Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/143

134 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—

"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:

"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."

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: