Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/158

Rh Union editorial group one not mentioned by Mr. Pittock was James Newton Gale, recently publisher of the Republican at Eugene, who was editor for a short time. Gibbs and Hill also were among the editors. The daily suspended in May but was followed by a weekly edition, for which H. R. Kincaid's Oregon State Journal (June 18, 1864) gives the following favorable little notice: "We have received the second number of the Portland Weekly Union. It contains twenty-eight columns of reading matter, and is not only the largest and cheapest but one of the best papers in the state. Terms $3 per year." It failed, however, to last many issues.

Now as to what was the matter with Editor Holbrook, now nearing the end of his editorial career on the Oregonian, to arouse the antagonism of the strong Union group represented by Mr. Kincaid. The young Eugene editor gives their complaint in the Oregon State Journal for April 23, 1864:

"Amory Holbrook, editor of the Oregonian, has incurred the displeasure of the Union papers generally, and they are pouring hot shot into him from all sides. The points they make against him are numerous, but we will mention only the most prominent. First, that he violently opposed the election of the lamented patriot, Col. Baker, to the United States Senate. Second, that after the election of President Lincoln he made a direct fight, not only against Senator Baker and his measures, but against the Administration because it favor ed Baker's views. Third, that he used all his influence to defeat a portion of the Republican electoral ticket in this State in 1860. Fourth, that he aided, and in a great measure was instrumental in the election of Cole, a Copperhead candidate for Congress, from Washington territory. We hope that Mr. Holbrook will be able to explain his action in these matters satisfactorily, and unless he does the Union men of Oregon will, for good cause, look with suspicion upon him."

Holbrook, of course, had his answer; he simply was not very regular in his partisanship. He failed to win back the suspicious pro-Union group.

So the Union faded out. Mr. Gale, who had retired from the editorship, was engaged first in traveling about as a representative of the Oregon State Journal but by midsummer was in Astoria, as editor of the first newspaper in Astoria, the old Marine Gazette, in August of 1864.

Two abortive little Portland dailies may be mentioned here. One was the Daily Plaindealer and the other the Evening Gazette. The Plaindealer, under the editorial and business direction of A. C. Edmunds, issued a few numbers of a four-page four-column tabloid evening edition in May, 1862. This too was a Union party paper.