Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/222

Rh unusual display, were much preferred; the art of advertising was in its infancy, and there was little realization of the value of space.

An example of an extra issued by a weekly paper is the edition of the Independent, at Forest Grove, February 28, 1874. The occasion, one might guess, was political. The extra, a seven-column one-page affair, printed on only one side, was taken up largely with a call signed by 375 citizens, whose names are signed, asking for a convention to name independent candidates for office. It was charged that "through political leaders and rings, comprising members of both parties, the agricultural, mechanical, and labor interests of Washington county have been criminally neglected and extravagantly taxed." The convention was called for Hillsboro April 4, 1874, to select candidates irrespective of party for all county officers and for members of the legislative assembly, to appoint delegates to a state convention to select candidates for state offices and for members of congress, to appoint a county central committee....

An editorial in the same issue expresses sympathy with the grievances of the 375 citizens; wants the move a liberal and comprehensive one.

In the issue of October 14, 1875, five columns on the front page and a run-over of one column on page 4 were devoted to the annual address by Joseph Gaston at the Washington County fair. Gaston, newspaper editor-historian, was at the time engaged in promoting the West Side railroad against the East Side—a losing fight—and among other things he inveighed vigorously against railroad monopolies.

The speech very likely was set up by Henry G. Guild, recently his from native Illinois, who was working on his first newspaper job for Luce in 1875-77, and who had acquired so much competence and confidence at the end of this two years that he purchased the paper and ran it for a time, leaving to go to the Portland Telegram as a typo at 40 cents a thousand ems with a chance to hobnob with such picturesque figures as J. W. Redington, printer, editor, Indian war scout.

After a year or so Luce bought the paper back and continued its publication for many years, maintaining it at Hillsboro. Most of the time he ran it as an independent Republican paper. In 1885 the paper was sold to Jones & Tozier. The Tozier was Albert Tozier, who in that same year, at New Orleans, was one of the organizers of the National Editorial Association. Already he had started the tradition, as a boy of 12, of ringing out the old year on the bell of the old Hillsboro church—a custom he continued for 64 years, ceasing only when the infirmities of old age rendered him helpless. He had on occasion hurried back to Hillsboro from New York city in order not to break the custom; he had a feel for history and tradition.