Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/222

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Leading Journalists.



H. W. SCOTT,

One of the proprietors and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily and Weekly "Oregonian," the leading journal of the Northwest, was born in Tazewell county, Illinois, on the 1st day of February, 1838. At the age of fifteen years he removed to Oregon, coming across the plains with his parents. Washington Territory, then a part of Oregon, was selected as a place of settlement, but the family came to Oregon proper in 1854 and lived for two years in Clackamas county. Moat of the time from his arrival on the coast till 1858 was spent by Mr. Scott in the hardest kind of farm work, of which he tired finally and undertook the task of securing an education. For this purpose he entered the Pacific University, and, after five years close study, came out of that institution with a mind well fitted for the prominent position he was afterwards called to take. About the close of the war of the Rebellion he assumed the editor's chair in the "Oregonian" office, which he has since continuously filled, with the exception of about two years, when the chief writer was Hon. W. Lair Hill. Mr. Scott's style as a journalist is peculiarly his own. While he is not dashing or florid, and by some is regarded as occasionally heavy, his writings are never pointless. He goes home to the root of his subject, and, with a logic that is strong if not always keen, he cuts to the quick. Trained as a boy by a Whig father, and receiving.his first lessons in politics by reading Horace Greeley in the New York "Tribune," Mr. Scott has always been the staunch opponent of the Democratic party, though of late years he has shown a decided leaning to the Democratic idea of free trade. Under his editorial management the " Oregonian" has become the largest and most influential newspaper of the Northwest, and its utterances have been given more prominence in the country generally than those of any other journal on the Pacific Coast. Harvey W. Scott is conceded to be the ablest journalist in the Northwest.



A. NOLTNER.

Mr. A. Noltner, whose name occupies a foremost position amongst the politicians of this State, came to Oregon in the year 1857, and in the Fall of that year was initiated into the rudimentary elements of typography in the town of Corvallis. Two years later he became associated with Hon. James H. Slater in the publication of the Corvallis « Union." In 1862 they sold the "Union" to the late P. J. Malone. Mr. Noltner then removed to Eugene City, where he published the "Register" until 1865, when he removed it to Salem, In 1868 he sold the "Register," and for a time applied his attention to journey work. In 1870 he purchased the Oregon City "En-