Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/52

Rh had been dismissed for his refusal to edit the paper in the interest of one man (Governor Abernethy), and he strongly deprecated what he called the exercise of press censorship in Oregon.

Aaron E. Wait now picked up the apparently hot editorial pencil of the Spectator, which he managed to hold from February 1848 to the following February. Wait enlarged the paper to 24 columns at once. It had been only 16. Wait, a native of Massachusetts, born December 13, 1813, had arrived in Oregon the previous September. He had edited a Democratic paper in Michigan during the exciting political campaign of 1844. He was not, however, a man of strong personal prejudices. His paper in Michigan, going to press before the news of the national nominations came through, published a news story from the convention carrying the name of Mr. Blank for president and Mr. Blank for vice-president and the accustomed editorial congratulating the people upon the wisdom of the choice and promising the heartiest support. In the masthead were inserted the names of Blank and Blank for president and vice president. After the paper had gone to press, the news came through that the ticket was Polk and Dallas. The press was stopped, the names of the nominees replaced the Blanks in masthead and story, and the press started again.

The Spectator's troubles under Wait were of a different sort from those under previous editors, and they resulted in the paper's first suspension. The California gold excitement swept over Oregon, and among those who rushed off in quest of wealth was the Spectator's printer, John Fleming, who was again at the case, succeeding N. W. Colwell. Wait was not a printer, and typos were few and far apart in early Oregon. The paper was shut down September 7 and not resumed until October 12, with S. Bentley in charge of the mechanical end. Wait apologized to his readers for the hiatus as follows:

"The Spectator after a temporary sickness greets its patrons and hopes to serve them faithfully and, as heretofore, regu larly. That 'gold fever' which has swept about 3,000 of the officers, lawyers, physicians, farmers, and mechanics of Oregon into the mines of California, took away our printer also—hence the temporary suspension."

Wait left the paper February 22, 1849. He had been assistant commissary general during the Cayuse war. He had been admitted to the bar in 1841 in Michigan; and at the first election after Oregon became a state he left his law practice to become one of the judges of the supreme court, of which he was chief justice for five years. On retiring from the bench, he resumed the practice of law, dying in 1898, at 85.

With Wait off the Spectator desk, publication was irregular un-