S STORY OF THE CRUCIFIXION
Pontius Pilate's Interview with Jesus-Is This the Long Lost Report of Pilate Which Reveals the Astonishing Fact That the Savior's Crucifixion Would Have Been Prevented Had the Roman Reinforcements Arrived One Day Sooner?
Mr. Irvine ran the paper for several years. It seems to have dropped out about 1905.
Now Let's Pick Up Some More Salem Newspapers
The decade of the 60's saw the launching of several papers in Salem, none of which has come down to the present. As was true throughout the era of handset newspapers—roughly, up to the late 90's—it was cheap and easy to start a newspaper in those days, and often the cheapest and easiest thing to do after a few months or so was to go away and leave it, if it could not be sold to some optimistic person with a few dollars and a crusading spirit or some political ax to whet. The Statesman was running when all of these ambitious youngsters took the field-and the Statesman is still going, albeit after periods of vicissitude. The others have gone down into unmarked journalistic graves.
Some of these papers were in pretty competent hands. First of the Statesman's competitors, chronologically, was the Oregon Arena, weekly, started in 1862 by C. B. Bellinger, Anthony Noltner, and Urban E. Hicks, each a newspaper man of ability and experience. Bellinger was editor, Noltner manager, and Hicks the printer. Hicks became editor in place of Bellinger in 1865.
The paper gave way in September of 1865 to the Democratic Review, a weekly launched by the same trio as had started the Arena. Noltner in the meantime had had some trying experiences in Eugene as the publisher of a Democratic weekly and when forced to give up the ghost there he moved the plant and name to Salem. The paper soon folded up, and Mr. Noltner is soon found starting another paper there.
This was the weekly Capital City Chronicle, the first issue of which appeared August 21, 1867. Noltner's partner was J. H. Upton, of unsurpassed ubiquity in Oregon journalism. His name appears as the founder of several Oregon newspapers—one could almost say many. The weekly ran to November, when it was succeeded by a daily edition, under the sole ownership and editorial direction of Upton.
Meanwhile the Salem Record was established by David Watson Craig as publisher and proprietor, with S. A. Clarke as editor. The paper was started as a daily, making its first appearance June 10, 1867. It was a four-column, four-page paper, issued every morning except Monday. Subscribers were to pay 25¢ a week to the carrier. Advertising rates were announced as "reasonable," but only about of ads appeared in the whole paper. This sort of 15 column-inches business may explain why the daily lasted only until July 15, 1868.
General news apparently was dull, local news scarce or reporting enterprise below par, for the big news event in the Record's first issue was a naive account of a Sunday school picnic "last week."
The Record started a weekly edition October 7, 1867, which survived the daily for some time. The paper, both daily and weekly, was typographically restrained, with nothing bigger than single-line heads. There was no effort at classification of material, with all types of matter on every page. The Record appears to have drifted from the scene before 1870. In 1876 Conover (Frank) & Co. were publishing another newspaper under the name Daily Record, but its volume number (No. 3 in August 1878) indicates that it was a new venture and not a continuation of the old Record. In the issue of August 18 the Record advertised itself as the only evening paper published in Salem. It was prosperous-appearing—a five-column, four-page paper, with close to 11½ columns of advertising out of its 20 columns of space. The paper sold for 15 cents a week by carrier, 50 cents a month by mail. Telegraphic news was displayed on page 1, and the multiple-deck (several-division) heads were used, of which this is an example:
Telegraphic
Workingmen's Mass Meeting in Washington
English Wheat Prospects
Recently Arrived Russian Wheat Unsaleable
The More Murder Trials
Jones in a Tight Place
Eastern
This heading followed the old style, common in early days of telegraphic news, of bunching in one continuous string all the column or so of telegraph news received, and giving one section of the head to each separate item. Politics, business, court procedure, and whatnot are here all combined confusingly in the one continuous headline.
The Daily Democratic Tocsin ran for a few weeks in January and February 1868. Jernegan & Company were publishers.
One of the big editors of Salem in the 60's, Charles B. Bellinger, confined his journalism almost entirely to that decade and is best remembered as a lawyer, law-compiler, and jurist. Born in Magnon, Ill., Nov. 21, 1839, he came to the Northwest in 1847. His early education, in a school on the Santiam River, was directed by Orange Jacobs, later Jacksonville editor and still later himself a distinguished lawyer and judge in Washington, territory and state. He studied law with B. F. Bonham at Salem and was admitted to the bar in 1863, shortly after helping launch the Arena. Leaving Salem after his newspaper experiences there, he was for a time engaged in merchandising in Monroe, Benton county, and in 1869 was editor of the Albany Democrat. The next year he moved to Portland and practiced law. The same year he founded and for two years edited the Portland News, which later was succeeded by the Portland Telegram. He is probably better known for his annotated code of the laws of Oregon than for any other achievement. He was honored by election to the presidency of the state bar association, was for ten years professor in the University of Oregon law school, and at the time of his death (May 12, 1909) had been for nine years a member of the board of regents of the university.
Bellinger's partner in the Arena, Anthony (Tony) Noltner, was a German, born June 11, 1839. Already in America in 1849 he joined his father in the gold rush to California. He arrived in Portland October 11, 1857, and spent just three days short of half a century in Oregon, in newspaper work virtually all the time. Within a week of his arrival in Portland he joined the staff of J. H. Slater's Occidental Messenger in Corvallis, learning the printer's trade there. He was prominent in Eugene before going to Salem, being a partner of Joaquin Miller in the Democratic Review there, which was suppressed for outspoken support of the South in 1862.
Beriah Brown, noted old-time newspaper-maker in three commonwealths—California, in Oregon, and Washington,—started in Salem in February, 1869, the Weekly Democratic Press, published Saturdays for $3 a year in advance. It was a seven-column, four-page paper carrying, under its title the motto "In essentials unity—in non-essentials liberty—in all things charity." The democracy of this declaration might be argued. The paper was highly political. In 28 columns of the paper's space in volume 1, No. 11, there was included only one column of anything resembling local news, only 3½ columns of clipped "telegraph," 11 columns of general clipped miscellany, the rest fairly evenly divided between editorial and advertising. Every editorial except one was political (as, indeed, was not unusual in the papers throughout this period). The one non-political editorial was a review of Joaquin et al, by Cincinnatus H. Miller, printed in Portland by Carter & Himes and published by S. J. McCormick. There is little comment on the poetry, more on the grammatical regularities. "The divine afflatus and beautiful insanity of which poetry is born, is manifest throughout the work," is Brown's little tribute to Joaquin Miller.
In the issue of June 11, 1870, appears Brown's valedictory, a column and three quarters in length, explaining that "Democratic victory" had been the object of his "mounting the tripod" and with that accomplished "our mission is ended." The paper soon folded up.
Another newspaper of that period which left little impression on the journalistic sands was the Salem Daily Visitor, whose first number was noticed by the State Rights Democrat of Albany, Sept. 30, 1870. The publisher was J. Henry Brown. "There are now," said the Democrat, "three daily papers published at Salem." The other two, apparently, were the Statesman and the Capital City Chronicle, already noted.
The Salem Mercury struggled along for a few years after its establishment in 1869. For a time in the early seventies it was conducted at Salem as a daily and weekly by William (Bud) Thompson, Missourian who became one of Oregon's fighting editors. Thompson, who had had a fiery career at Roseburg (described else where in this volume), purchased the paper in 1871. He conducted the Mercury for three years. In his "Reminiscences," (29) Thompson describes his Salem experience as an effort to unite Democratic factions which had become discordant.
I received (he wrote) an offer to take charge of the Salem Mercury. Leaders of the party, among them three ex-senators, the governor of the state, and many others prominent in the affairs of Oregon, purchased the plant and paper and tendered me a bill of sale for the same. Ex-Senators Nesmith, Harding, Governor Grover, ex-Governor Whiteaker and General Lane and many others urged me to take the step (30). They urged that I could unite all the factions of the party in support of a party paper at the capital of the state... I sold my paper (Plaindealer) therefore, at Roseburg, and with $4,000 in money and a bill of sale of an office costing $2500 started to Salem. My success there as a newspaper man was all that could be desired. A large circulation was rapidly built up, and a daily as well as weekly started.
Some old-timers, however, have a less rosy recollection of Thompson's relations with his sponsors. There is the story told by Judge L. H. McMahan, old-time lawyer and newspaper editor, of the time when Governor Grover was about to foreclose on the plant for a debt—not being quite satisfied with the way Thompson was supporting Grover's ideas. Thompson went to Asahel Bush, in his bank at Salem, and laid the situation before him. "How much is it?" was Bush's question. "Put your note in the bank" for the amount, was his assurance to Thompson, and perhaps another little skirmish was won for press freedom.
The Willamette Collegian, now a weekly, had as its forerunner the College Journal, a monthly founded in 1881. The Collegian was launched as a monthly in 1889 (31).
Arthur Brock, veteran printer-publisher, who had been employed on the Daily Independent and Post in Salem, in 1894-5-6, started in '96 the first general educational magazine in the state, the Oregon Teachers' Monthly, in partnership with George Jones, of Marion county schools. After three or four superintendent months Mr. Brock withdrew from the partnership and went to Chehalis, and Mr. Jones took the magazine over to the Statesman office as a job of printing. The Statesman later acquired the publication and conducted it for many years. This monthly, organ of the Oregon State Teachers' Association, ran for 30 years, much of the time under the editorship of Charles H. Jones. It was dis continued the year after the establishment of the Oregon Education Journal in Portland, in 1926.
The Oregon Poultry Journal, one of several publications issued from the printing-shop of the Oregon Statesman, ran under that name from 1896 to 1906, when it became the Northwest Poultry Journal, in recognition of its widening field. It has been now for many years under the editorial direction of W. C. Conner, old-time Oregon weekly publisher.
The Pacific Homestead, successor of a line of agricultural publications published in Salem and Portland, was established in 1900 as a weekly, with R. J. Hendricks publisher. Carle Abrams was editor for many years. It was suspended in 1930, several years after the withdrawal of Colonel Abrams.
Footnotes
[edit]26. Referred to in connection with Heppner journalism, page 392 ff.
27. Statesman's 80th anniversary number, March 28, 1931.
28. Editor & Publisher, August, 1923.
29. Page 73.
30. Thompson was at the time only 23 years old.
31. It is not the plan of the present compiler to give extended treatment to trade and class publications.