The Pacific Monthly/Volume 9/Prominent Newspapers of the Pacific Coast

by E. G. Jones

Prominent Newspapers of the Pacific Coast

The Oregonian^[1]
E. G. Jones

THE OREGONIAN occupies a unique position in the field of the Pacific Northwest, a territory that embraces within its limits Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Western Montana and British Columbia. While a number of other strong papers are published in this field, the Oregonian enjoys the distinction of being the only paper that claims a general circulation reaching to the outermost borders of this vast territory.

The special distinction accorded the Oregonian by newspaper men generally is that the recognition given the paper outside of its immediate field where its influence is supreme, is a recognition based on the merits of the Oregonian as a medium for the dissemination of legitimate news, and on the ability of its editorial utterances. The policy of the Oregonian has not encouraged a resort to those sensational features of journalism, features that have added so largely to the circulation of some of the best known metropolitan papers of the East. It is a matter of pardonable pride to the people of Portland that it has not been found necessary to recognize the sensational to insure the Oregonian that rapid increase of circulation in the field it now so fully covers, which has followed the efforts of the management to publish a paper of standing and ability; a paper that is a credit alike to the men who have made the Oregonian what it is, and to the city in which the Oregonian has grown and prospered.

The weakness of any business venture is likely to be found in ideals or fixed methods that appeal the strongest to its management; ideals based on the one element of strength that made possible its first signal success. Here are found the limitations of human endeavor that invariably lead to decadence if not downfall, where energy and ability have not the mainstay of reasonable conservatism and good sense as a prop for enthusiastic effort to maintain a success that is once attained. This applies with striking force to the art of publishing a successful newspaper.

An able writer, for instance, may make his influence felt in his work on some prominent paper during a critical issue in the country's affairs. It is a time when opinions count; a time when the vast body of men who make up the voting population, and who seldom think clearly on big subjects, are looking for effective leadership. Through the able efforts of such an editor, under propitious circumstances, attention may be drawn to his paper beyond its actual merits as a news medium. The wise publisher knows, however, that a paper which first attains a prominence which is the direct result of strength and clearness of editorial utterance, can not hope to maintain its position on the prestige of its editorial ability alone. During average times the readers of any paper ask for something more than opinions. It may be stated, even, that strength of editorial utterance can not safely overshadow the merits of a news service which a paper is able to offer. Nearly every prominent paper in the United States that was once prominent as a tribute to its editorial strength has fallen behind in the race for first place among big and successful newspapers. Judged by the old standards, every prominent newspaper published today is a compromise with the ideals of its editor. The man of great parts as an editorial writer has but little tolerance for the unrealities of things generally, for the attractive side-lights of life that appeal so strongly to the lesser man. On broad issues as affecting the destiny or the happiness of a people as a whole, he sees clearly. His vision as a forecast of future events carries him to heights that the men groping in the depths of material things can not hope to scale. He is ahead of his day, and just so far ahead as he may be of contemporary men and contemporary things, just so far is he out of close touch with the interests from which his paper derives

THE OREGONIAN BUILDING. PORTLAND.
Finest and most complete newspaper building in the West.

its principal support. He is seldom a popular man, and his cause has the weakness which we always find sooner or later where a following ties its destinies to individual leadership. It is in new and not too thickly populated countries that the editorial utterances of a strong paper have most force in shaping the public opinion of a community that may be the seat of its publication.

All of this, however, can not detract from force of editorial utterance on any big paper. A man must have some strength of individuality to succeed, and a paper must have character to be respected. The moral force a paper may exert in any community is found in the character and ability of its editorials. The great editors of the country in the past have been few. Knowledge alone does not make an editorial writer. A man may be a walking cyclopaedia of information, and yet be as dry and as musty in his makeup as are the volumes he has pored over, and as lacking in inspiration for real accomplishment in newspaper work as the average graduate of a journalistic college. The combination of knowledge, strength of individuality, character and magnetic force that will permit a man to say a thing or write a thing that a large following will regularly give ear to, is exceedingly rare. When such a man is found he is strong enough to defy all laws of conduct. As a writer, either on the editorial force of the Oregonian, or on a metropolitan paper in the largest Eastern populated centers, he will make his presence felt. Of the great editors of the country's history, Chas. A. Dana was as much of a politician as he was a journalist. Even in his best days on the New York Sun, its circulation, compared with the circulation of modern papers of prominence, was small. The Sun is a good paper yet, but it is not in the lead of its contemporaries as it was during the height of the elder Dana's career. Horace Greeley, great as was his ability as an editorial writer, drank the dregs of bitter disappointment in

HENRY L. PITTOCK, MANAGER, THE OREGONIAN

his later days, and the paper that under his guidance held a place of national importance, today attains to no prominence whatever. Henry Watterson, the most versatile, perhaps, of all the great editorial writers of the day, presides over the destinies of a paper that is not even metropolitan in its pretenses. The Springfield Republican and Baltimore Sun, relics of the old regime of well edited papers, may be said to occupy niches in the museum of journalistic antiquities. The New York Evening Post, another strong paper of the past, is not today even without standing; it is still a paper of recognized merit in the New York field. Its influence is wholly local, however, and its management does not claim a circulation exceeding 25,000 or 26,000 copies a day. Most papers that twenty years ago were recognized for the force of their editorial utterances are today back numbers. The Oregonian enjoys the distinction of being not only a paper of great editorial strength, but a complete newspaper of recognized merit. It has been the attempt of the Oregonian's management to keep the news features of the Oregonian in advance even of the strength of its editorial utterances, that has made the paper as great as it is today.

It was the elder Bennett who decided to make the New York Herald first of all a newspaper. The weakness of this policy is that the management of a paper which ignores the force of editorial appeal to its readers must rely to some extent on the sensational in his attempt to force his paper before the public's attention. The Herald was never as "yellow" as are some of the discreditable Eastern papers of largest circulation. It holds today the best clientele of New York readers of any rival metropolitan paper, in recognition of its complete news service alone.

In its field, the Oregonian has done as much as the Herald ever did in the efforts of its management to perfect what has developed into its matchless news service of today. Beyond this the Oregonian enjoys some national prominence in recognition of the force and literary merit of its editorials. The Oregonian, like strong men generally, who seldom learn the art of compromise, has made enemies. Yet the Oregonian has never forfeited the respect of its constituents.

The first issue of the Weekly Oregonian was published December 4, 1850.

H. W. SCOTT, EDITOR, THE OREGONIAN

Mr. H. L. Pittock, the present manager, became connected with the paper in November, 1853, in the modest capacity of office boy. He served his time as an apprentice, learned the printer's trade thoroughly, and under his sole ownership the first issue of the Daily Oregonian was published on February 4, 1861. The greatest tribute of respect that the Pacific Coast States will ever pay to the memory of Mr. Pittock will be found in the reflection that he devoted his life and his best efforts to building up in Portland a paper of national importance, and that he succeeded as the result of absolutely clean business methods.

The limits of this article prevent more than passing mention of the personnel of the Oregonian's management. Perhaps it is well even that it is so. Even with the stamp of sincerity back of the statement, laudation is cheap, and from the men who have been most closely associated with Mr. Pittock and Mr. Scott, and who are most competent to speak of their merits, praise would come with as bad grace as it might be distasteful to the principals themselves. Yet the writer may be pardoned for digressing far enough from the main purpose of this article to refer briefly to the great work done by Mr. Scott in directing the editorial policy of the Oregonian.

Mr. Scott has never advocated a cause that had for its key note anything but the highest moral development of the community with which the destinies of the Oregonian are so closely associated. That the Oregonian has led in the best growth and development of Portland and Portland's interests is shown in the reflection that the paper today even is in advance of the city in which it is published. No city of 200,000 population in the United States supports a paper of the scope and ability of the Oregonian as an ideal newspaper. In his work during the first Bryan campaign alone, Mr. Scott performed a service in favor of sound money and good morals from the stand

FAC SIMILE. FIRST PAGE OF THE OREGONIAN

point of the higher economics, that claimed for him a place among the greatest editorial writers of the country. On no progressive newspaper of the country is the conscientious work done in shaping its editorial policy that is regularly put on the Oregonian.

The success of the Oregonian affords in itself an object lesson to the young men of the country. This was forced strongly on my mind a number of years ago in a letter I received from a friend in the East, a man who has always been a great admirer of the Oregonian. In the letter referred to, this gentleman took occasion to say that the Oregonian had not succeeded as the result of opportunity afforded for its greatest development, but as the direct result alone of the high character of its principals in the face of adverse circumstances that would have effectually discouraged any man of weak moral fibre. Portland residents whose memory of local events carries them back a quarter of a century or more, have only to recall to their minds the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in Portland in the futile effort to put the Oregonian out of business. During the earlier history of the Oregonian as a paper of some pretense, a single abortive attempt to establish a paper in Portland to rival the effort of the Oregonian's management involved a loss considerably in excess of a quarter of a million dollars, and this, too, at a time when Mr. Pittock, the sole owner of the Oregonian, was without financial resources to draw on, beyond the modest income of his paper.

Let the young man glance around him and note the success that attends the efforts of men generally. Let him ask himself after careful reflection how many dishonest men, how many men morally weak, he finds in the front ranks of men whose opinions count in any enlightened community. Then let this same young man court an expression of opinion from any successful man of business covering the essentials of the highest success in any calling. He will find that the most valuable asset of any man of affairs is character, with the ability, backbone and industry that the man of strong character always develops.

The Oregonian, published as it has been in a field provincial in its environment, is metropolitan in its proportions. Its news service is as complete as that of many of the best papers published in the largest metropolitan centers of the East. The Oregonian, based on its merits as a newspaper alone, would command attention in San Francisco, in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in Boston, even in New York. No future history of Portland, no history of Oregon, no history even of the Pacific Coast will ever be complete unless it contains more than passing notice of the Oregonian and the work its management has done during forty years or more towards shaping the destinies of a field that some day will be one of the most prosperous and one of the most densely populated parts of the United States.

THE OREGONIAN'S OFFICE AND WORKROOMS IN 1853

1. Editor's Note.—This is the first of a series of articles, the intent of which is to tell the story of the newspapers of the Pacific Coast. The journals of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, and Vancouver and Victoria, B. C, will be treated in turn, thereby providing a complete and reliable history of our great journalistic enterprises.