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POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 53 which only six months before was championing Johnson, now denounced the Philadelphia Convention and those connected with it. "We will yield Mr. Johnson to the Democracy cheer- fully and feel satisfied that he rightfully belongs there. . . . Johnson & Co. were forced to ally themselves to the Democ- racy in order to gratify their egotistical ambition and we have the mortification of seeing those whom we chose as leaders, made the silly or perhaps willing tools of men who can outwit them in political chicancery." The Statesman, which had so zealously espoused Johnson, likewise began to weaken as the strife between the President and Congress developed, and after the call had been issued for the meeting of the National Union Convention. D. W. Craig, formerly of the Argus, had secured the controlling interest of the Statesman75 and in August, 1866, sold the paper to Benjamin Simpson, a Union Democrat, who had been one of the directors of the Oregon Printing and Pub- lishing Company. Craig's editor, J. Gaston, said in his parting salutation "Let us stand, not for men, but for principles. If we divide into 'Johnson men' or 'Radicals,' into 'Douglas Demo- crats' or 'Republicans/ we but abandon the field of politics to the control of unmitigated Copperheads. "? 6 This was a de- cidedly different tone from that which had characterized the Statesman heretofore. But the accession of the new management marked another change in the checkered career of the paper. "A change has come over the spirit of the Statesman," announced the new edi- tors, the sons of the new proprietor, Sylvester C. and Samuel L. Simpson, in their salutatory. "Already you have heard the farewell shot of the retiring editor and now, ere its echoes have died away, we come to renew the battle. . . . Opposed to the Utopian ideas of fanatical reformers, yet having no sym- pathy with treason, we shall calmly yet earnestly discuss every measure for the restoration of the states and the general weal of our common country." The Statesman accordingly renewed 75 Geo. H. Himes, "History of the Press of Oregon," in Oregon Historical Quarterly for December, 1902, p. 360. 76 Statesman, Aug. 13.