Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/238

Rh influence. Johnson ran the Times for five years, selling in 1893 to B. F. Irvine, local agent and telegraph operator for the railroad. Irvine, a Linn county young man, graduate of Willamette, where he had been a varsity baseball pitcher, was to go from Corvallis to Portland in later years as editorial writer on the Journal, reaching the editorship, which he held for many years. That year (1893) the Leader, an older paper, and the Times were consolidated by Mr. Irvine as the Times. "The Times," said Professor Horner, "was a particularly strong newspaper."

Prosperity was "around the corner" and money was scarce in newspaper offices most of the time in those early days. Collections were a problem. Mr. Johnson recalls one incident which perhaps throws a bit of light on the conditions. Old Haslip, known as the "pilgrim printer," had worked on one of the papers for two days. Johnson happened into the office. "Have you seen the boss?" Haslip asked eagerly. "I've had nothing to eat for two days." Just then a customer came in with a poster job. Johnson, who was an all-around printer, got out the posters, charged the customer a dollar and a half C. O. D. and gave the famished typo the money. There were days when a certain publisher actually feared to go down town lest he run into insistent creditors. On one occasion he gave his printer an old watch in payment for running a hand-press. This publisher later in life succeeded much better elsewhere.

J. H. Upton, who later started the first paper in Curry county, gave the Gazette a little brief competition in 1869 and '70 with the Willamette Valley Mercury. He charged $3 a year for a four-page, seven-column paper. It gave place to another competitor for the Gazette, the Benton Democrat, in 1871. The Democrat, established by R. G. Head, was a four-page, seven-column Saturday weekly, which soon claimed a circulation of 400 at $3. G. W. Quivey was editor for several years in the middle seventies. W. A. Wheeler was editor and publisher in 1877.

"The only Democratic paper published in the county; in heart of a rich agricultural country on the Willamette river and on the line of the Oregon Central railroad" is part of its advertising in Ayer's. All this failed to save the Democrat, which suspended in 1878.

The suspension of the Democrat was followed by the advent of the Benton County Blade in 1879. Charles L. Mosher, a grandson of General Joseph Lane, was editor, and Charles L. Mosher & Co. publishers. The publishers charged $2.50 a year for the paper.

The Blade failed to "cut it," and the next journalistic departure was the New Benton Democrat, established in 1880. Johnson Odeneal was editor. Its ad in Ayer's for 1881 said the paper would be "devoted, first, to the dissemination of general and local news; secondly, to the advancement of the interests of Benton county and its