Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 29/The Oregonian Newspaper in Oregon History

Old world communities existed for long ages before the newspaper began to herald their affairs. But in America, the newspaper came into being soon after settlements were founded. So it was in Oregon and California, and through out the frontier West.

Oregon's constructive pioneer era opened in 1842, and the first newspaper, Oregon Spectator, appeared in 1846. Within five years, a half dozen publications had been produced to chronicle the birth of another state of the American Union. One of these journals was The Oregonian, which was founded as a weekly in 1850, became a daily in 1861, has been published continuously, and today is the oldest surviving newspaper west of Iowa and Missouri, with the exception of The Deseret News, of Salt Lake City. The latter was first issued six months earlier than The Oregonian.

The files of The Oregonian are a continuous narrative of nearly seventy-eight years. As a source of Oregon history, those files are a most valuable record.

American newspapers sprang into existence in California at the same time as in Oregon; the first of these, The Californian, at Monterey, six months later than, the Oregon Spectator. The most famous of early California journals, The Alta California, had beginnings at San Francisco in 1847, but did not appear under that name until 1849. The poet Virgil quotes his hero Aeneas, when describing momentous episodes of the Trojan War: "Large part of which I have been." These words may be applied to The Oregonian's participation in Oregon episodes: "Large part of which The Oregonian has been." Brilliant talents have distinguished the founders and builders of that medium, through nearly four-score years: Thomas J. Dryer, Henry L. Pittock, Simeon Francis, W. Lair Hill, Amory Holbrook, Harvey W. Scott. Many rivals came and went. Some of the rivals were brilliant, too. More than thirty newspapers

were launched at Portland. Most of them were short lived. Three, besides The Oregonian, have survived: Portland Telegram, Oregon Journal and Portland News. I was requested to narrate here a history of The Oregonian newspaper. But the history to be here recorded will not be merely of that newspaper; rather a narrative of Oregon events, as reflected by The Oregonian and other newspapers. One may assume that The Oregonian news paper has rendered valuable service, else the public would not give support over so long a duration of time, nor would the fame of the publication, as one of the world's best newspapers, be so far spread. Circulation of 110,000 copies daily and of 170,000 Sunday, which is the largest in the Pacific Northwest, indicates that the newspaper holds a high position in the regard of the people, and suffers no decrepitudes.

The founding of The Oregonian in 1850 was part of Portland's effort to be a metropolis. Oregon City had the Oregon Spectator; Milwaukie had the Western Star. These two newspapers were then the only ones in the Pacific Northwest. Each town was larger than Portland. Oregon City had probably 700 inhabitants; Milwaukie, 500; and Portland, less than 300. Lot Whitcomb, founder of Milwaukie, had no use for Portland. He built a steamboat at Milwaukie in 1850 and sailed it to Astoria, refusing to stop at Portland. And he published the Western Star to champion his town over Oregon City and Portland. But Mr. Whitcomb could not make or mar the fates. The proprietors of Portland, led by Stephen Coffin, bought the ocean vessel Gold Hunter, to ply between Portland and San Francisco; also, they opened the Canyon Road to Tualatin Plains. Also, they induced Tom Dryer to publish The Oregonian. Soon Portland's supremacy was secure. In 1860 Portland had 2852 inhabitants; Oregon City, 888; Milwaukie, 180. Thus, A. L. Lovejoy and F. W. Pettygrove were vindicated for choosing Portland's townsite in 1844. Milwaukie, near the foot of Clackamas Rapids; Oregon City at Willamette Falls, Linnton at the junction of the two branches of the Lower Willamette, fell behind.

As a digression, it may be recalled that the first purser on Lot Whitcomb's steamboat was O. W. Nixon, a physician schoolteacher of Lot Whitcomb's town Milwaukie. Mr. Nixon liked steamboating so well that he did not return to schoolteaching. Afterwards, as an editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, he published much matter pertaining to Oregon and the West. He wrote the book, How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon, which brought fame to Marcus Whitman, and support to Whitman College. Nixon's brother, William Penn Nixon, was the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Inter-Ocean in the palmy days of that newspaper. That journal had a large circulation in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Northern Missouri, and, under the Nixons, induced many persons to Oregon after the Civil War. These details of history exemplify how Oregon was linked to the Nation. The beginnings of The Oregonian in 1850 took place only four years after the signing of the boundary treaty with Britain; only seven years after the founding of the provisional government at Champoeg; only one year after the establishment of the territorial government by Governor Lane; only three years after the Whitman massacre. Those were days of Oregon's formative beginnings. The great migration of 1852 was yet to arrive. The Yakima War was yet to be fought. Of Oregon's 13,000 population, 1000 lived in Western Washington, 12,000 in Western Oregon, and virtually none east of the Cascades. Oregon and Washington had 1164 farms, 2374 families, nine churches, 29 lawyers, 45 physicians, three newspapers, one of which was The Oregonian.

The first American newspaper on the Pacific Coast, the Oregon Spectator, had been edited at Oregon City, with occasional suspensions, since 1846, by W. G. T'Vault, H. A. G. Lee, John Fleming, George Law Curry, Aaron E. Wait, and others. The second newspaper in Oregon, the Free Press, had been published at Oregon City by Mr. Curry for six months in 1848. The third newspaper, The Oregon American and Evangelical Unionist, had been printed a short time in 1848 at Tualatin Plains, near Hillsboro, by

Charles F. Putnam, whose editors were the Reverends H. H. Spalding and J. S. Griffin, and who used the Lapwai mission printing press.

The fourth Oregon newspaper was the Western Star, at Milwaukie. The fifth Oregon newspaper was The Oregonian, whose home was at Portland, where it has remained. Let us now move forward a decade, to the more active period which began in 1860. Progress was then stimulated by the opening of the interior country to settlement and to placer gold seeking, which followed after the Yakima War. The Columbia and Willamette rivers became busy avenues of steamboat traffic. Portland, as the center of this traffic, had the first "boom."

Until 1859 no daily newspapers were published in the Pacific Northwest. The news issues up to that year were weeklies. But Portland, after 1850, gained ascendancy over other towns, so that it was natural for the first daily newspapers to be established there. Three of them pre ceded the daily Oregonian: Daily News, published in 1859 by Alonzo Leland, S. A. English, W. B. Taylor and E. D. Shattuck; Advertiser, in 1859-62, by Alonzo Leland, S. J. McCormick and George L. Curry; Times, in 1860-64, by R. D. Austin, W. D. Carter, John Orvis Waterman, Alonzo Leland, W. Lair Hill and others. The Oregonian's turn to publish a daily, the fourth at Portland, came in 1861, after Mr. Dryer obtained from President Lincoln a diplomatic appointment, and went to Honolulu. Mr. Dryer's successor was Henry L. Pittock, who had joined his establishment in 1853 as a lad of seventeen years, and to whom Mr. Dryer owed money for services rendered. Mr. Dryer had spent ten years in Oregon, had borne the heat and burden of political campaigns against the Democrats, and in 1860 had been chosen a Presidential elector for Lincoln. He was tired of the long and dreary effort in frontier Oregon, and harassed by debts and newspaper rivalry. So he assigned to Mr. Pittock The Oregonian, then a weekly newspaper; Mr. Pittock assumed the debts, and on February 4, 1861, began publication of the Morning Oregonian. The outlook seemed gloomy for The Oregonian, for two daily papers

already were published in the town of only 3000 persons, the Advertiser and the Times. Next year, in 1862, the Advertiser was suppressed by the government for utterances against the war policy. The Times continued publication until 1864. Other daily papers took the places of those that suspended, so that keen competition. was never absent in the life of The Oregonian. The Oregonian, as Harvey W. Scott, the famous editor, said, was not dandled into fortune, but fought for and won every success, inch by inch, against the hardest opposition. Mr. Scott joined The Oreigonian in 1865. During the interval, 1872-77, the editor was W. Lair Hill.

The first keen opponent of the daily Oregonian, the Times, although earlier in the field, could not outmatch the younger newspaper in the conflict for survival of the fittest. Mr. Austin, publisher of the Times, was more easy going than Mr. Pittock, publisher of The Oregonian, had less patience and industry, less application to the details of business; also more social engagements. Mr. Austin was a violin player, an accomplishment which, according to the canons, does not contribute to habits of hard work in the craft. Mr. Austin died at Portland in 1887, long after The Oregonian had become firmly established. Newspapers of the early day took strong sides on political questions, and were expected to be partisan organs.

Oregon's strongest editors in the fifties were Thomas J. Dryer, of The Oregonian; William L. Adams, of the Oregon City Argus, and Asahel Bush, of the Oregon City and Salem Statesman. The editorial broadsides fired by these writers were full of invective and satire, such as would not be tolerated in our politer times, but which in pioneer days regaled the readers and supplied matters of interest amid otherwise dull and drab surroundings. The "Oregon style" of denunciation, vituperation and sarcasm became a habit of editors, and widely famous. The border lines of scurrility were not nicely observed. Public opinion welcomed such encounters and forbade private vengeance. Oregon has always extend ed large privileges of discussion to newspapers and politicians. Penalties of libel and slander have been lightly in

flicted. Newspaper freedom comes from early' pioneer habit, and public opinion has sanctioned little abridgment. The federal government, however, in 1862-63, in the heat of the Civil War, denied the use of the mail to six Oregon newspapers: at Albany, Eugene, Corvallis, Jacksonville and Portland. These journals were Democratic and opposed to the war.

A high type of journalism has come out of the "Oregon style." The newspapers of Portland are among the best mediums of America; those of the smaller Oregon cities are produced on a plane of superiority. The public frowns upon an intemperate, sensational, "yellow" or rabid press. Readers have acquired tastes considerably above the aver age of the country. The irreverent and anarchial spirit of our jazzy day is not reflected by newspapers in Oregon, as in Eastern states. The Oregonian has had large part in the creation of this newspaper culture, for that publication has been known always for conservatism and higher excellence. Publication of The Oregonian as a daily in 1861 began the actively competitive life of that newspaper. It was necessary to enter the daily field or to drop out entirely, for the two opponents, Advertiser and Times, were daily issues, and Portland had passed out of the status in which a weekly newspaper could thrive. Besides, the opening of the Civil War made a demand for frequent news, and the telegraph was coming into use. But tolls were high and money to pay them was scarce. "Patience, industry, application and skill had the usual result," said Harvey W. Scott many years afterwards, "and the contest was soon decided in The Oregonian's favor. Another helpful thing," said Mr. Scott, "was The Oregonian's vigorous espousal of the national cause in the crisis of the Civil War." The rival papers were Democratic and anti-Lincoln. "The people began to look to The Oregonian," said Mr. Scott, "not only for news but for expression of the national sentiment of the Northwest."

Outside news came from San Francisco, by sea, and by horse stage. A daily stage, carrying mail, began service between Sacramento and Portland in 1860. A telegraph

operated between Sacramento and Yreka in 1858; between Portland and Corvallis, in 1856, but the latter fell into dis repair. A transcontinental telegraph connected with California in 1861. Oregon wires connected with California in 1864. For five years the news was carried to Port land from the telegraph at Yreka by horse stage, the running time of which was four and one-half days for the 400 miles. The running time from Sacramento was six and seven days. Ocean vessels sailed between San Francisco and Portland in four and five days. These avenues of news were used by the Portland papers. The publisher who sat up all night for the arrival of the news, and published the news first, as Mr. Pittock did, won the favor of readers and advertisers. In this service The Oregonian outdid competitors. They succumbed, one after another. But The Oregonian carried on.

The telegraph dispatches necessarily were meager. Only a skeleton of Eastern news could be printed. In 1861 the commercial toll for ten words, San Francisco to Chicago, was $4.55; in 1865, Portland to New York, $7.50. News rates also were high, so high that the newspaper could not always pay promptly. The Oregonian gave notes to the telegraph company in payment. Some of these obligations were not discharged for many years afterwards. Seven times, so the story goes, Mr. Pittock pledged his home where now stands the Pittock block, to pay wages and telegraph bills of The Oregonian.

After suspension of the Times in 1864, many competitors of The Oregonian entered the lists at Portland, all of which finally gave up in losses and defeat. The fighting editor of The Oregonian after 1865 was conspicuously Mr. Scott. He had strong physique, terrific driving power, unwavering courage, wide scholarship and large literary skill. None of the other editors could match him in journalistic duello. Mr. Scott made name and fame for The Oregonian, and became nationally known as Oregon's great editor. He was not only a writer and a newspaper organizer, but also a business man of keen foresight and executive ability. He was a pioneer whose life habit was that of overcoming obstacles. He

brought to The Oregonian the vigor that each of the competitors lacked, and turned the tide of success in each crisis. Mr. Scott based his policies upon good sense and "first principles." He had profound knowledge of literature, economics, history, religion and philosophy, gained through persistent reading. The resources of study were at his ready command. His greatness as an editor attracted attention throughout the country and caused The Oregonian to be regarded as the strongest newspaper of the Pacific Coast, and as an outstanding journal of the nation. Mr. Scott used his powers to their best in the sound money con test, in which his influence carried Oregon for McKinley in the presidential election of 1896. For thirty years, follow ing economic troubles of the Civil War, he urged the cause of sound money, first against paper currency and then against free coinage of silver. In the latter contest of "free silver" the circulation of The Oregonian shrank from 22,000 to less than 12,000, but Mr. Scott held fast to "first principles" and won not only success for the sound money cause but also a triumph for The Oregonian. He set a rare example of effective journalism in the guidance of public opinion.

Of the many competitors of The Oregonian, the most vigorous were the Times, in 1860-64, under publishers and editors already named; the Daily Union, in 1864-65, under W. Lair Hill, W. F. Cornell, R. M. Smith, J. J. Henderson, J. N. Gale and W. I. Mayfield; the Herald, in 1866-73, under M. H. Abbott, N. L. Butler, A. E. Wait, Beriah Brown, W. Weatherford, Sylvester Pennoyer, and Eugene Semple; the Bulletin, in 1870-75, under Ben Holladay, James O'Meara and T. B. Odeneal; the Standard, in 1876-86, under Anthony Noltner and S. B. Pettingill; and the Northwest News, in 1885-88, under Nathan Cole, A. N. Hamilton, F. M. Thayer and James O'Meara.. Three of these enterprises lost money heavily, Herald, Bulletin and News. The Standard, under Mr. Noltner, for a time enjoyed a well merited prosperity. The deficits of the Herald were $150,000; of the Bulletin, $200,000; of the News $200,000. These were big losses in a small city, and at a time when the purchasing

power of money had three times the value of today. The Oregonian suffered from, the competition, especially from that of Ben Holladay's Bulletin. Mr. Holladay was the Croesus of Oregon, the first railroad builder, who had large command of money, and supplied cash to his newspaper for propaganda and political purposes. He drove The Oregonian into losses and debts and almost to bankruptcy. Mr. Pittock assigned the control of The Oregonian to Henry W. Corbett, a banker, to meet the debts in 1870-72. Before resorting to Mr. Corbett, Mr. Pittock asked another well known banker for loans. This banker offered to lend on one condition, that he be permitted to manipulate certain market quotations in The Oregonian. Mr. Pittock declined, and turned to Mr. Corbett. Later, in 1877, Mr. Scott and Mr. Pittock bought back from Mr. Corbett the control of The Oregonian, and together they cleared the business of the indebtedness which had accumulated in the Bulletin regime of Ben Holladay.

George H. Himes is authority for this ta.le of competition between the Union and The Oregonian in 1864-65: one of the first carriers of The Oregonian, L. M. Parrish, gave up a subscription route of that newspaper to take up a route of the Union. In early days it was common for such routes to be the personal property of those who created or bought them. Years later, Mr. Parris confided to Mr. Himes that his sale of The Oregonian route was the greatest mistake of his financial life.

No competition is more spirited and costly than that of fighting newspapers. The conflict contains forces which stir men's pugnacity to primal and primeval depths. So in Oregon. Newspaperdom here has seen many strong characters. They have striven hard for their convictions. Harvey Scott was the most dreaded and respected of these fighters. Beriah Brown, of the Salem Democratic Press and the Portland Herald; James O'Meara, of the Portland Bulletin and News, and of newspapers at Albany, Eugene and Jacksonville; Anthony Noltner, of the Portland Stan

ard, and of newspapers at Oregon City, Salem and Eugene, were editors highly trained, and worthy antagonists of Mr. Scott.

Tom Dryer and Aasahel Bush were opposites, highly skilled in newspaper combat; also W. L. Adams and W. G. T'Vault, George L. Curry and W. Lair Hill. Charles B. Bellinger, afterwards Federal Judge, and Sylvester Pennoyer, afterwards governor, served their day as editors, Bellinger at Eugene, Albany, Salem and Portland, and Pennoyer at Portland. T. B. Odeneal edited newspapers at Portland and Corvallis. H. R. Kincaid published at Eugene for 45 years the Oregon State Journal. Alonzo Leland edited at Portland the Advertiser, Democratic Standard and Times; Aaron E. Wait, at Oregon City, the Spectator, and at Portland, the Herald. Other able editors and publishers in Oregon were H. A. G. Lee of the Oregon City Spectator, Delazon Smith of the Albany Democrat; D. J. Lyons, of the Scottsburg Umpqua Gazette; S. A. Clarke, of The Oregonian and the Salem Statesman. Still others worthy of attention are Simeon Francis, John F. Damon, Henry Miller, E. D. Shattuck, Amory Holbrook, Nathan Cole, B. F. Dowell, J. H. Upton, Urban E. Hicks and D. W. Craig. An editor and publisher of conspicuous success in later years was C. S. Jackson, founder and builder of the Oregon Journal. A late acqui sition of our local press is C. H. Brockhagen, publisher of The Portland Telegram, who, as he has done in other cities, applies modern and national methods to Oregon journalism.

Since Mr. Pittock's death nine years ago, the managers of The Oregonian have been C. A. Morden and 0. L. Price, and since Mr. Scott's death eighteen years ago, the editors have been Edgar B. Piper and R. G. Callvert. Oregon has had a large supply of newspaper talent. The publishers and editors have had leading parts in the up building of this commonwealth. Their influence continues to run through the fabric of community life and to mould public opinion.

The Oregonian, as the oldest of Pacific Coast news papers, has participated in the life of Oregon longer than any other. That publication is in turn a product of Oregon life, widely famed as an example of Oregon intelligence and progress; a transcript of events of nearly three generations. To paraphrase again the words of the Roman poet: "Large part of which The Oregonian has been."