Walling does not mention the Scottsburg paper, which certainly was on the journalistic map in 1854. Old Daniel Jackson Lyons, editor, was a Democrat, true, but he could not have run a Breckenridge-Lane organ in 1854, when neither Breckenridge nor Lane was running for president or vice president, and 1856 was Buchanan's year. George H. Himes makes no mention of this Roseburg Gazette in his history of the early Oregon papers.84 He does, however, mention the Roseburg Express.
Alonzo Leland's Democratic Standard, launched in Portland July 19, 1854, is next in order among Oregon's early weeklies. It was, like most of the others, heavily political. Leland drew down on himself the sharp condemnation of Bush in the Statesman for opposing the Democratic agitation of the day for early statehood foir Oregon. Bush's phrase for this was "the iscariotism of the Standard." On slavery, too, Leland's paper was unorthodox from the Democratic point of view, since it did not favor slavery. The paper was not much different in general appearance from its contemporaries. It carried six 15-em (2½-inch) columns, a first page full of miscellaneous matter, long political editorials, some clipped miscellany and a bit of Pacific coast news on page 2; five columns of advertisements on page 3, including a 1-column ad for the enterprising Dr. L. J. Czapkay filled with signed testimonials from persons of unstated address who had been "cured." The other column was filled with hotel arrivals, vessel manifests, religious notices, Portland market prices. Page 4 was solid with advertising. Of interest in the advertising matter on page 4 were two notices of treaties with the Indian tribes disposing of their lands—signed by Isaac I. Stevens, governor of Washington territory, and Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs for the Oregon country.
There were, also, among others, advertisements for the Oregon Institute at Salem and for Cascade Academy at Cloverdale, near Eugene. This ambitious little educational institution, M. Blanding principal, advertised all departments of instruction from the primary through the collegiate. The fee was set at $6 a quarter of 11 weeks in the senior academic department. Changed control of the paper in 1858 brought James O'Meara, recently from California, in as editor. The Standard was suspended January 4, 1859, for several weeks. In February O'Meara resumed publication, but the paper soon died and the plant was moved to Eugene.
O'Meara came from California in 1857. On the National Democratic ticket he was beaten for state printer by Asahel Bush of Salem by only 400 votes. After leaving the Standard he was employed as editor of the Jacksonville Sentinel, which W. G. T'Vault had just sold to W. B. Treanor, until 1861. Albany was then the scene of his labors for a few years. He was back in Portland in 1870 as editor of the Bulletin.
