Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/455

 During the course of the Ledger up to the present there have been on its staff many men of note, who have sought other and wider spheres of influence, but the local sphere has greatly widened, and there is not the old temptation to go to different scenes. To prepare copy for a paper on the old basis was a different thing from the preparation of copy now. There is a battery of nine Mergenthaler machines, a $25,000 Hoe perfecting press, and the other appurtenances of a first-class office. The paper now reaches a considerable proportion of the public, and there is a feeling on the part of the writers that their work is not being wasted. Each is inspired by a confidence that Tacoma is destined to be the great city of the Sound, and that the Ledger necessarily will be the great paper.

The Ledger is so strongly intrenched that attempts at entering into competition have been farcical, and in this respect there is no reason to anticipate a change. It covers the ground so completely that from a news standpoint there is no reason for additions. From the editorial standpoint there is similar lack of ground for complaint, while mechanically and artistically the Ledger keeps apace with the most advanced of its class. In a business way it can boast of having carried in a single regular edition, during December, 1902, more columns of paid advertising than were published in any other daily in the State of Washington or the neighboring States of Oregon, Idaho and Montana during the same month.

The Ledger is working toward an ideal. In politics it is Republican; in conduct, aggressive. It believes in the Northwest. This is its essential spirit. It has an abiding faith in the country that has sustained it, and rejoices that it has acquired a strength that enables it to repay the debt.

From a financial standpoint the Ledger ranks high. The owner, Mr. S. A. Perkins, is, without doubt, the richest publisher in the Northwest. Bradstreet gives him a personal rating of $500,000.00 to $1,000,000.00.

The Tacoma Ledger now enjoys an average daily circulation of 12,000 copies. The average Sunday circulation has reached the 15,500 mark, while of the weekly edition 8,500 copies are printed every Thursday.