profession. The old Spectator, for example, was shut down for several months about this time because its only available printer had departed for California. The Oregonian, seeing how the young territory was suffering from the exodus, ran a whole series of editorials cautioning against a mad rush for wealth when there was such good opportunity right at home without the hardships and perils of gold-hunting. The first of this series was run when the paper was only five months old (April 9, 1851) under the heading "The True Policy of Oregon:"
We have several times urged upon our citizens the fact that it would be far better policy if the people of Oregon would turn their attention to agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in place of that of mining.
Evil was seen in a large surplus of money in the community. The editorial continued:
It begets dissipation and vice . . . (is an) incentive to reckless and gambling immigration . . . (has a) tendency to engender supineness . . . induces hundreds to adopt a procrastinating course, which eventually becomes second nature.
Let our farmers improve and cultivate their land—our mechanics form and fashion that which the country demands—our merchants import such goods only as are wanted for consumption—our professional men discountenance litigation by advising parties to settle their disputes without going to law, and Oregon will soon occupy a position from which she cannot be moved by any internal commotion or selfish or evil-disposed persons who may come among us in the future.
Let Californians go to the mines, year after year, and dig the gold—let Oregonians plow and sow, harvest and thresh, in the end Oregon will be infinitely ahead of our neighbor in wealth, morals, happiness, and everything valuable in this life or future. . .
Let all, therefore, who have not already acted thus unwisely, remain at home; and in the end we shall be the recipients of more of the comforts of life, and of the substantial benefits resulting from labor, than those who run off to the mines.
The Oregonian appears to have been consistently sound in economic views in this period, as it is conceded to have been during later years. The economic range covered by this newspaper during four years in the middle fifties under T. J. Dryer heralds its stand during considerable of its early history. Harvey Scott, when he took
