Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/686

 of Front and Morrison streets, in a shack that was pulled down a year or two later.

A few months after The Oregonian was started at Portland the Statesman was started at Oregon City, then the capitol of the territory ; and as one was whig and the other democrat, each was a spur to the partisanship of the other. In those days there was no rivalry in the obtainment and publication of news, the rivalry of newspapers was shown in the championship of the claim of their respective localities, and in the rough discussion of local and provincial politics. During the first ten years of the existence of The Oregonian, the territory, and then the state, were controlled by the democratic party, and the opposition was virtually hopeless.

The paper had been published nearly three years when Henry L. Pittock came to it. He was a practical printer, a youth of steady habits and untiring industry and he it is who has made The Oregonian. He came across the plains with the emigration of 1853, was in Oregon City in October of that year, and about November I, came to Portland to seek work at his trade. He was engaged at once and upon him gradually fell the duty of publishing the paper. Mr. Dryer gave little attention to details and the office needed a man who was steady and methodical. Mr. Pittock was just the man it wanted, and to this day he has continued to shoulder its management, carrying the paper from one stage of improvement to another, and rising continually to meet every opportunity and to fill every new demand of the situation. Nay, more ; he has anticipated possibilities, and has kept the Oregonian at all times ahead of the general development of the country. To him, more than to all others, it owes the triumph of its career.

It was slow business for many years, for growth was hardly possible under the limitations of pioneer life in so small and so spare a community. The earnings of the paper were small and debts accumulated. Mr. Dryer through its columns and through his activity in the small politics of the times, kept himself continually before the people, and was one of the prominent figures of the day; fie was several times a member of the territorial legislature, where he was as aggressive as in the columns of his newspaper, and later he was a member of the convention that framed the constitution of the state. He was not a man of business habits ; yet, as he was owner of the paper, he did what he chose with it, and its fitful methods of work and management were hindrances to business success. Nevertheless, Mr. Dryer was a steady character, the man for the times and the paper under his direction was a positive force in Portland and throughout Oregon.

In 1860 Mr. Dryer was chosen one of the electors of Oregon on a Lincoln presidential ticket. He now looked for official recognition from the administration and obtained it. After an experience of ten years he had found that there were no profits in the way of business in conducting a weekly paper in a sparsely settled state, and the day of the daily newspaper here had not come and could not be forseen. An official position much below the first class was considered better than The Oregonian of that day ; and Mr. Dryer was elated with the offer of the mission of the Hawaiian islands. Owing Mr. Pittock quite a sum for services, which he had no other means of paying, Mr. Dryer gave Mr. Pittock The Oregonian for the debt; and in a short time took his departure for Honolulu, where he remained for several years as the representative of the United States. Afterwards he returned to Portland, where he died in 1879.

Mr. Pittock now had a fine opportunity to publish a paper on his own account. Its fortunes, never promising, were at the lowest ebb. The paper was in debt,