place was, to a certain extent, taken by The Post, which Stilson Hutchins established in Washington, December 6, 1877.
In San Francisco The Examiner was started as a successor of The Democratic Press, whose office had been mobbed on the assassination of Lincoln by a crowd provoked to violence by its previous attacks on the martyred President. In October, 1880, The Examiner became a morning paper and shortly after passed into the control of George Hearst, who wanted to further his aspirations to the United States Senate. On taking a seat in that body on March 4, 1887, he turned the paper over to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who used it as a starter for the chain of Hearst newspapers. In 1869 The Daily Alia California, the successor of The Yerba Buena Star, and the first daily paper in the State, absorbed The Times and enjoyed a period of pros- perity until it was acquired by James G. Fair, who used the sheet to promote his personal interests and his political aspira- tions. In spite of the wealth of its owner, The Alia California gradually lost circulation and finally disappeared completely in 1891. The Bulletin, which had been started in San Francisco on October 8, 1855, six years after the famous gold rush, by James King, of William, who lost his life in May, 1855, for his attack upon James Casey, accused of stuffing ballot-boxes, had been a Democratic paper until 1861, but at the outbreak of the Civil War it changed to a Republican and did much to keep Califor- nia loyal to the Union cause. Unlike many other editors of the post-bellum period, its editor, Loring Pickering, never forced his personality upon his readers, but he gave his paper a state-wide reputation for incorruptible honesty. For a number of years he was also a part owner of The San Francisco Call, then a morning newspaper, and took an active interest in the editorial manage- ment. The San Francisco Post was started in 1871.
Two papers, started like theater programmes during this period, later became influential newspapers. The first of these was The Bee, a small two-page evening paper founded in Omaha on June 19, 1871, by Edward Rosewater. The second was The Dramatic Chronicle established in San Francisco on June 16, 1865, by Charles de Young. Its initial numbers had the appearance of play-bills and were distributed free in theaters and
