ness those loose and imperfect acts, which ever must result however honest and sincere their intentions may be. We trust that none will feel offended at these our few candid and general remarks; but we must ever urge the electors in casting their votes, to select those "good men and true" who, being worthy of their choice, will do honor to themselves and their country.
The censorship of which other editors complained seems to have had its effect on Mr. Lee's handling of all political matters. The news columns, as well as the editorial, are unspecific and innocuous —leading to a belief that the ineptitude in reporting which characterized so many of those early journalists may he the explanation, as much as any editorial pussy-footing, of the lack of concreteness which characterized so much of what appeared in the early Spectator and other pioneer papers. With the political campaign imminent, or actually on, this was the best the Spectator could do by way of either news or comment on the political situation:
On the Stump[1]
On Monday next (18th) the several candidates of Clackamas county (the Spectator's own county) will address their fellow-citizens from the stump, in Oregon City.
This will be something new in Oregon, and as Monday will he the first day of the county court, we expect to see quite a crowd of voters, and not a few candidates, though we know of but eight for the legislature.
So far as any help from the paper is concerned, it would he a little difficult for the reader to keep track of even as many as eight. The first mention of a candidate for the legislature was a short editorial paragraph in the fourth issue (March 19), still under the editorship of T'Vault, urging A. L. Lovejoy for election. In the same issue there appeared notices of candidacy of three other men for seats in the legislature from Clackamas county.
In the next issue, the one in which T'Vault announced his dismissal,[2] appears the first appeal in Oregon history for candidates' paid announcements—the forerunner of a pretty fair business in later days The wording follows:
To Candidates.—The board of directors of the Oregon Printing Association, at one of their meetings, passed the following resolution: "Resolved. That each person offering himself, through the paper, as a candidate for office, shall pay the sum of three dollars, in advance, {or the same, to be inserted from this until the election."
