Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/27

 territorial Oregon, for the very good reason that there was very little sports to write. There was another reason—no one knew how to write sports, and the busy pioneers were somewhat ashamed of any amusement. Sports writing has been keeping pace with the development of the games, with an occasional lapse into something that is not so good but develops into an advance—such as the slang writing of the early nineteen hundreds, now developed into lively, colorful writing in English.

The society-page curve started up even less abruptly than that of sports. (See chapter VI.) The early newspaper-writer didn't know how to write social events. He was without mechanical processes to dress up a society page, if there had been a society page. The whole advance came about normally. Of recent years, women have largely taken over the society-writing.

Comics in the early days meant jokes, more or less stale, perhaps with an occasional wood-cut or line-drawing or chalk-plate illustration. There were no cartoons, and, of course, no strips. The advance of cartooning has been within the last sixty years or so, and in Ore gon in the last fifty years—although we mustn't forget "Billy" Adams' cartoons drawn more than eighty years ago, Oregon's first. Since there is no chapter dealing with cartoons in this work, we might inject here a word or two about some of the Oregon cartoonists. Homer Davenport, of course, is mentioned in connection with his work outside Oregon. This talented man did very little work for any Oregon paper. The Oregonian had him awhile very early in his career, but let him go. Lute Pease, columnist, was one of the early Oregon cartoonists, and his work was played in the Oregonian. Harry Murphy was another of the good old-timers. The late E. S. ("Tige") Reynolds, of Portland, Vancouver, B. C., and Tacoma, won national recognition for his pictorial interpretations, for a cartoon is really an editorial in picture, and Quincy Scott, his successor on the Oregonian, a versatile philosopher, is widely recopied. Daniel Bishop, of the Journal, was called up to "big league" company in St. Louis a few years ago, and Harrison Fisher, his successor, has readers seeking out his creations on the Journal's editorial Lack of facilities—even the chalk-plate was too costly — page. smothered what talent there was in the early days.

So far as comic strips and colored comic sections are concerned, opinions clash severely. This particular writer would never miss them if all the strips and colored sections aside from an occasional subtly comic cartoon such as George Clark's "Side Glances" were eliminated. But he isn't obtruding his own prejudices, and he is not saying that if he were publishing a paper he would eliminate comics; they appear to have definite circulation pull, and it isn't all among the "morons" either. Well, if you think they're an advance, that's one big improvement modern newspapers (except the New York Times)