Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/69

60"generally New Year's day, whereby he was kindly remembered and remunerated by his patrons, some giving liberally, others scantily . . . One gentleman, I remember with kindly feelings, gave me $5 for a copy of my first address, and his neighbor 25 cents very reluctantly, with the admonition that he wished after this I would get his paper to him by 6 a. m., as he desired to be at his store by 7. T. J. Dryer wrote my first address, Sylvester Pennoyer my second, and my fellow-craftsman Ed Sheffield my third."

John D. Yates, pioneer printer of the Pacific coast, did the mechanical work on the Oregonian when Thomas J. Dryer established it in 1850. He had already made, himself a place in journalistic history by helping set up the first newspaper in San Francisco, the California Star, owned by Sem Brennan, and later by helping out at the birth of the first newspaper in Sacramento, the Placer Times and Transcript, which later was merged with the Alta California. At the time of his work on the first of the Oregonians he was 29 years old. He had come to the Pacific coast in 1847, during the Mexican war, with Colonel Stevens' New York regiment of volunteers. After leaving the Oregonian he served for a time as a policeman in Portland.

Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Oregonian was a six-column four-page paper, with columns 15 ems (2½ inches) wide as compared with the 12-em standard measure which recently has become the vogue among the American newspapers. Under the title line, on page 1, Dryer ran the slogan "Equal Rights, Equal Laws, Equal Justice to All Men." It cost as much to get the 52 issues of the weekly for one year in those days ($7 by mail) as would buy the present daily for almost seven months (about 200 issues).

Dryer confirmed the Western Star's advance notice by starting right out as a Whig publication.

"Politically (he said in his salutatory December 4, 1850) the Oregonian will sustain the present administration and advocate all the principles of the great Whig party of the United States so long as they tend to produce results beneficial to the interests of the country at large; and to foster and protect the agricultural and commercial interests of Oregon."

Reference to the rest of the salutatory indicates that the new editor had not yet recognized how difficult it would be to keep out of controversies with Mr. Bush of the Statesman, which was now impatient to be born, at Oregon City.

"Under no circumstances (he wrote) will we be drawn into individual controversies or local and rival interests; our"