History of Oregon Literature/Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31
Old and New Columnists
Portland Item: The "Morning Oregonian has a larger subscription list than any other daily published m the city of Portland"; and "the Daily Times has the largest circulation of any daily paper in the city." Glad to know that they are both doing better than each other.
orange jacobs. 1862.Motto for Bridegroom: Veni! vidi! vici!——I've been! and gone! and done it!
h. r. kincaid, 1865.
No attempt has been made here to give a complete survey of Oregon newspaper volumns and columnists. Eleven have been selected as representative of this form of writing in the state from 1862 to the present. Very definitely, of course, they belong and deserve emphasis in a study of regional literature, since they are local literature in the smallest published unit that can be found and, where they stimulate creative interest in the community and accept contributions from those who live in it, they come as near as anything we have today to being folk literature.
They are neighborly, naive, humorous and philosophic in their regular characteristics, and often use rhyme, sometimes satire, frequently in palatable doses the propaganda of reform, and the pun remains in them a respectable ingredient. Their technique does not hold to the Who, When, Where, Why, What and How of journalism. By being personal, informal, subjective, and loose in unity, their whole form is relaxed. Although run in newspapers and paid for out of newspaper budgets, and having the reciprocal function of winning and holding subscribers, they are literature rather than journalism, and papers that feature them are to that extent literary papers. Their development in Oregon has been extensive, original and influential. Enough of them are buried in old newspaper files in the large libraries of the state to make a fascinating book, in robust record of the creative side of Oregon editors for 75 years. T. T. Geer first learned to write as a columnist for the Blue Mountain Sentinel over the signature of Ram Pant. A column at Albany ran regularly once a week for 35 years and intermittently for another eight years, and is still going. A column from a small town in Eastern Oregon has been quoted more than 500 weeks over a period of years by a national eclectic magazine that features a department of such shorts. In the Rogue River Valley "Ye Smudge Pot" of Arthur Perry reaches more eager readers than many a magazine, and, at Yoncalla and down at Elkton and far and wide in Douglas County, "Prune Picking" used to give the population of the Umpqua Valley a feeling of companionable unity. For any day or any week the news might fail to be important or greatly interesting, but these columns dependably came into the households with cheerfulness and in satisfaction of a literary need.
In this chapter from the whole bright abundance available, are given eleven examples: Orange Jacobs in the Jacksonville Sentinel, Harrison R. Kincaid in the Oregon State Journal at Eugene, George J. Buys in the Eugene Guard, Fred Pike Nutting with "Misfits" in the Albany Democrat, Merle R. Chessman with "The Weekly Bulldogger" in the Pendleton East Oregonian, Dean Collins with "Nescius Nitts of Punkindorf Station" in the Oregonian; Arthur Perry with "Ye Smudge Pot" in the Medford Mail-Tribune; Clark Wood in the Weston Leader; Elbert Bede in the Cottage Grove Sentinel; Bert Bates with "Prune Pickin's" in the Roseburg News-Review; and Don Upjohn with "Sips for Supper" in the Salem Capital Journal.
1
In the Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, 1862
By Orange Jacobs
Orange Jacobs of Jacksonville was the first real Oregon columnist, although he scattered his bright remarks through the paper instead of segregating them under a regular head. The biography of him in Elwood Evans' History of the Pacific Northwest makes no reference to his journalistic work in Southern Oregon, saying that he practiced law and came pretty nearly being elected a United States Senator while he lived in Jacksonville. He was editor of the Oregon Sentinel from January, 1862, until July, 1864.
He was born in the state of New York in 1829. He lived for a little while in Salem before going to Jacksonville. He was a young man of 23 and 24 when he wrote the items quoted here.
In 1867 he left Oregon to become a prominent citizen of Washington Territory. He was chief justice of the supreme court, delegate to Congress, mayor of Seattle, and a member of the board of regents of the University of Washington. Memoirs of Orange Jacobs, a 234-page book written by himself and "Containing Many Interesting, Amusing and Instructive Incidents of a Life of Eighty Years," was published in Seattle in 1908.
In one of his comments given below is a humorous description of himself. In 1889 Elwood Evans described him as follows: "Judge Jacobs is a man of large stature, commanding presence, positive views, has the courage of his convictions, but is liberal and tolerant. He has filled a prominent place in the public affairs of Northwest America as a pioneer, lawmaker and judicial officer."
"We Have Had the Ague This Week"
If any of our readers should notice anything particularly bilious or shaky in the editorial matter of this paper, we beg them to remember that we have had the ague nearly every day this week. If the eye of a critic should discover something a little too bitter, let him consider we have been taking quinine; if he should notice anything disgusting, let him re-
member we have been living on pills; anything rough, ex- cuse us—we have taken any quantity of iron. While it may not be a serious matter to you, it is anything but a joke to us. March 8, 1862. Not Dead—Obituary Praise Retracted Lewiston, July 7th, 1862.
Editor Times:—I see in the daily issue of the 2nd inst., of your paper, the obituary notice and Coroner's inquest, held over a dead body found at Portland, from which you say it "leaves but little doubt that the dead body was that of Col. T'Vault." As to my obituary, I am thankful for your references. But few men live to read what is said of them, after death; however, I assure you that I am still alive, and expect to live to occupy a high and honorable position in the Pacific Republic. w. G. t'vault. By request we copy the above from the Portland Times. Well, Colonel, we are glad to learn that you are still alive. You may live to occupy a high position in a Pacific Repub- lic, but we have serious doubts about its honorable nature. We don't believe you will ever occupy either. July 19, 1862. W. G. T'Vault had been editor of the very paper in which these mean things were being said about him. He was the first editor of the Oregon Spectator in Oregon City, and in 1855 started the Jack- sonville Table Rock Sentinel, which in 1858 became the Oregon Sentinel. Married In Jacksonville, at the residence of A. E. Rogers, Esq., in the evening of Oct. 24th, 1862, by the Rev. M. M. Stearns, B. F. Dowell, Esq., to Miss N. A. Campbell; all of Jacksonville. One more unfortunate, Lonely and troubled, Rashly importunate, Went and got d So our friend is gone—lost forever to the bachelor fra- ternity! We noticed the door of his law office, as well as the veranda of the same, was heavily draped in mourning on the day following his emigration to the State of Matrimony. Honored as a citizen, generous as a friend, successful as a lawyer, he has won his first great case, and long may he live to enjoy the fruits of his success.
October 25, 1862.
Who Wouldn't Be an Editor
J. C. Elder, of Josephine county, abounds in generosity and good things. He has placed us under a thousand obliga- tions for a fine and large box of honey just as the little busy mechanics made it. He says: "We are considerably on the secesh down here, but there is a good deal of redeeming sweetness in the country."
November 1, 1862.
Portland Item
The "Morning Oregonian has a larger subscription list than any other daily published in the city of Portland;" and "the Daily Times has the largest circulation of any daily paper in the city." Glad to know that they are both doing better than each other. November 12, 1862.
"What Manner of Man He Is"
". . . we have often attempted to limn out Onagar Jacobs, of the Sentinel, but each successive attempt has been a failure, and to-day we have not the remotest idea of 'what manner of a man he is'."—Mountaineer.
Well, friend Newell, when you attempt to "limn" us out. . . again, just paint us five feet and ten inches in height, moderately well proportioned and decidedly handsome, and you have us. While, if you insist on calling us "Onagar", why just follow the authography of the witty and musical Eugene neutral.
November 19, 1862.
2
Pithy "Shorts" at Eugene City
In the Oregon State Journal, Eugene City, 1864-1870
By H. R. Kincaid
H. R. Kincaid was a classmate of Joaquin Miller in Columbia College at Eugene. In 1864 he established the Oregon State Journal, "known the whole state over", which he published for more than 45 years. He had previously had experience as a typesetter and writer on the People's Press, the State Republican and the Union Crusader, all of Eugene.
For four years he was county judge of Lane County. For 11 years, beginning in 1868, he was clerk of the United States Senate, serving while at Washington as correspondent for the Oregonian and the Bulletin of Portland and the Jacksonville Sentinel, in addition to send back editorials and letters for his own paper. He was secretary of state at Salem from 1895 to 1899. He was born in Indiana in 1836, came to Oregon as a boy of 17, and died at the age of 84. He had something of a collector's habit of preserving things, so that he was able to give the long and valuable files of the Oregon State Journal in completeness to the libraries of the Oregon Historical Society and the University of Oregon.
Significant The Review has been puffing Holbrook throughout the canvass; the people in Holbrook's own county have repudi- ated him tremendously. If you want anything killed re- markably dead, get the Review to praise it. It has talismanic power, its touch is death. June 18, 1864.
"Located at the Capital"
The cannon, which was brought here at considerable ex- pense to Lane county, was hauled off to Salem a few days ago. The Court House was not taken, but it will, perhaps, be "sent for" next, as it is understood that "all the public buildings", and everything else, must be "located at the Capital." Jerusalem is the only town in Syria. October 1, 1864. Motto for Bridegroom Vent! vidi! vici!—I've been! and gone! and done it! February 18, 1865. y 18, 186}.
An enterprising but ignorant South American has sent to an Albany locomotive shop for one hundred "cow-catchers". He expects to use them in taking wild cattle on the plains of Paragual, in place of the lasso. July 22. 186}.
Bad luck is simply a man with his hands in his breeches' pockets and a pipe in his mouth, looking on to see how it will come out. Mirch 10. 1866.
Mr. Geo. C. Fisher, one of the pioneers of this county, returned from a visit to Indiana last Saturday. . . . George seems to be enjoying as much health and happiness as a bachelor ought to enjoy, and perhaps a lee tie more than he deserves. Mtrch 31. 1866.
A flock of a million crows flew over Salem a few days ago. The editor of the Press counted them, we suppose, as he gives the number at just a million.
Ftbru«ry 26, 1870.
3
More Brightness from Eugene City
In the Eugene City Guard, 1870-1871 By George J. Buys
The Guard at Eugene City began publication in 1867 and a year later was sold to George J. Buys and A. Fitzroy. The latter with- drew in December of 1869, and it is interesting to see, through an examination of the old files, that not much happened to liven it up for about six months after Buys had full charge of it. Then, as if shaking off from lassitude or inexperience or restraint, he began to give a marked pick-up of brightness to its items. Those old pages of the 70's exhibit the blossoming growth of a newspaper personality, through some influence within himself or under some stimulus from the outside. He controlled the paper until the fall of 1877. Like Orange Jacobs and H. R. Kincaid, he had no special place or caption for the paragraphs he presented with special literary touche s.
The Gazette says a "lady living near Corvallis has recently enriched her lord by presenting him with a pair and a half of healthy infants." We should like to see the "half of that healthy infant." Wonder which half it was. July 30. 1870.
We notice the Portland and Walla Walla papers are putting on airs because they have green corn to eat. Why, bless your souls, we had it here in Lane about ten months ago. July 30. 1870. A honied threat—Bee-ware. July JO. 1870.
Rumor has it that three marriages will take place in town shortly. We need call no names. The guilty consciences of the parties will tell them to whom we refer.
August 12, 1871.
Lettuce has killed a man in Ohio. A potato bug had previously killed the lettuce.
August 12, 1871.
The Oregonian of last Tuesday contained a lengthy bio- graphical eulogy of Sir Walter Scott, the sweet bard of Abbotsford. Some people get very proud over their distant relations, occasionally. It is but justice, however, to the memory of the author of Ivanhoe to state that he never edited the Oregonian.
August 19. 1871.
The Journal says that some one borrowed a lamp from that establishment and failed to return it. The paper does not explain how it got the lamp in the first place.
September 23, 1871.
Six of Grant's relatives have been found who hold no office, whereat there is considerable excitement in political circles.
October 7. 1871.
4
"Misfits"
In the Albany Democrat, 1882-1917
By Fred Pike Nutting
Fred Pike Nutting, who is author of "Misfits" that started under another name way back in 1882 and who is still a good columnist at 79, was born in New York on November 19, 1856. After at- tending Lisle Academy in that state, he worked in printing offices and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1879 and came to Oregon the next year, getting a job as printer on the old Albany Democrat. In 1882 he bought the interest of George E. Chamberlain in the paper and later the interest of another partner. He published it until 1912, when he sold it to W. H. Hornibrook, and edited it again from 1915 to 1917 while the latter was United States minister to Siam. Subsequently, he was for 10 years city recorder and police judge of Albany. For eight years he has been secretary of the Kiwanis Club and editor of the Wttkly Kiwanis Informant, in which he has filled a column of short stuff in his old style that is now reprinted once a week in the Democrat-Herald under the original head of "Misfits". It has perhaps enjoyed the greatest longevity of any Oregon column. He has given the follow- ing description of its beginning and its long duration from 1882 to 1917 under its different names:
"On buying into the Albany Democrat, I immediately started a short item column under the head "Plain Talks by a Plain Chap." This was changed a while afterwards to "Man About Town"; later to "Grafts", suggested by visiting the orchard of a friend across the river where there was a tree with grafts of 22 different fruits and nuts, so that the name implied a wide range of topics; and then to "Misfits", a title that was continued until I left the paper in 1917. This head happened like this: I was reading the San Francisco Examiner one day when I noticed a small advertisement of a Misfit Store that sold all kinds of misfit goods. It struck me as a good head for items regardless of sequence. I think I used it for perhaps 25 years altogether."
In the early days he could turn out this material so prolifically that it was sometimes run in two sections, one short and one long, with still a surplus under the older caption of "Grafts." Ralph R. Cronise, editor of the Democrat-Herald, says of it: "The column which he called 'Misfits' was written in his own original style and often contained wisecracks and humorous errors but a sprinkling of
TIL TAylor, PENDLETON good common sense and his own philosophy. It created a great deal of interest."
Albany has a Martin Ludwig and Eugene a Ludwig Martin. Names get twisted around in this world very promiscuously.
October 12, 1900.
It is a mighty mean kind of a man who will talk about himself when you want to talk about yourself.
October 12. 1900.
Goliath is said to have been the first man to wear a bang on his head. There have been plenty of them since and more who deserve them.
November 19, 1900.
Tomorrow is a holiday. The banks will close both the front and back doors, the saloons just the front door, all over the U. S.
November 9. 1900.
Salem has no high school football team. Why? Because it has no high school.
November 16, 1900.
Jack Frost was arrested by Sheriff Withers, of Eugene, and examined before Justice Wintermeler and held for the grand jury on the charge of larceny. He is liable to disappear on the first warm day.
December 14. 1900.
A baby girl was born on Mill Creek, near The Dalles, this week, whose mother has the proud distinction of having three other children, one of whom was born on New Year's day, another on the Fourth of July, and the third on Christmas day. This one should have arrived on Thanksgiving.
December 14, 1900.
{{c|5
"The Weakly Bulldogger"
In the East Oregonian, Pendleton, 1915–1918
By Merle R. Chessman
Merle R. Chessman, editor and manager of the Evening Astorian- Budget, was born at Alsea on September 26, 1886. He was graduated from Eugene High School in 1904, and from the University of Oregon in 1909, where he contributed to the Oregon Monthly, student literary magazine, a story of college life and a poem on the Mill Race that attracted much attention. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree, he immediately took up newspaper work, securing a job on the East Oregonian at Pendleton as telegraph editor and city editor. Ten years later he went to Astoria as editor of the Evening Budget. In 1930, when the two Astoria dailies were merged, he became editor and manager. He was married in 1911 to Daphne Leasure. They have two children, Peggy and Bob.
"The Weakly Bulldogger"—not weekly, though that was its regular occurrence—was started as a feature in the Pendleton East Oregonian on October 4, 1915, and continued every Monday until the summer of 1918. In addition to its wise-cracking miscellany of a highly local nature in verse and prose, it contained such regular departments as "Local Limericks" or "Weakly Limericks", and "Priceless Poetry", and frequently ran apocryphal letters and an interchange of compliments with other columnists, particularly with the gifted two in the same county—Colonel Clark Wood of the Weston Leader, who is included in this chapter, and Colonel Boyd, who conducted "The Mulligan Stew" in the Athena Press.
Priceless Poetry
An "Ode to Sharkey" is the title of the verses here printed and composed by a guy who calls himself "Checkers". After reading them we think he owed Sharkey an apology:
And Sharkey's short on brain,
But buckin's Sharkey's hobby,
And he gets there just the same.
And Sharkey's big of carcass,
And Sharkey's tough of hide,
And Sharkey's full of dynamite,
That makes him hard to ride.
Sharkey bucks for pleasure,
And Sharkey bucks for pay,
And Sharkey bucks for anything,
For that is Sharkey's way.
And, take it straight from me, boys,
It's a sound most wonder-ful,
The blatant, bawling bellows,
Of the big, black Belgrade bull.
We'll Do It, Kernul Though You Are
Kernul Boyd of the Athena Press gets so bold as to mention the editor of "The Weakly Bulldogger" by name in his columns and suggests that somebody will take a shot at him if he doesn't file the point of his pen. In answer we say that somebody is liable to take a shot at the editor of the "Athena Mulligan Stew" if he doesn't quit mentioning names. Monday, December 6, 1915.
Pendleton's Nine Wonders
To the Bulldogger:
The old world had her nine wonders. . . . Being a newcomer, I would appreciate it if you would point out nine things for which Pendleton is known, things that you would be glad to tell friends about. Truly yours,
NEWCOMER.
You give us a hard task, madam, or perhaps it is sir. However, we are willing to try anything once. . . . We would mention first the Roundup and do not feel obliged to state reasons. Then there is the Roundup's little brother, Happy Canyon. Any list would be incomplete with- out containing the Moorhouse collection of Indian curios and pictures or the Pendleton Indian robe. That makes four. Then, there is the Eastern Oregon State Hospital and the Umatilla reservation with all its attractions. Perhaps, too, we should mention the fact that one percent of the wheat raised in the U. S. is grown in the county of which Pendleton is the county seat. That makes seven of the nine. Eighth, we might mention some individual citizens such as R. Alexander, Judge Fee or Doc Best, but perhaps the Wenaha Club has a wonder. At least it is talked about enough. And to complete the list, dear sir or madam, we would say just to mention Pendleton herself. editor. Monday, January 3, 1916. Ah, Yes, No Wonder
Editor Bulldogger:
I write to enter a mild objection to your tentative classification of the Wenaha Club as one of the nine wonders of Pend that I deny its claim to distinctiveness but still I hardly think it could be called a wonder. I base my opinion upon a conversation I once overheard. Several persons were discussing some happening of local interest. "Who was back of it all?" one said, and another answered, "Why, the Wenaha Club," and then, with unanimous agreement, all exclaimed, "The Wenaha Club, no wonder."
Truly yours, booster. Monday, January 10, 1916.
Local Limericks
"The Weakly Bulldogger" today starts a new department, "Local Limericks". We will limerick one Pendleton citizen a week, and, as befits his rank and station, we begin on the honorable mayor, Doc Best.
A man of infinite zest.
At the political game
He lives up to his name.
How he does it he hasn't confessed.
Monday, January 24, 1916.
Why Ask Us
Pilot Rock, Ore., Feb. 15.
To the Editor:
I noticed in the East Oregonian where I secured a marriage license and I noticed in the Tribune of the same day that Elbert Casteel, a married man, got a license to marry the same girl I was to marry. Now what I want to know is whether I am going to get her or whether Elbert Casteel is going to get her.
Yours truly,
ROSS A. PICKERING.
Mr. Pickering must have justified the East Oregonian item, for we noticed that among the guests of the Hotel Pendleton the other day were Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Pickering. Monday, February 21, 1916.
Our Weakly Limericks
Had a wife and decided to drop her,
That is, by divorce,
As a matter of course,
Would not she then be a grass Hopper?
Monday, February 21, 1916.
Take Him to the Dye Shop
"Red" Trask is proprietor of the Hotel Pendleton barber shop. The other day a man brought his little son into the shop and, speaking to the proprietor, said, "Cut his hair Red." Said Mr. Trask, "We cut hair in all shapes and fashions but we can't cut in colors."
Monday, April 3, 1916.
6
"Nescius Nitts of Punkindorf Station"
In the Oregonian, 1911-1914
By Dean Collins
Dean Collins, now a member of the editorial staff of the Oregon Journal, is widely known in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest as a journalist, dramatist, versifying columnist and poet. A biographi- cal sketch of him is given in the chapter "Contemporary Poets." He was graduated from the University of Oregon in June, 1910, and the next year, while employed as a reporter on the Oregonian, he gave for the first time to a large public "Nescius Nitts", a tobacco- chewing character that is now famous in Northwest America. For a while Mr. Collins wrote a poem a day for the Oregonian, and at times in 1911 "Nescius Nitts" would appear that often, in an amazing variety of introductory stanzas, though always in an ex- pectorating role. He still sometimes comes to life in the columns of the Oregon Journal but his real years were from 1911 to 1914. Apparently there have been no fastidious prejudices against "Nescius Nitts." He was a spokesman in topical verse that always began with a tobacco-chewing situation and always connected him up with Punkindorf Station. Mr. Collins showed an astonishing deft- ness with rhymes in the change after change he gave to these clever openings, but even more, by means of these resourceful iterations, he added and ever added, without a false stroke or inconsistency in the portrayal, to the reader's unified impressions.
A fair test is to see eight of the introductory stanzas together as given below. They are supplemented with one reader's impression of "Nescius Nitts" in imitative rhyme and with a complete poem on reactions to New Year's resolutions in perfect harmony with the old seer's character.
N. Nitts on Game Birds
Nescius Nitts, sage, scholar and wit,
Of Punkindorf Station, a fresh mouthful b On the toe of his boot, with great deftness he hit
With a nicotine stream, and discoursed for a bit
On the game bird, and things that relate unto it.
September 29, 1911.
N. Nitts on Baseball
In Punkindorf Station clings honor and fame,
Moved his quid to the right—since his left jaw was lame—
And spoke for a while on the powerful claim
On the public displayed by the National Game.
October 5. 1911.
N. Nitts on China
Nailed a fly to the floor in its peregrination,
With enough nicotine to cause asphyxiation,
Then opened a lengthy and learn'd dissertation,
Concerning the present Chinese situation.
October 18, 1911.
N. Nitts on Variableness
The wizard of Punkindorf, watched a fly crawl
Across the plate glass and half way up the wall,
Ere his unerring nicotine stream made it fall,
Then said: "Women's minds, they ain't stable at all."
November 8, 1911.
N. Nitts on Oregon Snow
Was Punkindorf's sage for three score years or so,
Spied three festive gnats as they flew to and fro,
And, with three distinct nicotine jets, laid them low;
Then spake for a time on the beautiful snow.
November 11, 1911.
OLD AND NEW COLUMNISTS N. Nitts on Talk Nescius Nitts, the great Punkindorf seer, Saw a humble bee hum past his head, without fear, Shot a nicotine jet past J. Conner's right ear, And nailed the itinerant bee from the rear j Then told how Guest bore the tidings of cheer, December 12, 1911. N. Nitts on Booms Nescius Nitts, the chief sage, I presume, In Punkindorf's district, glanced over the room And marked a brown moth on the wainscot for doom— One shot, and 'twas sealed in a nicotine tomb. Then spake the wise Nitts, at great length, on the boom.
December 16. 1911.
Nitts on Power of Prayer By Olaf Gunstvblt With apologies to Dean Collins Nescius Nitts, of Punkindorf Station, Whose death, when it comes, will hang crepe on the Nation And ruin the plug trust beyond reparation And fill all the insects with joy and elation, Bit out of his chew slab the regular ration And spat on the 'roach and began this relation:
November 21, 1911.
N. Nitts' New Year
Nescius Nitts, he whose sapience may Cast glory o'er Punkindorf Station alway, Reached back toward his hip in a casual way To the pocket in which his Missouri plug lay— And then he remembered it was New Year's day. With virtuous haste he relinquished the plug That out from the depths of his pocket he'd dug, "All men on this day," he remarked, "they begins
A-layin' aside all their vices and sins, An' fixin' the slate up all vacant and clear From evil; and plans so to keep it all year. "Some stops playin' poker and pea pool, and some Discards all them chains of the demon of rum; In one way or other, on every side I sees men a-standin' out, plumb sanctified, And so I suppose that it's proper I shelve My chawin' terbaccer for nineteen and twelve." He gazed at the plug with a tear of farewell; And then his sad eye on the calendar fell. He counted the months, the procession of days That stretched out in an endless array to his gaze. He counted them slowly and solemnly. "Law! Three hundred and sixty-six days—an' no chaw!" "Three hundred and sixty-six days!" With a shrug He buried his teeth in the heavy black plug. "Three hundred and sixty-six is a heap Of time fer a man's resolutions to keep. I couldn't stick nohow's my honest belief." And he fashioned a quid with a sigh of relief. January 1, 1912.
7
"Ye Smudge Pot"
In the Med ford Sun and the Med ford Mail-Tribune Since 1911
By Arthur Perry
Edison Marshall, the novelist, has called Arthur Perry "A Med- ford Institution" and Ben Hur Lampman, the editor and poet, has called him "A Southern Oregon Cynic" The latter also in- sists on calling him Arthur Gordon Perry. There is no Gordon. Arthur Perry is the whole name. He is a bachelor, a Republican and a Methodist.
"Ye Smudge Pot" was started in the Medford Morning Sun on September 15, 1911, and for 24 years has appeared every publication day, except the two-year war period between April 5, 1917, and April 13, 1919, when Mr. Perry was in the United States nav Shortly after the war, the Medford Sun merged with the Mail-Tribune, in which "Ye Smudge Pot" became a daily feature, occupying the same space on the editorial page throughout the years.
The name "Ye Smudge Pot" was selected because it was symbolic of the Rogue River Valley with its vast pear orchards. The smudge pot is an orchard heating appliance used in the spring to protect the fruit blossoms from Jack Frost. The smudge pot ranks with the plow in assuring bountiful harvests. Thus the column's name.
The column itself is devoted to a discussion of "divers and sundry matters, with a humorous and ofttimes gently sarcastic angle." On Sundays it is called "Ye Smudge Smoke" and consists of jibes and quips at Medford and Jackson County residents.
Miss Iona Smith lost her purse. She put a want ad in the Mail-Tribune. When she got home, there was her purse on the piano, right where she left it. The Mail-Tribune want ads get quick results.
The country sausage is staying in the country.
Robins, which have been here all winter, are arriving as the harbingers of spring.
Young onions are now on the market and are being crunched by members of the fair sex who are not going any place after supper.
Jim Dinkens of Beagle towned and traded Monday. Mr. Dinkens, being weary in the knees, sat down on his own heels, without any visible means of support. Such suppleness is never found save among cowboys and long-legged mountaineers. While thus squatted James drew a rough map of Eastern Oregon, on the sidewalk with a red-headed match, and pointed out the latitude and longitude of a water hole 67 miles from Lakeview.
Coyotes have started killing turkeys, before they can eat enough grasshoppers to be milk-fed birds next Thanksgiving.
A baseball game played in old man Jones' pasture broke up in the seventh inning in an uproar when Joe Spivis slid into what he thought was third base.
C. Strang, the pioneer pillist, is getting ready to celebrate 50 years in his drugstore next March. . . In 1884 he rode all over the country on a horse, and has since made it in Buicks. Most of the female population of the county have weighed themselves on his scales. Mr. Strang always figured this was none of his business, and looked the other way. This shows his bringing up, and, besides, the scales are reflected in a showcase mirror. He has managed to keep his drugstore a drugstore, and has never handled J. I. Case harvester parts, or ham sandwiches.
Mr. Jim Dinkens of Beagle came to town yesterday from the hills. . . . The following facts were gleaned from Mr. Dinkens' remarks: The deer has the best recollection of all four-legged creatures, "and would be a holy terror in the timber if the Lord had only given him a fighting heart." The wildcat has a sense of humor, but loses it if kicked in the shortribs. ... A bald-headed eagle will starve before he will eat a bluejay. . . . The object of Mr. Dinkens' trip to town was to get a haircut, and three teeth pulled.
Del Getchell picked up a door nail in front of his bank. Yes, it was dead.
A Table Rock barn was shot by a hunter the first of the week. He was armed with a 4-5-55-65 rifle and a pair of field glasses, and insisted that the barn had tail-feathers.
We note again, at the start of another year, as we noted last year, the shortage of calendars. . . . This makes us sad, as we will have to go down to C. Strang's druggery and snoop around until we find one of Dr. Jayne's Almanacs. It was not always this way. In 1927 your corr. received by actual count by mail 197 calendars. They varied in size from the flap of a side show tent up. No census was taken of the calendars received in 1928 or 1929. ... 1930 was the last year that Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pa., sent us a calendar. We are now buying our locomotives elsewhere, . . . Besides the foreign traffic in calendars, there used to be a brisk local solicitude that we know the day, and when the next full moon would beam. The home calendars, this being an outdoor country, always showed a man catching a fish, killing a cougar, or just gawking at a snow-clad peak.... It is hoped that the calendars come back. They are an unfailing sign that Prosperity is upon one and all.
Jim Dinkens of Beagle, who grabs exuberant skunks by the nape of their necks to thwart their ingenuity, is balking at an ordinary doctor looking down his throat.
We would like to be rich enough to throw our venerable typewriter out of the window and buy a brand new one of the same make, and throw it out of the window, too.
Taxes: As usual, they will be raised, to be lowered.
It now develops that the parties who purloined Dub Watson's car did not steal it—they just drove it away. Mr. Watson is an accessory to the theft, inasmuch as he left the key in the car, but forgot to leave the engine running.
The notch-tailed, red-headed woodpeckers, who last summer withdrew their nut deposits from the First National Oak Tree because they thought a fence post would be safer, now know better, according to Game Warden Bill Coleman. The Scarface Bluejay gang are busy robbing the new depository and replacing the stolen collateral with pebbles from the banks of Butte Creek. The depositor does not realize that he has been bilked until he goes to dinner and gets a severe shock to his beak. He then flutters away in high dudgeon toward Eagle Point.
Spring did not tiptoe over the Siskiyous, as in previous years, but, instead, sneaked in through the low place in the hills three miles this side of Gold Hill. We will slay the society editor if she mentions the "vernal debut".
Reports from the tall timber bring the astounding news that Jim Dinkens of Beagle, the eminent hillbilly, is skylarking around the mountain social whirls, and has descended to wearing a white-speckled red necktie in the middle of the week. 8
"Editorial Tabloids"
In the Weston Leader Since 1920
By Clark Wood
Colonel Clark Wood was born in Iowa on June 7, 1869. His parents brought him across the plains by mule team in 1871. The following sketch of him is condensed from an article by Professor George S. Turnbull of the school of journalism of the University of Oregon:
"Clark Wood, editor and publisher of the Weston Leader, stands by common consent at the top in Oregon as a builder of those terse, snappy comments known as editorial 'shorts'. In the 20 years or so that he has been specializing in this type of writing he has been quoted in Literary Digest's 'Topics in Brief more than 500 times—a record probably equaled by few if any American editorial wisecrackers. Colonel Wood has been in journalism for 52 years, since as a grammar school graduate of 13, he got his first newspaper job as printer's devil on the Leader. He owns the paper now. It isn't a big paper, and his town is far from a metropolis; paper and town each count something like 400 noses; but the field is his and has been Colonel Wood's deliberate choice.
"After a year as devil, Clark Wood stepped out as a compositor, taking on the East Oregonian. In 1895–96 Mr. Wood spent several months as reporter on the La Grande Daily Chronicle. In 1896 he went back to the Weston Leader, where he had started, and with the exception of the year 1913, when he for once succumbed to the lure of the big city and did rewrite and editorial paragraphs on the Oregon Journal, he has remained there ever since."
Several years ago Colonel Wood explained to a conference of Oregon newspaper men how these "shorts" are written:
"If you do paragraphs to the extent of giving them the attention they demand, you will lose your punch for long stuff. Gradually the damnably insidious things will come to absorb and possess your being, and you live, eat and sleep paragraphs. . . . They become a problem in mental arithmetic or as a move in chess or a cross-word puzzle. They beguile you and interest you—and please you, too, if you chance to yank a good one out of the void. But they are the devil's own instrument of mental torture, too, if you work for an hour on something that ought to inspire one, and find that it will not come, as I have done many a time."
One doesn't turn off radio jazz or crooning without sound reason.
Sometimes the more a wife misses her husband the better he likes it.
Once the "two-bit piece" was the smallest coin circulating in the golden West. Now it is too frequently the largest.
The priceless boon of youth is seldom appreciated until after it is lost.
The way of the transgressor nowadays is too often the highway.
A love that passeth understanding holds less appeal nowadays than a car that passes others as though they were standing.
Eight percent of a whale's oil is in its tongue, which looks like a large proportion until one considers our politicians.
The time is said to be coming when bankers will have to solicit loans. They will find us more obliging than they have been to us.
When modern woman resolves never to grow old, she clings to her compact.
It is well, of course, to prevent the soil from running off. The farmer may be tempted to follow its example.
Tailors are not sadder than sailors. They just seam sew.
"Life," says a psychologist, "begins at forty." Even that, for some of us, was too long ago.
We're inclined to doubt the statement in an ancient English manuscript that Adam had the gout. Although he was an ancestor of ours, we'd never before heard of it.
For those who buy things they do not need, the time generally comes when they need things they cannot buy.
It isn't long before the chap who says what he pleases has nobody but himself as an audience.
The way to keep the frost from getting on the pumpkin is to put a thick crust around it.
We hear that when the code-makers tried to work one out for the glue factories they ran up against a sticker.
Perhaps the chap who qualifies as a model husband is merely posing.
Leader scout claims to have picked up a hitch-hiker whose thumb was worn off down to the second joint.
9
"Things We Think; Things Others Think; and What We Think of the Things Others Think"
In the Cottage Grove Sentinel
By Elbert Bede
"Cottage Grove," says Elbert Bede, "is the only city in the world of which I have been a resident more than three years at a time in my entire life, and 24 here doesn't seem as long as three did in some of the others." He was born at Randolph, Iowa, on June 28, 1881, securing only a grammar school education and becoming a printer's devil at the age of seven. He started at 18 and successively was editor and publisher of three Minnesota papers—the Sandstone Courier, the Warren Sheaf and the North Branch Review—before becoming associate editor of his father's well-known Bede's Budget in Duluth. He came to Cottage Grove in September, 1911, and has since edited the Sentinel, a weekly paper with a wide reputation. He is the author of the chapter in this book on Opal Whiteley. He has been president of the chamber of commerce and member of the city council in his own town, has been twice elected president of the Oregon State Editorial Association, and for several sessions was reading clerk of the Oregon house of representatives. In tribute to the satisfying nature but adequate quantity of his family, he says: "I have one wife, three daughters and one son, and want no more of any."
He has used three different titles for his column—"Elbert Bede's Sunshine", "Elbert Bede Says" and "Things We Think; Things Others Think; and What We Think of the Things Others Think". The latter has been used the most. He started it in Minnesota in 1915 and at one time syndicated it to 200 customers. He sold it continuously to newspapers for eight years and again, after interruptions, for two periods of four and three years each. It occupies about a column of space on the front page of the Cottage Grove Sentinel.
The perfect husband is one who makes good on all the good things his wife tells the neighbors about him.
The man who keeps his word can always find someone to take it.
It's odd how well a woman remembers the day and month of her birth when she has such difficulty in remembering the year.
Doing nothing at the right time is something of an accomplishment.
Old Adam was the first bigamist—he married all the women in the world.
Nothing goes without saying with a woman.
We should think that some self-made men would try to blame it on someone else.
If there weren't a lot of suckers in the world, a lot of other persons would starve to death.
Sermons don't seem so bad when you read them in the paper.
Some persons cast their bread upon the waters expecting it to return buttered.
The girl who failed to take advantage of leap year may be as sorry as the one who did.
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10
"Prune Pickin's"
In the Roseburg News-Review from 1919 to 1928
By Bert G. Bates}}
The Umpqua region of Umpqua being a great prune country, Bert G. Bates selected the title of his column horticulturally and indigenously, as did Arthur Perry down at Medford. He started it in the Roseburg News-Review soon after he returned from the war, and conducted it for about nine years.
He was born in Portland on May 2, 1897, and moved at the age of two to Roseburg, where his father published the News and later the News-Review. He worked on the latter paper, and was associate editor before he sold his interest in it. He went to Robbinsdale, Minnesota, to write squibs for Roscoe Fawcett's three humorous magazines. Later in California he composed "gags" for several motion picture studios, attracting some attention also as a humorous artist. In 1934 he returned to Roseburg and purchased the semi-weekly Times,
in which he has again started "Prune Pickin's". Loafers will now
Move their winter
And hind quarters
To the Oak St. bridge
Where they will make
Sundry comments on
How fast the
River is risin'.
November 17.
Yesterday's colyum
The broccoli avalanche
Is descendin'
Upon our sanctum,
And today a head
Of the stuff which
Was so big that
It looked like it had
Elephantiasis
Was placed on display
And some wiseacre
Meanders up to the
Window and mutters:
"Gosh, we'll hafta
Plant smaller
Seed next year."
February 11, 1926.
Heavy rains and
The inclemency
Of the weather
Which makes
Bein' out of doors
Most disagreeable
No one broke out
Of the county jail
Over the week-end.
June 27, 1927.
But let the
Waters of the Umpqua
Wash your shins away.
July 16, 1927.
As Joe Denn's wife has gone fer the summer he has now started washin' dishes with the garden hose—this bein' an excellent way to water the lawn and thus kill two birds with one stone.
July 27, 1927.
Joe Denn wishes to correct an item which appeared a couple days ago in this colyum of condiment. We said that Joe had been washin' the dishes with a garden hose since his wife left fer the summer. That's wrong. He hasn't been washin' 'em at all.
July 29. 1927.
Keeps up
We're gonna
Hafta throw
Modesty to
The winds and
Quit wearin'
A necktie.
August 1, 1927.
One of the local villagers who has been complainin' to his wife that he couldn't whack the lawn because he had heart disease visited a local M.D. yesterday and after a thorough examination felt greatly relieved when the doc told him that the creakin' sound which he heard at every deep breath came from the pulley on his patent suspenders.
August 11, 1927.
11
"Sips for Supper"
In the Salem Capital Journal Since 1926
By Don Upjohn
Don Upjohn's column has regularly appeared six nights a week for nine years, with "two weeks a year out for vacations for the customers". In addition, he runs a gladiolus farm and a dairy farm, and is the father of seven children. Mrs. Upjohn, the former Lois Byrd, whom he married in 1920, was the third woman to be admitted to the bar in Oregon.
He was born on March 3, 1884, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he attended the public schools and Kalamazoo College. He then took up journalism and has been connected with ten newspapers—the Kalamazoo Gazette, Detroit Tribune, Kalamazoo Telegraph, Idaho Falls Register, Yakima Herald, Salem Statesman, capital representative of the Oregonian, his own weekly in Salem, the Calexico Chronicle, and the Salem Capital Journal. While doing newspaper work in Salem he was graduated from the law school of Willamette University. Governor Oswald West appointed him district attorney of Polk, Tillamook and Yamhill Counties, and he served nearly four years as private secretary to Governor Ben W. Olcott. Since then he has been on the staff of the Salem Capital Journal.
His column was born on April 13, 1926, appearing nameless and unclaimed on the front page of the paper. It first appeared under Upjohn's name on October 11, 1926, and on that date was given its title of "Sips for Supper". It has had no definite policy, "and rambles around taking the names of Marion County citizens in vain". As part of a newspaper published at the state capital, its field has been wide. George Putnam, the publisher of the Capital Journal, has never interfered with the contents of the column, though it has often advocated men or measures which were being bitterly assailed in the editorials of the paper at the same time.
The author of "Sips for Supper" says he has only a few recipes for column cookery. One is to try out the items on a few friends before he turns them loose on the public. Another is to listen to what the members of his family talk about at meals. Whatever success his column has had he credits to this form of family spying, for he says: "Folk are much alike the town and world over, and what interests one interests another. If the columnist picks some such topic of general household appeal, though one perhaps too small or trivial for the news columns, he can be pretty sure of getting a reaction, no matter what he says. So, after all, writing a column is quite simple—get a wife and seven children. Then listen to them talk among themselves and pirate their stuff."
We got so excited when the horses started dashing—without thinking, we grabbed some gum from under the seat and started chewing it before we knew what we were doing.
January 11, 1927.
January 19, 1927.
Dear Sips: You pretend to know so much about the English language, can you settle a dispute by telling me through your column what the plural of the word "cheese" is? phil.
Dear Phil: Ha! Back again are you? Think you can stick on this one? Cheese is the plural of cheese. The singular of cheese is chee, as you should know. Sounds singular, too, doesn't it?
My goodness, Phil, didn't you ever eat a chee? You don't know what you've missed.
January 26, 1927.
Fred Lamport, our banker friend, has just come back from Europe where he saw kings and queens in the streets, and sat down in the very seat in the Colosseum where Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and we asked Fred when he was in Europe what he ate—
"Ate percent" said Fred absently, as he toyed with our overdraft, which he had picked up from his desk.February 27, 1927.
Our fair Woodburn correspondent the other day sent up to Ted Brown, our advertising man, an advertisement for the classified columns to sell a coach.
Ted put it under the poultry heading instead of under the auto heading and he got a note from the fair correspondent saying he misunderstood her, that she wanted to sell a coach, not a coup.April 8, 1927.
April 8. 1927.
A Retraction:We're glad to come out in the open and say that an article we printed a few nights ago that Dave Eyre was found playing golf on the Illihee golf links with suspenders holding up his pants has been denied by members of the board of governors of that club.
They say Dave wasn't wearing suspenders at all, but he was wearing galluses— When we make a mistake we come out in the open and say so. But, if we find out that our first statement wasn't a mistake and that we have been misinformed and it was suspenders he was wearing instead of galluses as now represented, somebody had better look out. We are sharper than a serpent's tooth when we get riled up—and when we are fussed up we are worse than any woman that ever was scorned.
August 2, 1927.
Well, well, Salem is such a healthy town. And why shouldn't it be with a chap named Kaster running an oil station out on Twelfth Street? That Kaster oil station should be a fine place for sick cars.
February 2, 1928.
"It won't be long now," said grandma, as she climbed into the barber's chair.
March 13. 1928.
We give warning now, the next time we sneak up on a couple about to become entangled in the sweet snares of osculation, we aren't going to cough. We're afraid if we cough too often, we'll give our brand of cigarettes a bad name.
March 14. 1928.
Another friend told us yesterday laundry wagon drivers were figuring on a new motto for their wagons, "not a cuff in a carload."