famous big-story reporter, serving many years on the New York World, but this did not help the finances of the Tribune of 1889.
In 1890 J. B. Eddy was back again as editor but after a month he leased the plant to J. W. Strane and H. W. McComas. April 1, 1891, Stephen A. Lowell and Charles Wilkins were the publishers, keeping control until January 1, 1893, when John C. Leasure, another lawyer (who died in San Francisco in 1901) and A. J. Stillman took charge.
John P. McManus became editor and the Tribune's Republican manager for the group of stockholders January 1, 1894, but proved unsatisfactory to them and November 21, 1896, they removed him, putting in Homer H. Hallock.
This brought additional sharp competition in a rather dull sea son, for July 23, 1897, McManus founded the Pendleton Republican, a weekly newspaper representing the John H. Mitchell faction of the Republican party, while the Tribune supported the Scott-Corbett wing in what was really a bitter political war.
The situation was rushing toward change. Elmer P. Dodd, a young Idaho man just out of college and without knowledge of journalistic practice, came in and bought the Tribune in 1898. What he lacked in experience, however, he made up in energy and intelligence. He had graduated from Indiana University after having had a year in an Iowa academy and one year at Stanford.
Young Mr. Dodd had grown up in the saddle in southern Idaho and knew cattle, wide-open spaces, the rule of the range, livestock, markets, and a lot of such things that made pretty fair background for a Pendleton editor. He found the Tribune, a daily morning paper, in wabbly financial condition. He discontinued the daily immediately and after publishing the paper a year or so as a weekly, added a Sunday morning edition (1900), which was delivered by carrier around Pendleton as well as sent through the mails. This venture proved profitable. In April, 1899, Dodd had bought the McManus paper, the weekly Republican, and combined it with his own under the name Tribune.
Dodd was doing well for a young man without actual journal istic experience. What he did to supply the lack of either journalistic training or experience was interesting: He employed a former San Francisco Examiner man to teach him newswriting. "He blue-pen ciled every item," Mr. Dodd said a short time ago, "but gave me the right ideas." Soon afterward the young publisher employed an adver tising solicitor with big daily newspaper experience, from whom he picked up the advertising end. Somewhat similar was his progress into the commercial printing phase of the business.
The new Tribune publisher, making all these changes and improvements, had gone $7,000 in the red, and he sold a half interest
