Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/185

176 defeating his object in that way, as he is from sitting down in a helpless despair, with a whine that nothing at all can be done. . . . Today it (the Oregonian) would insist more strongly if possible than ever before, on high license as a means of reducing the evils of the liquor traffic. At the same time it would be false to itself and the principle it advocates if it failed to point out the danger of defeating the object by making the license so high that public opinion will not sustain and enforce it.

The situation was precipitated when Mayor Chapman signed the ordinance raising the former $200 license for saloonkeepers to $800 a year. Efforts of saloon men to induce the mayor to veto the ordinance were unavailing, and the News in its issue of March 10 tells of the liquor dealers' special meeting, at which, the News predicted that the Oregonian, "which has advocated and succeeded in obtaining the increase, will be handled rather roughly." The paper asserted that it was "plainly evident that all the saloon men have made up their minds to test the ordinance and make a fight for four new councilmen in the coming city election."

The newspapers in the early 80's still faced a problem in getting sanitary conditions up to standard. Even the water supply was not above reproach. In the second issue of the Daily News is an item regarding a death in East Portland from typhoid fever. The victim was Roland Smith, 19 years old, son of the jail missionary, and his brother, the paper reported, had died a short time before of the same disease. The News the day before had printed a news story, probably imaginary, in which a gilded San Francisco youth, on asking for a drink of water in a Portland restaurant, had turned up his nose at the colored liquid served him, saying he did not ask for cider and that if this were the best Portland could do for water he guessed he'd stick to whiskey and he'd have to "get the Guv-nor (his millionaire father) to supply this town with water fit to drink."

A few weeks later, in the issue of March 9, 1883, the News published an editorial, two-thirds of a column in length, complaining of general health conditions and pointing out the penalty Portland would pay if something were not done to better the situation by installing a proper sewage system. The editorial concluded:

". . . We are today violating all the laws of hygiene, and we have warning that our day of grace has about expired. The whether we will take heed, or will we go on question next to nothing for the public health, and be terribly doing punished for our want of reasonable action."

Establishment of the News was followed by the launching of a daily evening edition of the Weekly Chronicle by E. G. Jones in