Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/159

150 Devoid of news and almost devoid of advertising, it failed to live by politics alone and soon passed. The other was the Evening Gazette, favorably noticed by the Oregonian December 19, 1863. The Oregonian commented, however, that its "position on the great national issue has not been editorially set forth."

Portland's next daily paper (all the others but the Oregonian were now dead) was the Oregon Herald, Democratic, the first number of which appeared March 17, 1866.

The salutatory, a column and a half in length, by M. H. Abbott, told the readers that:

"The Herald will contain full daily telegraphic reports. We cannot, however, say that these will always be correct, as we shall be dependent upon persons hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles distant, for the statements which they may, from day to day, embody. We will give them to our readers as we get them. . . Our telegraphic reports will cost us not less than One Hundred Dollars per week, and it will be no fault of ours if at times they will be incorrect."

The telegraph editor of a newspaper in those days was a lot more helpless than today. No newspaper today would feel able to feed its for the accuracy readers such a plea in avoidance of responsibility of its world news.

Continuing, the salutatory promised to make a "speciality" of publishing all the important local news of Portland and the state generally. It would be, the salutatory promised, the

"fast and firm friend, of Science, Agriculture, Mechanics, an humble advocate Literature, Morality, and Religion of Democratic principles. . . While the Republican party has had its party organs by the dozen, scattering their sheets like autumnal leaves in a wintry blast all over the land, the Democratic party of Oregon has had but three. .."

The Herald, professing its confidence in the future, told the Portlanders:

"So great is our faith in Portland that we say to it, as the Moabitess said to Naomi: "Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to cease from following after thee; for where thou will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God goest shall die, and there will be my God. Where thou diest buried.""

The Herald, dying in 1873, had no chance to put its faith to the test.

Though the Oregon Herald lasted for only a brief seven years,