The enemies of the Statesman are constantly reporting that the paper is abandoned, and the lapse of time since it was promised give report credit.
Another letter, also marked confidential, from Bush to Thurston, informed the representative that he would "start the Statesman as a Democratic paper."
This (he wrote) is universally expected. No other could live a month. But I shall not go in for a party nomination for delegate, but be governed by the action of the party in that respect. I will endeavor not to involve you, or injure your prospects, and I think I can manage prudently enough not to do it. It has been noised all about here that the Statesman was not to be a Democratic paper merely, but your organ . . . and a good deal of jealousy exists all about, and particularly among the Yamhill Democrats. And I shall have to be very careful not to excite or strengthen this jealousy.
. . . From what I see and hear I have no doubt but that you will be re-elected. . .
I understand the Whig paper at Portland (the Oregonian) has made an attack on you this week, but I have not seen it. I don't think the editor amounts to much, although I am but little acquainted with him.[1] At any rate, his course so far shows him to lack in a great degree tact and prudence, if not talent.[2]
In the same letter Bush urges that the paper be turned over to him at the earliest possible moment. "It is a great pity," he repeats, with Catonian redundance, "that the press is not here. We are losing ground every day."
To make a long story short, the press finally did arrive, having come around the Horn from Chicopee, Mass., in time to get off the first number March 28, 1851, nearly four months behind the Oregonian, which Bush had hoped to beat. Like the Spectator machine, it was a Hoe "Washington hand-press," capable of good work, though slow. It was a better press than the Ramage with which the Oregonian started.
The weekly Statesman, when launched at Oregon City in 1851, charged 25 cents for single copies and $7 for the annual subscription. This averaged about 14 cents a copy for the 52 issues. Among its agents were several men prominent in early Oregon history—including M. P. Deady (later federal district judge) at Lafayette, J. W. Nesmith (later U. S. senator), at Nesmith's Mills, and Joseph C. Avery, founder of Marysville (later Corvallis), at Marysville.
Bush seems never to have been so happy in Oregon City that he
