Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/148

Rh 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