Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/328

Rh "This first number of a new enterprise in Pendleton whose success will depend chiefly upon the amount of substantial, willing patronage which is accorded to it. The plan of the publishers is to make it as much of a newspaper, as nearly a newspaper, as is possible in a town of this size. . ..

Unlike our new neighbor, the Daily East Oregonian is not started for campaign purposes. It is started as a NEWSPAPER and has come to stay, if possible. Very likely, and quite probably, it will support the Democratic nominees be forehand. Its first business is to furnish the people with a newspaper which shall be a credit to a small inland town like this. Politics it will certainly be interested in; and readers may depend upon it for all political news; but politics is after all a secondary consideration.

What think you of the plan? Your deeds will show."

The people of Pendleton responded, and the Daily East Oregonian has been running ever since, without a miss.

The Daily East Oregonian started out as a six-column, four-page paper. It was neat-appearing. The first page carried one column of advertising down the left. The paper used to run close to 50 per cent advertising—rather heavy in a small-sized paper. Before long, with increased advertising patronage, the paper carried three columns of advertising on the left side of the first page. It has been noted that Mr. Jackson kept his stage job until the line was discontinued, despite his status as a publisher. When the daily was started he was still in the insurance business and the paper carried an ad, full two-columns, for Compton & Jackson, Insurance, E. O. Building, Pendleton. Whether this was an "office plugger" or actual paid advertising is not known.

The paper's local coverage was impressive. Four columns of local news, with the brevities sized from small to big down the column, were a regular feature.

Back to the Tribune:

After the retirement of Mr. Eddy November 1, 1889, changes were frequent on the Tribune for a time. Under the Home Publication Company, Judge William Martin president and Lot Livermore, one of the heaviest stockholders, "Louis Seibold, a young, bold and adventurous newspaper man, was placed in charge" (91) and on November 18, the first daily morning edition of the Tribune appeared. It was really a first-class paper, almost metropolitan in standards, with a telegraph service. Seibold, who appears to have been an earlier edition of Klamath Falls' Sam Evans, knew better how to run a good paper than how to pay for one, and in six months the Tribune was $6,000 in the red. Seibold then went east. He became