the far Northwest for those with the courage and determination to cut themselves off from eastern civilization.
Both in news and editorial the Spectator made an effort to improve the economic status of the early Oregon people. A glance at a most uncomfortable phase of economic conditions of Oregon as they were found by the little newspaper is available in the text of the Oregon laws, publication of which was a leading occasion of the establishment of the paper:[1]
Be it enacted, (etc.) . . . . that in addition to gold and silver, treasury drafts, approved orders on solvent merchants, and good merchantable wheat at the market price, delivered at such places as it is customary for merchants to receive wheat at, shall be a lawful tender for the payment of taxes and judgments rendered in the courts of Oregon territory, and for the payment of all debts contracted in Oregon territory, where no special contracts have been made to the contrary.
The unsatisfactory nature of such a currency system needs no argument. The Spectator saw the trouble and before long objected to the system, saying:
We regard the whole affair as a misfortune, the evils of which are still felt by all classes in Oregon. We are still, as we have ever been, opposed to making currency a subject of legislation, for we think it almost impossible to make any change of the "legal tender" without affecting, more or less, private contracts. Could we have our own individual choice of a legal tender, it should be the precious metals only, and to this we believe we will be compelled to come ultimately — perhaps the sooner the better.
Not long afterward (October 15, 1846),[2] the board of directors of the Oregon Printing Association, owner of the Spectator, published a resolution bearing quite directly on the muddled currency situation. It provided that "hereafter all persons subscribers to the Oregon Spectator be hereby informed that Oregon scrip will not be received in payment for the paper."
In those old days, perhaps even more decidedly than the present, the influence of a newspaper was promoted greatly by the communications contributed by informed persons on matters of current inter est. Economic matters were often the subject of such letters to the editor. One of the frequent contributors to the columns of Oregon's first newspaper was Morton Matthew McCarver, previously mentioned. In the issue of the Spectator for July 9, 1846, Mr. McCarver had a communication running more than a column, deploring the decline of business, lack of transportation and communication facilities,
