Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/687

 in debt,

quite an amount of credit stood on its books, little of which was collectible. There were other newspapers in Portland that divided with it the little business there was, and two of these papers, the Times and Advertiser, had begun to issue dailies, Mr. Pittock's first, resolve on coming into possession of The Oregonian was to start a daily also. As yet there was no room or business for a daily paper, how- ever, but Mr. Pittock had to compete with his rivals, or drop out altogether; so February 4, 1861, he issued the first issue of the Daily Oregonian. The weekly had then been published 10 years and two months.

The first number of the daily was a paper of four pages, four columns to the page. As the Civil war was just breaking out, great efforts were made to get news and the energy of The Oregonian under the direction of Mr. Pittock soon put it in the lead of its competitors. The contest was one in which patience, industry, application, and skill had the usual result; and the contest was soon decided in Mr. Pittock's favor. Another helpful thing was The Oregonian's vigorous espousal of the national cause in the crisis of the rebellion. The people began to look to it, not only for the news, but for the expression of the national sentiment of the northwest.

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS OBTAINED.

Then, and for a long time afterward, the news of the world came to Oregon wholly through San Francisco. In 1861 there was a weekly steamer from San Francisco to Portland, which was the main dependence ; so Portland got a week's news at a time. California now had telegraphic communication with the east, and not much later the extension of a line from California to Oregon began. As this line approached Oregon the time was shortened. Brief news reports were taken off at Redding, then at Yreka, then at Jacksonville, and forwarded to Portland by daily mail, then first established. The Oregonian was foremost in getting news by this manner, and as the war news of those days was eagerly sought, the paper quickly took the leading position as a medium of news that it has ever since maintained. In the early part of the year 1864 telegraphic communication was established between San Francisco and Portland, and The Oregonian began to receive regular telegraphic reports, which, however, for a long time gave only a bare outline of the most important news. The rates were high, the resources of the paper were small, there was but a poor system of gathering news at that day, and even the journals of San Francisco were obliged to content themselves with scanty reports, though the news was of the most important character.

COMPETITORS COME AND GO.

Though The Oregonian's competitor, soon after it started a daily dropped out of the field, other papers were started no long time after ; but they, too, were short-lived. It is unnecessary to make any list of them here. In the year 1866 a more pretentious and formidable effort was made. The Oregon Herald, daily and weekly, was started. It was a democratic paper ; backed by a good deal of money, and as time went on was able to invest a good deal more. The Herald was pub- lished nearly 10 years. It was able to get the same telegraphic news as The Oregonian, but it never was prosperous, probably never paid its way, and when its resources were finally exhausted and it was forced to succumb, its various pro- prietors had sunk fully $150,000. Yet, while this competitor was in the field. The Oregonian had still another to meet. In 1870 Ben Holladay started the Oregon Bulletin. This paper he backed lavishly, but it was always a losing business and after a career of a little over five years it too gave up the ghost. In that time it had sunk nearly, or quite $200,000.

A third formidable effort was made to 1880, when the Daily Northwest News appeared. This paper was as unsuccessful as its predecessors. The original pro- prietor, after losing a great amount of money, abandoned it, and it passed from the hands of one to another, until finally after a career of six or seven years it suspended. Its losses had also been very heavy — equal probably to those of either